Unfortunately I won't give you any clues or evidence at the moment - but there will be a book looking into these matters released in a short while :)
The story mentioned is interesting - since everyone seems to have most of their facts wrong, he, he....
Curiouser and curiouser <s> ....
Actually it's no wonder if people (including moi?) have their facts wrong. There's a lot of confusion both in the printed and online Russell material.
It sure would be interesting to track down descendants of Rose Ball and E.C.Henninges and see if the family has letters, anecdotes, etc.
I found the reference for the Washington Post libel case:
Russell v. Wash. Post Co., April Term 1907, No. 1781, pp. 21-22; 10-11. (Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.)
(Jerry Bergman lists all the court cases involving Russell on pp. 175-176 of his 1984 book, Jehovah's Witnesses and Kindred Groups: a Historical Compendium and Bibliography.)
However, it is still not clear to me how exactly how that case was resolved. While some authors say Russell "won", the case was actually settled out of court with Russell winning court costs from the Post.
In any case, whether he "won" the libel case or "settled it", that still does not speak to the question of whether or not he actually uttered the infamous jellyfish remark (as Mrs. Russell claimed under oath). Given the tone of the Post article, the author's admitted ignorance of all the facts of the case, and the apparent error in stating that the remark was made by Russell during his opening statement, it is entirely possible that the Post settled and yet Russell DID make the jellyfish remarks as stated.
I can see that this is a case for a real historian, rather than an interested amateur like myself <s>! It seems to me that in order to dig out the whole truth, someone would have to:
1) read all the transcripts of all the trials
2) consult the contemporary newspaper accounts
3) hunt down Rose Ball Henninges (Australian genealogical societies? Australian Bible Students association?)
4) read the extant Russell histories
5) consider the Bible Students' claims
Here are a few things other authors had to say about the libel trial:
James Beckford, The Trumpet of Prophecy, 1975:
"...he [Russell] laid charges of defamatory libel against The Washington Post in 1908, The Brooklyn Eagle in 1911, and the Rev. J.J. Ross in 1912. Only in the first case did Russell successfully defend his interests, but at least he established the important precedent of having recourse to law courts, for this practice has ultimately proved beneficial to latter-day Jehovah's witnesses."
Alan Rogerson, Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah's Witnesses p. 27
"Russell tried to counter the bad publicity by offering 1,000 dollars to anyone who could prove he had been guilty of immoral conduct. 'He made public a "vow" in which he declared his intention never to enter any room in which one member of the opposite sex was alone, excepting a relative of the family.' ... Several newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Chicago Mission Friend, libelled Russell in citing the 'jellyfish' story. He sued these two and forced them to pay the costs of the court and settle out of court."
Gruss, Apostles of Denial, quotes Charles Cook, All About One Russell. Cook was "disposed to take the charitable view" regarding Russell's character, but even he admits that Russell "acted improperly toward other women," although he was not actually convicted of sexual immorality. {Gruss, p.45, quoting Cook)
Gruss also quotes from Ross's tract, Some Facts and More Facts about the Self-Styled "Pastor" Charles T. Russell. Russell sued Ross for libel and lost; what is pertinent to this discussion is that one of Ross's claims was that Russell's wife had divorced him "on the ground of cruelty and of having wrong relations with other women." The verdict of "No Bill" means that Russell could not prove that this allegation was false.
In any case, I am STILL happy to have found the archived microfilm copy of the original Washington Post "Rev. Jellyfish Russell" article. Even though I haven't found out exactly how the ensuing libel case was resolved, this is definitely a bit of history that ought to be preserved and up on the internet(IMHO).
I guess if I want to find out more I'll have to wait till the myserious book alluded to by Kent comes out <s>.
Marjorie