The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-03-20
From the New York Tribune.

from tile New York Tribune
XONF the four famous Field brbtherT,
W. the one who will doubtless be
longest remembered is Cyrus W.
Field, TO whom more than any one else
the world is indebted for the successful
laying of the Atlantic cable. The story
of his connection with that enterprise
reads like a romance Heroic persis-
tence of the face of almost insurmount-
able obstacles was the chief character
istic of his relation to the work of unit
ingNthe western and the eastern conti-
nents. just as success had crowned the
initial effort the work of weary months
was lost by a break just as the first
message was flashed under the sea from
Queen Victoria to President Buchanan.
While his firm failed as the result of
the business panic of 1857, he did not lose
faith with his fortune, but devoted him
self not only to rebuilding the latter but
to accomplishing the great work on which
his heart had become fixed. But it was
not until nine years later that success
crowned the work of cable laying. and
since July 81, 1866. the communication by
cable between the Old and the New
worlds has not been interrupted. What
the result would have been had the work
been a success before the civil war can
only be conjectured and whether it would
have prevented any of the misunderstand-
ings which arose and aided at all in Sc
curing the benefcent results to this land
of the great conflict which eliminated
in freedom for the slave can only be
guessed at. With the elimination of his
great work Cyrus w. Field reaped the
honors of success and was hailed every
where as a world benefactor He would
have been knighted by the Queen had
he been an Englshman. But business
success, which he had achieved in his early
years, retiring from active work with a.
competence at the age of thirty-three,
was not again his In later life, and he had
many business reverses in connection
with his railroad and financial schemes.
The elder David Dudley Field was
historical writer, as well as a clergy
man, and his eldest son and namesake
gained his greatest fame as an author,
not in general literature, but as the COM
piler of the Code of Legal Procedure
which has come to be the law in most
ly simplified the practice of that profes-
sion He also compiled political, penal
and civil codes which have been of much
service in the practice in all parts OF
the country He extended his work to
the field of the Jurisprudence of all ma
tons and drew up Outlines of the Inter-
national Code" He lived to the great
age of eighty-nine and died full of hon
ors as an eminent American and lawyer
Equally eminent in the judicial held
was the second of the Field brothers,
Stephen Judson, who was chief justice
of the supreme court of California Tor
several years before he was made an
associate Justice of the supreme court of
the United States by President Lin
coin, in 1868. He held this post with
a steadily increasing reputation for
high-minded administration of exact
Justice until 1879, when he retired with
the record of the longest service in the
highest tribunal of the nation. His opn-
ions on many important subjects which
came before the court gained him high
reputation He served as one of the
famous electoral commission which in 1877
settled the contest over the presidency
between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel
]. Tilden in favor of the former.
The youngest of the Field brothers and
the only one who adopted his fathers
profession was the one who died last
month, at the age of eighty-hye The
Rev. DIR. Henry Martyr Field. who was
named for famous missionary, took up