ss6 ifctnss of tbe tRofc, IRifle, ant) (Bun 



an apt quotation in later days. It was at Berwick, too, 

 that he made the acquaintance of David Robertson, of 

 Lady Kirk, afterwards Lord Marjoribanks, who initiated 

 him into Northumbrian politics and whetted his appetite 

 for the fierce joys of party strife. 



In 1842 Russel left Berwick for Cupar, where, at a 

 much higher salary, he took the editorship of The Fife 

 Herald. Two years later he moved to Kilmarnock to 

 start a new journal, The Kilmarnock Chronicle, which 

 he edited with such conspicuous ability that John 

 Ritchie, one of the founders of The Scotsman, impressed 

 by some of the young editor's articles in favour of 

 the Anti-Corn Law movement, invited him to take a 

 post as assistant editor on the famous Edinburgh journal. 

 The Scotsman was then but a small print, issued twice 

 a week, but its influence was already felt in Scottish 

 politics, and Russel realised that to be connected with it 

 was a great rise in his professional career. 



The then editor was Charles Maclaren, a typical, hard- 

 headed, logical, argumentative Scot, without a scrap of 

 humour in him, the very antipodes in that respect of his 

 young coadjutor, whose constant flashes of humour 

 astonished his senior. " That young man," he said, 

 pointing to Russel, " can joke on everything. Now for 

 my part I can joke, but I joke wi' deeficulty." Russel 

 was without exception the greatest Scottish humorist of 

 his own or perhaps of any time, for Scotland has never 

 been rich in humorists, and the mere fact that Scotchmen 

 roared over the boisterous, noisy, schoolboy buffoonery 

 which disfigures the " Noctes " is sufficient proof of how 

 little appreciation of true humour there was in the Scot 



