FIELD, MAUNSELL B. 



FINANCES, UNITED STATES. 279 



tration and opposing the " Liberal " candidates 

 at the presidential election of 1872. He op- 

 posed the civil rights bill on the, ground that 

 it would prejudice the cause of public educa- 

 tion. He spoke but seldom. Mr. Ferry had 

 been in feeble health for some years, and was 

 able to be in his seat in the Forty-third Con- 

 gress only a few weeks. 



FIELD, MATTNSELL B., born in 1821 ; died in 

 New York City, January 24, 1875. He was the 

 eldest son of the late Moses Field. He studied 

 law and was admitted to the bar, but, possess- 

 ing a fortune, he preferred to travel. He spent 

 some time in London, Paris, and Madrid. For 

 a period he acted as secretary of legation at 

 Paris. During the civil war he held an official 

 position at Washington, and was for several 

 years on intimate relations with Secretary 

 Chase. He was appointed by Governor Dix 

 Justice of the Second Judicial District Court 

 of New York City. In 1874 he published 

 "Memories of Many Men and Some Women," 

 a record of the people he had met and the en- 

 tertaining incidents of his life in Europe. 



FIELD, Mrs. HENRY M., died in New York, 

 March 6th. She was born in Paris, and was left 

 an orphan when she was young, and committed 

 to the care of her grandfather, the Baron Felix 

 Desportes. After receiving a thorogh educa- 

 tion at a boarding-school in Paris, she went to 

 England and became a governess in the family 

 of Sir Thomas Hislop, and took charge of the 

 education of his only child, now the Countess 

 of Minto, a lady of literary ability. An attach- 

 ment was formed between the teacher and pu- 

 pil which neither years nor distance could sev- 

 er. During Mrs. Field's last sickness Lady Min- 

 to wrote repeatedly to the friend of her youth, 

 expressing her gratitude and love, her sympa- 

 thy and grief. Returning to France, the young 

 governess was soon engaged in the family of 

 the Duke de Praslin, a nobleman of the high- 

 est rank, and had charge of the education of 

 his daughters for seven or eight years, till 

 1847. Some time after she left the family oc- 

 curred that shocking affair, the killing of the 

 duchess by her husband in a fit of passion 

 or insanity, followed by his suicide. In the 

 frenzy of the hour it was by some surmised 

 that the late governess might have been such 

 a cause of jealousy as led to the terrible trage- 

 dy. She was consequently detained as a wit- 

 ness, but, after a severe investigation before 

 the Chamber of Peers, the suspicion was dis- 

 missed as having not the shadow of plausibil- 

 ity. But the unpleasant notoriety of the affair 

 was such that, by the advice of the Rev. Fre"- 

 d6ric Monod, in whose family she had lived, she 

 soon after left France and came to this coun- 

 try, where she arrived in the autumn of 1849. 

 Here for a year and a half she supported her- 

 self by teaching, until May, 1851, when she 

 was married to Rev. Henry M. Field, then 

 pastor of a church in West Springfield, Mass. 

 It was n.ot until November, 1854, when her 

 husband came to New York to edit the Evan- 



gelist, that she began to distinguish herself in 

 the artistic, literary, and theological circles of 

 the city. Her conversational powers were very 

 remarkable. Her wit, her sound sense, her 

 masculine logic, her extensive knowledge, her 

 depth of soul, and courageous defense of her 

 convictions, made her for twenty years very 

 influential in some of the best circles. Al- 

 though she wrote well, her writings did not 

 equal her talks. " Like the celebrated Rachel 

 Levin, and Henriette Herz in Berlin, she com- 

 manded a certain natural homage by the force 

 of her character and the brilliancy of her en- 

 dowments, without the prestige of original cre- 

 ations in letters or art." With a strong pas- 

 sion for society, her house in town was long 

 famous for its receptions, and her hospitable 

 summer home in Stockbridge always had a 

 succession of visitors. It was, perhaps, in her 

 own home circle that the great range of sym- 

 pathies which marked her conversation was 

 exhibited. Her heart was full of kindness for 

 the ignorant and unfortunate. Her compas- 

 sion for poor girls, especially young emigrants 

 from France, led her to serve for three years 

 as Principal of the Female Art School at the 

 Cooper Union. She was an accomplished ar- 

 tist, and her crayon portraits have been often 

 seen on the walls of the Academy of Design as 

 well as in the dwellings of her friends. Her 

 fatal disease was an affection of the stomach, 

 which finally extended to the brain. Her let- 

 ters, and some of her other productions, have 

 been recently published under the title "Home 

 Sketches in France, and other Papers" (New 

 York, 1875). 



FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

 The financial embarrassment which com- 

 menced in the last quarter of the year 1873 

 continued without any relaxation throughout 

 the year 1875. Nevertheless the year closed 

 with a quiet but cheerful tone pervading busi- 

 ness circles. It was believed that the depress- 

 ing influences which had been felt with such 

 force for more than two years had nearly or 

 quite exhausted themselves ; that no measures 

 calculated to disturb values or check the resto- 

 ration of confidence were likely to be taken by 

 Congress ; and that trade and commerce, left 

 to legitimate influences, might be expected to 

 exhibit a satisfactory revival on the opening of 

 the year 1876. The question of substituting 

 the greenback currency of the Government for 

 the bills of the local banks, and canceling the 

 latter, was extensively agitated. The action 

 of Congress in fixing 1879 as the time for the 

 resumption of specie payments was very gen- 

 erally approved, especially in the commercial 

 States of the Union. 



In the annual report of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, made December, 1874, there were 

 presented a statement of the receipts and ex- 

 penditures of the Government for the first' 

 quarter of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, 

 and an estimate of the same for the remaining 

 three-quarters of the fiscal year. 



