counsel and jury. Justice Buller told the jury that their verdict was not correct; if they added the word "only" it would negative the innuendoes, which they stated that they did not mean to negative. Erskine insisted that the verdict was similar to that given in Woodfall's case and should be recorded. In the end, however, the jury accepted Justice Buller's statement of their verdict. At the following term Erskine moved for a new trial, and upon the rule then granted he delivered before the Court of King's Bench a very elaborate and powerful argument in support of his views. But that argument was unsuccessful. Lord Mansfield asserted that the uniform practice, which Justice Buller had simply followed, was "not to be shaken by arguments of general theory or popular declamation." Erskine afterward succeeded in arresting judgment on the ground that the matter set forth in the indictment was not libellous.

In 1789 Erskine very skilfully secured the acquittal of Stockdale, a London bookseller, charged with the publication of a libel on the House of Commons (22 St. Tr. 237). The pamphlet in controversy was designed to answer the charges against Warren Hastings, which had been printed and circulated long before Hasting's trial. The writer of the pamphlet plainly asserted that the charges against Hastings had their origin in misrepresentation and falsehood; that

the House of Commons, in the prosecution of some of the charges, was "a tribunal of inquisition rather than a Court of Parliament," and that the impeachment was carried on from "motives of personal animosity, not from regard to public justice." Although Lord Chief Justice Kenyon directed the jury in the usual way, Erskine secured an acquittal upon his theory that the pamphlet, as a whole, referred, not to the House of Commons as a whole, nor to the public conduct of its members, but to the proceedings of particular persons, and that the averments which were necessary to sustain the information were therefore untrue.

Three years later, through the efforts of Charles James Fox and of Lord Camden, the doctrine which Erskine had so eloquently advocated was adopted by statute in Fox's Libel Act of 1792.

The prosecution of Horne-Tooke, in 1777 (20 St. Tr. 651), for publishing a statement that the British troops employed against the Americans were murderers, deserves mention, in passing, for the cleverness, as well as the impudence, with which this experienced agitator defended himself. He displayed much skill in avoiding Lord Mansfield's rulings on the question of intent; and although he sorely tried the patience of the chief justice, he was allowed remarkable latitude in his energetic but unsuccessful efforts to avoid conviction.

S -M-Y-R-N-A, to the majority of us, spells "rugs." To Mr. Justice David Josiah Brewer it spells "birthplace." His parents were foreign missionaries at that place at the time of his birth. This fact would appear to be explanatory of his Scriptural names, but as a matter of fact his first name is that of his maternal grandfather, David D. Field (to whom not only this country, but the whole world, owes a debt of gratitude beyond computation), and his middle name is that of his father.

David D. Field was a Congregationalist minister of Massachusetts. He was also the father of the famous men of that name, the most famous of whom was Cyrus W. Field, upon the fruits of whose gigantic brain, unceasing perseverance, and indomitable will we feast twice a day. Justice Brewer was brought to this country during his early childhood by his parents. He attended school in Connecticut and college at Wesleyan and Yale, from which atter he graduated in 1856. After completing his law studies he located for a short time with his uncle, David Dudley Field. He subsequently went to Kansas, where he eventually settled. He was first elected to the Bench of that State in 1862, when he was but twenty-four years of age, and again two years later to the District Court for the first judicial district of Kansas. In 1870, again in 1876, and yet again in 1882, he was elected to the Bench of the Supreme Court of Kansas. In 1884 he was appointed Judge of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eighth Circuit. His eminent attainments received their just recognition when in the month of December, 1889, he was appointed by President Harrison to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy created by the death of Mr. Justice Matthews. At the

MAY, 1904.

time when Justice Brewer became the junior member of that tribunal, his uncle, Mr. Justice Stephen J. Field, was one of its senior members. Never before had an uncle and a nephew sat together upon that bench, and it is safe to predict that many years will elapse before the wheel of fortune again will effect such a combination.

Justice Brewer has demonstrated the correctness of at least two of the statements contained in the proverb that

"Early to bed and early to rise

Makes a man healthy, and wealthy, and wise."

He retires about nine o'clock and rises at the stroke of four, beginning the day (for many it would be ending the night) with a large cup of black coffee. His long service upon the bench and his varied experiences furnish him with an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, which, with the assistance of an unusually keen sense of humor, lose nothing in the telling. Besides possessing this happy trait, he is an orator of no mean ability, and the tribute which he paid to Mr. Justice Harlan on the occasion of the dinner given to the latter in recognition of his twenty-five years of service upon the Bench, was a masterpiece of eloquence.

In his family and social relations he is charming; as a law lecturer he is unsurpassed; as a member of those international boards of arbitration upon which he has been induced to serve, he has evidenced the possession of qualifications which preëminently fit him for such work; as a jurist he has won the confidence, respect, and admiration of the entire Bar, and has earned tor himself the right to be reckoned among the most distinguished of the celebrated family to which he belongs.

The President of the United States has again appointed a non-resident to the bench of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. This Court is composed of a Chief-Justice and five Associate-Justices. The Court of Appeals is composed of a Chief-Justice and two Associate-Justices. Of this entire number there are but two who were residents of the District of Columbia at the times of their appointments. Of the balance, three are from Maryland (two of whom still reside in that State), two are from Ohio, one from Texas, and one from North Carolina, who is to be succeeded by one from Vermont. The citizens of the District pay one-half of the salaries of these judges. Among other official positions filled by nonresidents, appointed by the President or by the Commissioners of the District under Congressional "pressure," are the following: the Recorder of Deeds, the City Post

master, the Superintendent of Insurance, the Sealer of Weights and Measures, the Superintendent of the Board of Associate Charities, and the Intendant of the Almshouse.

The salaries of all of these officials, except the city postmaster, are paid exclusively by the citizens of the district. With these facts in mind, it is not remarkable that indignation was expressed at a mass meeting of the Bar, convened for the purpose of uniting upon a candidate for a vacancy upon the District bench, when, in spite of the fact that the retiring justice was to remain upon this bench for at least a month; in spite of the fact that the Senate had adjourned; in spite of the fact that the President knew of the prospective meeting, he appointed another non-resident less than an hour before the time fixed for that meeting.

ANDREW Y. BRADLEY.