Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-10-08

Shakespeare's Home at Stratford Not on
Their List of Familiars.

shakespeare's Home at stratford Not on
Their List of Familiars.
From the New York Tribune
Il suppose" said an English woman to two
American travellers on the deck Of one of the big
Transatlantic steamers, "that you intend to visit
Shakespeare's birthplace"
"Oh, yes" was the answer, 1--WE shall 90 to
Stratford by all means. You have been there,
of course?'
mo, l never have been. Very few Eng
lish people so there, but it is a great resort for
Americans"
''Why is it that English people take so little
interest, comparatively, in the town which pro-
duced so great q genius?"
"Well. 1 cannot account for it, except posi-
bly, on the theory that one is never so likely to
visit what is always in ones reach as are those
who 60 to strange country with the special
object of sightseeing. Why. on this very
steamer l have me an American who told me
that, alt hough his home is close to New York,
he has never visited your Metropolitan Museum
Of Art in Central Park except once, while he
has been q number of times to the British Mu-
scum and repeatedly to the Louvre. Now, /
fancy if he lived a few hundred miles from
New York, and occasionally went there to sec
u
mate knowledge Of the museum than he has
now. when it Is within his reach every day, or
| at least every week"
Ten days later the two Americans were on
their way to Stratford-upon-Avon on a pleas
ant Saturday afternoon. In the same COM
partment with them for the last few miles we re
two young Englishmen, with whom they fell in
conversation, and who afforded singular proof
OF their fellow-passengers assertion that En-
| glish people do not visit ShakespeaPe's birth
| place in large numbers. One of them left the
train at the station next to Stratford, and then
| the other informed the Americans that he him
| self had lived in Stratford all his life and had
| never seen the inside Of the house in which the
| great poet was born until last year when he
had gone there with friend who CHANGED to be
| visiting him and who expressed a desire to see
| a spot of such interest, and he further said
| that his friend who had just left the train had
always lived within three or four miles of STRAIT
ford and had never visited Shakespeare's birth
| place in his life.
The small boy Of stratford may not have &C.
curate knowledge Of the personality and work
| Of the mighty dramatist, but he is much in evil
dence in his desire to show strangers about the
place. In his ability to pick out foreign trav-
eler intent seeing all that is worth seeing in
Stanford he suggests the marvelously acute
street boy Of New York, and in persistence he IL
| fully his equal, but his demands are versed in q
quiet tone that does not jar upon the ear like the
rasping voice of the average street urchin in the
American metropolis At first he asks SIX
pence for pointing out the birthplace, the
| church, the theater and other objects Of utter
est, but when told that his services are not re-
quired he will calmly reduce the price thereof
| to threepence or in the last resort to penny.
He does not incline to anger IL bis final prefer
is repulsed, but appears to be hurt by the fact
that his offer is not duly appreciated. In this
| respect-but in no other-Stratford suggests an
American town, since nowhere else on the main
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