consequences of their acts, she must have contemplated that all who encountered her husband would regard him with loathing and horror. She did this, as the jury have found, without any belief in her abominable and disgusting accusations, and with a base motive of extracting better pecuniary terms from the husband whom she thus vilely slandered.

"My Lords, I know it has been said that the petitioner may safely disregard accusations which have been challenged to proof, and where the proof has signally failed. I regret to say I cannot acquiesce in that suggestion. It is true that in this House and in every court where the question has been litigated Lord Russell has vindicated himself; but how many people are there who will have had the opportunity of judging from the evidence and giving it its true weight? How many people are there who take the trouble to investigate any case in which they have no personal concern, much less a case of this repulsive character? For my own part, I believe an accusation of this kind is an incurable injury to the person against whom it is directed.

"And now, my Lords, if the jury were right upon the facts that they have found, can anyone conceive a Court enforcing cohabitation with such a woman? I think there can be but one answer to that question; and yet, as I have pointed out already, but for the Act of Parliament there can be no doubt on the authorities, the Court, if deciding to refuse separation would have been compelled, at all events before 47 and 48 Vict. c. 68 both to decree cohabitation, and enforce it by imprisonment of the husband who should refuse to comply with the order.

"As I have already said, it is immaterial for the purposes of your Lordships' Order whether the construction placed upon it by the Court of Appeal be right or wrong; but I must express my dissent from that construction. As the Court itself declares, the Act in terms relates only to the consequences of not obeying a decree of restitution when made. It does not, I think, in any way refer to the grounds on which such a decree can be refused. It certainly does not in terms give the Court any power to refuse a decree which it did not possess before the passing of the Act. It attaches certain consequences to the refusal to obey a decree, and gives certain rights to the injured spouse in lieu of the old authority which a Court possessed to enforce obedience by attachment and consequent imprisonment.

"I confess I am unable to follow the Court of Appeal in saying

that since 1884, by necessary implication, the Court must have power to refuse a decree for restitution where the result will be to compel the Court to treat one spouse as deserting the other without reasonable cause, contrary to the real truth of the case.

"My Lords, it seems to me that this is reading into the Act of Parliament provisions which are not there, and giving a construction to provisions that are there which it is very difficult to imagine the Legislature to have contemplated, the purport and meaning of the Statute apparently being simply to provide a new remedy where a decree for restitution had been granted, and where the person disobeyed the order. I cannot conceive that any alteration of the law was contemplated other than that which was expressly enacted.

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My Lords, for these reasons I think that the order appealed from should be reversed, and the judgment of Pollock B. restored.” LORD HOBHOUSE: "Starting from this point, I cannot persuade myself that any judge would have felt himself so bound by precedent as to compel an innocent husband to take back a wife guilty of falsehood and persecution such as has characterized the conduct of the Countess in this case. It appears to me that, though the doctrine of danger has sometimes been laid down by the judges in terms more absolute than can be justified when the view is extended beyond the particular case under decision, on the whole they have been cautious not to attempt exhaustive definitions excluding other forms of cruelty which may occur in the infinite variety of human affairs. That violence and bodily danger are far the most common forms of cruelty accounts for the frequent repetition of the formulæ relating to such things. But we find not only judicial recognition that there may be other forms of cruelty, but judicial dicta and decisions taking a wider range, and quite irreconcilable with the rigid line by which it is now sought to confine the jurisdiction of the Court. The argument for the Countess is rested by her counsel on a legal conception of cruelty said to be fixed by decisions of Ecclesiastical Courts. They must then take the Ecclesiastical doctrines as a whole and submit to be tried by the question whether the Ecclesiastical Courts would have granted a decree of restitution to the Countess; and I go on to examine the authorities bearing on that question.

"That the conduct of the Countess was cruel in its nature, as men deem cruelty, I cannot doubt, nor that it was of singular enormity."

LORD ASHBOURNE: "The cruelty alleged and proved consists of false charges of abominable and infamous criminal offences put forward in the most deliberate way in judicial proceedings by the wife, withdrawn by her counsel in open court, reasserted by her with a view to publication in the Press, and put forward and persisted in by her in a long correspondence under circumstances which a jury has found not to be bona fide. She might have let the withdrawal of Sir Edward Clarke stand, and then I would not concur in the charge being subsequently treated as cruelty. But in the Hawk and in correspondence prolonged over years she has put forward this odious charge, when it is not suggested she believed in it, and when a jury has found she was not acting bona fide.” LORD SHAND: "Holding then, as I do, that the majority of the Court of Appeal were right in applying the test or criterion they did to the facts of the case, I agree in thinking the appellant's case fails. It is true that the conduct of the respondent cannot be condemned in terms too strong. The persistence in gross charges of foul immorality, the truth of which she did not believe, charges which were calculated so deeply to wound her husband's feelings and to degrade him in the eyes of the world, was cruelty. I should even say gross cruelty, in a wide and popular sense of the words. It has not, however, been shown that her conduct was such as the law holds to be sufficient to entitle the appellant to a decree of divorce or separation for it cannot be said that injury to, or apprehended injury to, the appellant's health has resulted."

