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FIELD

660

FIG

EUGENE  FIELD

Things are all familiar to school-children. His own seven children were the joy of his life. It would be difficult to name in American literary ranks a name more dear to

letters than was Eugene Field. His prose-writings were marked by delicate sentiment and delicious humor, while personally he had a wide circle of friends who regarded him with affection and cherish his memory. In verse his work had the touch of the true poet — daintiness and pathetic beauty. His publications include A Little Book of Western Verse; With Trumpet and Drum; Echoes from the Sabine Farm; Culture's Garland; and, in collaboration with his brother, Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, etc. He died at Chicago on Nov., 4, 1895. Field, Marshall, merchant and philanthropist, born at Conway, Mass., 1835. For a time he was a clerk in a store in Pitts-field, Mass., but in 1856 he secured a clerkship in a Chicago dry-goods store, and from 1860 to 1865 was junior partner in the firm. In 1865 he became a partner of the firm of Field, Palmer and Leiter, later Field and Leiter. In 1881 he became proprietor of the business, which was thenceforward conducted under style of Marshall Field and Company.

His business grew rapidly with the growth of Chicago and the development of the western country. At his death in 1906 he was head of one of the largest and best-known department-stores in the world. His business, which exceeded fifty million dollars a year, included a large wholesale as well as retail trade and the control of many factories in Europe and Asia and even Australia for the manufacture of the goods he sold. Fortunate investments in Chicago real-estate and in industrial and railroad stocks contributed much to the increase of his wealth. He gave eight million dollars to Field Columbian Museum of Chicago and to the University of Chicago a valuable piece of land for the purpose of athletics, now known as Marshall. Field.

Field, Stephen Johnson, American jurist, brother of David D. and Cyrus Field, was born at Haddam, Conn., on Nov. 4, 1816, and died at Washington, D. C., on April 9, 1899. A graduate of Williams College, he studied law, and in 1849 settled in California, where he became member of the state legis-

lature, and In 1859 was elected to the supreme court of the state. In 1863 he was appointed an associate-justice of the United States supreme court. He later was professor of law in the University of California, and acted as a member of the Hayes-Tilden electoral commission. In 1880 he was a candidate for the presidential nomination and received 65 votes in the convention. In 1897 he retired from the supreme court. He died on April 9, 1899. Field'ing, Henry, a great English novelist, was born at Glastonbury, England, on April 22, 1707. He studied at Eton and at Ley den University. He began his literary career by writing comedies, Love in Several Masques being the first and among the best. He managed a theater for awhile, and also studied law and edited several newspapers. But his fame rests upon his three novels, Joseph Andrews, written in 1742, in ridicule of Richardson's Pamela, which had just appeared; Amelia; and the famous Tom Jones. Scott calls him the Father of the English novel. He died at Lisbon, Portugal, on Oct. 8, 1754, and was buried in the English cemetery there. See Life, in the English Men of Letters series, by Austin Dobson.

Fielding, Hon. William S., born and educated in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He engaged in newsp aper work in Halifax for 20 years, was elected to the Nova Scotia Assembly in 1882, and was Premier from 1884 to 1896. He became a member of the Federal Government in 1896, taking the position of Finance Minister of the Dominion. He introduced the preferential tariff in favor of Great Britain. He was Canadian delegate to the Colonial Conference held in London in 1902, and negotiated jointly with the Hon. L. P. Brodeur the Franco-Canadian Treaty. His budget speeches clear, concise, suggestive, constructive, have won for him a great reputation in Canada.

Fig, the fruit of Ficus carica, which is native to Asia. The genus is an enormous one in the tropics. There are about 150 different varieties of cultivated figs. The finest figs are the so-called Smyrna figs, which are grown in the eastern Mediterranean region. Figs have been cultivated on the Pacific coast for more than a century. The cultivation of figs in California has attained large proportions. The commercial fig is the dried fruit, although where grown the fresh figs are used. One of the old fig-trees of California rises 60 feet, its

HON. WM. FIELDING