The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-03-31
PROVES 1T ONCE MORE.
Rev. DR.. Krum Uses the Old Argu-
ments in the Shakespeare-B Bacon
Controversy.

Rev. DR.. Krun, a Dodge City clergy
man, established, to the apparent salts
faction of a Bethany college audience
last night the fact that William
Shakespeare and not Lord Bacon was
the author of the plays which he says
will continue to instruct and dellghl
the generations as they come and go
and the name of their author will con-
&inue to hold the high place in which 1t
has been set, far above all others whose
powers were left untouched by divine
inspiration"
The lecture was delivered before the
young ladies in Bethany college chap
ell A small admission fee was charged
which was expected to be used in the
payment of the expenses of DR.. krum S
visit At the close Bishop Minspaugh
was so well pleased that he announced
his intention OF personally defray1ng
the expenses and permitting the young
ladies to apply the receipts to their So
ciety fund. The lecturer first consider
ed the claim that the date of Shakes
peare'S birth is unknown. He discuss
ed the customs of the people of that
supposed period and recited the history
which indicates that it was the un1Ver-
sal practice to baptize children WITHIN
three days after they were born. The
register of Stratford on Avon show that
William Shakespeare was baptized
April &c, 1864, which leads to the con-
clusion that he was born April %. He
denied that Shakespeare's family was
obscure and showed that the father of
the author was a gentleman winch n
those days meant that he was a mag
istrate, entitled to a coat of arms and
the free education of his children This
latter fact was urged in refutatiOn of
the allegation that the education of the
supposed author had been neglected
and that he had not the intellectual
power to write such poems and plays
as are credited to him. Speaking of the
assertion that Shakespeare's marriage
at the age of Is was a. manifestation OF
bad judgment, the lecturer said:
4 believe that the little god who
aims his arrows so unerringly that they
pierce almost every heart is neverthe-
less represented as being blind. No
doubt the choice of wives by their hus-
bands is not often the result of wise
calculation but is blindly made. Some
rue it, but the most remain blind all
their lives and continue to worship the
objects of their early choice and that is
being an universal failure. But, a mis-
guided choice and an unhappy married
life would prove nothing in this case.
THE evidence of Shakespeare exist
ence and title to the authorship of the
plays as gathered from the utterances
of his contemporaries is of such a con-
elusive kind that to my mind it eStab-
fishes. beyond all question, the claim
that Shakespeare was the author of the
plays and other poems that for so long
a time have been associated with his
name. If it were not so. it would dis
close the most gigantic fraud that was
ever known in the world of letterS-a
fraud to which every writer of his time
was a party-and places it beyond hu-
man power to determine the author
ship of any of the works that have
come down to us from the past. Such
a fraud will not triumph"