Appeal dismissed with Costs.

"Lords Journals," July 16th, 1897.

This was the end of the whole business; on the issue of whether Mabel Edith's conduct had been scandalous, vile or discreditable I had the verdict of the jury and every judge with me, but on the issue of legal cruelty, Pollock was with me, two to one against me in the Court of Appeal and eight to seven against me in the House of Lords, so that altogether I had nine judges in my favour and ten against me on this legal point. It was a small margin to lose by but after all a successful result would not have dissolved the legal tie.

CHAPTER XXV

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL

T this time I had a pied-à-terre in London at 2 Temple Gardens, which I shared with W. F. Sheppard, a senior Wrangler.

A

I was also running for a couple of years the business of Swinburne and Co. at Teddington, and after that my electrical contracting business in the name of Russell and Co. at 11 Queen Victoria Street. In my leisure I was an active member of the National Liberal Club and served on its Committee.

At the top of the N.L.C. there was a small room adjoining the card room and known officially as the Small Smoking Room. To its intimates however it was always known as the Vestry from the select circle that used to assemble there after dinner in the evening. It was a queer mixture of all sorts of people with all sorts of interests, and we talked and talked perpetually about all sorts of things. Among the regular habitués there was a man called Leverson, whom we always called the Admiral, another old man whose name I have forgotten whom we called the General, A. H. Spokes, a barrister, now the Recorder of Reading, J. F. Green, or Gaffer Green as we called him, now the leader of a tame Labour Party in the House of Commons, John Sargeaunt, a master of Westminster School, beloved of all who knew him, and myself. Less regular members of our circle included Bernard Molloy, an Irish M.P. and a barrister, Hermann Cohen who has recently published some legal works, Edmund Garrett then with Stead on the Pall Mall Gazette, who afterwards edited Rhodes's paper in South Africa, John Withers, now a famous solicitor, F. H. A. Hardcastle, for many years a very competent Chairman of the N.L.C. Elections Committee, and many others including a wild Irishman named Cassidy, and E. J. C. Morton the brilliant and short-lived member for Devonport. Among other things we discussed here were the various developments of the Mabel Edith litigation throughout which I was sustained by their sympathy. I also of course spoke about my local activities in the country, and in the Committees of the Club I was always to the fore.

Sometimes also I addressed general meetings or excited impromptu meetings of members after an election although the old standing order was then in force which forbade Peers to take an active part in parliamentary elections. As a result I suppose of getting known in this way I was astonished one day to be offered the opportunity of fighting West Newington at the L.C.C. Election in the Progressive interests. As there was a large Progressive majority the election was certain, and after some hesitation I accepted. My colleague was Mr. W. M. Thompson, the editor of Reynolds, who differed from me in almost every conceivable respect. However we managed to issue a joint address and we ran together and were duly elected at the very moderate cost of £80 each. I loved my constituency at West Newington and used often to attend meetings or deliver addresses, finding them very sympathetic and very progressive. At the next election however the secretary of the Association wanted my seat and persuaded the Association to squeeze me out. I therefore fought Hammersmith in the Progressive interest in the year 1898 with Sir Robert Head as my colleague. Needless to say we did not succeed in displacing the sitting members, Mr. Goulding and Mr. Bull now Sir William Bull, M.P. However I did a lot of canvassing, made a great many speeches and thoroughly enjoyed the election. As a reward of virtue the Progressive Party were good enough to make me an Alderman which gave me a seat on the Council for the next six years. Altogether I served on the L.C.C. for nine years from 1895 to 1904.

My work during that time was varied, interesting and considerable. The actual work is of course done by a large number of Committees which sit with their officials and adjust the various administrative details. The Clerk of the Council when I first became a member was de la Hooke. C. J. Stewart was appointed in my time and left us to become Chairman of Allsopps, a position which he afterwards resigned in order to become the first Public Trustee. He was succeeded by G. L. Gomme, a keen antiquarian who had been Statistical Officer in my time. The allocation of members to Committees was settled by a Party meeting. I tried to get on to the Thames Conservancy having been familiar with the river for most of my life, but failed by one vote. I was an ex-officio member of the Parliamentary Committee, and was elected a member of the Highways Committee, the Asylums Committee, and the Standing Joint Committee. The Council as a whole met at 3 p.m. on Tuesdays when the reports of Committees were considered and