DAVID JOSIAH BREWER.

IT

BY WARREN WATSON.

T is a curious commentary on the age we live in that a city of Asia Minor, on the other side of the world, should be the birthplace of one of the justices of the United States Supreme Court. Smyrna, celebrated of old as the city from whence Homer sprung and whose foundations were laid before the Trojan war, will hereafter possess new interest for Americans because of its being the spot where a distinguished fellow countryman first saw the light of day.

David J. Brewer was born in this semi-oriental city on June 20, 1837. His father, the Reverend Josiah Brewer, was one of those devoted men who leave the comforts and amenities of home "to give light to them that sit in darkness," and was settled at Smyrna at the time as a missionary to the Greeks in Turkish lands under Congregational auspices. Josiah Brewer's wife, Emilia Field Brewer, devoted to her husband and his work, had accompanied him to the distant field to which he had been sent to plant in a stubborn and uncongenial soil the seeds of Protestant Christianity. And it thus came about that an American boy, destined to achieve great eminence at the antipodes, was born in the same atmosphere that furnished Homer with his first breath of life. His mother was the daughter of the noted Dr. Field, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and sister to a triumvirate of men whose names are household words in this country and as well known in the old world as that of any living American, David Dudley, Cyrus W. and

Stephen J. Field. Entering the world with such blood in his veins and surrounded from birth by the influences of culture and refinement, young Brewer certainly possessed advantages above those of the average Yankee boy, but we shall find hereafter that he was also endowed with a disposition that aspired to honorable distinction not through the prestige of his family ties but through his own unaided exertions.

The year after the birth of their son his parents returned to their native land. The brevity of his sojourn in Asia Minor accounts for the fact that among the many stories for which Justice Brewer is famous, there are none that can be traced by their oriental coloring to the bazaars and mosques of Smyrna. Shortly after his return, Josiah Brewer was appointed chaplain of the Connecticut penitentiary at Wethersfield, and here the future lawyer and jurist had ample opportunities to study the effects of retributive justice. In a recent private letter to a friend, Justice Brewer speaks of this period of his life as follows: "As I was not old enough to pick a lock or enter into any schemes to relieve an inmate, I had the entree to every ward and room. A 'trusty', who had the care of Warden Pillsbury's horses, I thought a wonderful man and became devoted to him. I believe he was the first man who thought I would ever amount to anything and seemed to be most happy if he could do anything to promote my pleasure and welfare. I became, therefore, loyal to all inmates of penitentiaries, and hence, during my Kansas life, I have been uniformly welcomed at the Kansas penitentiary for a Fourth of July speech to the inmates. I have thus neglected many opportunities of appealing to the voters of Kansas and have exhausted my Fourths of July in the endeavor to bring sunshine to the faces and smiles to the lips of those unfortunate ones whom the State has noticed simply to punish." Beneath the jocular spirit that prevades these words peeps out the

genial and kindly philanthropy so characteristic of Justice Brewer, a philanthropy that delighted in doing good by stealth and selected as its beneficiaries the humble and obscure, and one is tempted to construct, from this glimpse into his early life, the picture of a bold and merry hearted boy, full of enterprise and animal spirits and faithful to those upon whom he fixed his confidence and regard. When he had reached the proper age, young Brewer began his collegiate training at Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, and from thence, in accordance with a family custom, entered the junior class of Yale College. Here his associates were men who, in many cases, have since become distinguished in various walks of life and he did not fail to follow Polonius's advice and grapple them to him with hooks of steel. He graduated with high honors in 1856 in the same class with Henry B. Brown, of Detroit, and John Mason Brown, of Kentucky, both of whom, by a strange coincidence, were considered by the President in connection with Justice Brewer as possible successors to Justice Mathews. The former of these has since succeeded the lamented Justice Samuel F. Miller.

After leaving college, young Brewer was confronted by the problem that must be solved by every young American who has his own way to make in the journey of life. In an interview, published after he had reached the summit of his ambition, he is quoted as saying: "When I was a lad, it was said by those who knew me best that I would become a lawyer; what caused them to make this prediction, I do not know; but it came true. From the time I began to think seriously of life I inclined to the law." Under these circumstances his choice of a pursuit was a foregone conclusion. Entering the office. of his uncle, David Dudley Field, in New York City, he pursued the study of the law for a year under his direction and then completed his legal education by a year's