Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-04
STl[R.ATP0RQVANDALISM
Is SHAKESPEARE REALLY BEING
vULGARIzEDP
Recent Charges Against the. Trustees
Of Poets BEf8place Explained
ana NRefuted.
From the Boston Transcript.

ane ~Refuted.
From the Boston Transcript
Many protests have been made recently
| in the English and American press against
the alleged Dissertation of Shakespeare 8
birthplace either going on at present at
Stratford OF contemplated by the trustees
| in the destruction of old landmarks and
erection of new buildings upon historic
sites. One correspondent in the London
Daily Mail goes SO far as to brand the
memory Of Shakespeare brooding over
Stratford as "a great money-making ma
chine" The same correspondent proceeds
to gay:
"Afl you have heard Of the American
yellow press of P. T. Barnum and of
Yankee lodges for selling patent medicines
will seem tame and almost dispiritng by
the side OF this. Stratford is all right. 1t
knows good thing when 1t sees it. 1t Is
live city-it 'hustles.' It has push, and 1t
fairly Lives on Shakespeare.
aamins and Poetry.
"The very gamins of the cutters have
caught the atmosphere. They rush at you
the moment you show yourself on the street,
and run by your side reciting Shakespeare
by the yard. An urchin of nine or ten.
shoeless. hatless. Cabling off To be or not
to be- and stopping every now and then to
ask for copper stays In my memory is
the type and essence of all Stratford."
In the same vein the Shakespeare memo
rial is attacked. where. If the facts as set
forth in the Daily Mail are to be believed.
wondrous collection OF .incongruities and
ordinations are got together.
Be all this as it may. the public has ap-
parently been much misled as to the more
material sacrilege under way in the
changes on Henley street. In refutation Of
these charges Mr.. Sidney Lee Qast win
ters Lowell Institute lecturer in Boston,.
editor of the Dictionary of National BIZ
ography,' and one of the Stratford Memo
rial trustees. has recently made public an
exhaustive statement OF their case. A brief
fragment of this report was cabied to
American papers. but the fuller statement
which follows will be of interest to all
lovers of Shakespeare:
Aspect Of Henley Street.
Put briefly and stripped of flowers Of
speech. the charges alleged against the
trustees were two. First, 1t was stated
that they were wantonly bent on destroy
ing the historic aspect of Henley street, in
which Shakespeare's birthplace stands. by
arranging for the demolition of houses of
historic interest which had lately come
into their possession in the immediate
neighborhood of the birthplace Second
the trustees were accused Of conspiring
with the corporation of Standardization
to apply to the purposes Of free public
library another building of ancient date
which was situated in the same street,
in close proximity to the birthplace. The
oclastic" and "barbarous" as "a serious
piece of vandalism" involving "desecra-
ton and "spoliation" of historic edifices.
1t was made a further ground of objection
| that the contenapla ted changes owed their
origin to the intervention of Andrew Car
negie. That gentleman had not only pur-
chased the houses adjoining the birthplace
for presentation to Ahe trustees, but had
also undertaken the expense of providing
Stratford with public library. 1t would
be an impertinence to dwell this part
OF the theme. No right-minded person can
fail to resent the introduction OF Mr.. Car
negie's name into the controversy in other
than appreciative. terms. MIR. Carnegie's
action was taken in Enthusiastically gem
erous response to applications which
reached him from the town. He attached
no 9.: e9ndia,9ns fas.is SITS which We're mani.
Iesuy aesignsa s. 6 zs rye the interests Of
Stratford and fts literary associations
Some knowledge of the past history and
present condition Of Henley street, in which
stands Shakespeare's birthplace and all the
buildings involved in the dispute, is essen
tial to just view of the situation. The
neglecting to preserve 1.-The present irregu-
lar beauty of historic Henley street" AS
recently as last month she wrote that eff
the proposed alterations are carried out not
| a scrap of the original side of Henley
street as thousands of pilgrims have known
| and seen it will remain One critic de-
scribed the street as "a thing of peculiar
value" which 'once changed !. will
| be lost forever. Let Shakespeare's street
alone.' cried another. Leave the sacred
side of Henley street uncontaminated by
modern bricks and mortari"
These adjurations may be admirable in
sentiment. But the remorseless hand of
time robbed them of practical significance
or of relevance to the present issue more
than a hundred years ago.
Old Houses Replaced.
Henley street is undoubtedly one of the
oldest in the town, but no part of Stratford
has undergone such frequent and complete
renovation. AS the old Elizabethan and
Jacobin houses which lined 1t fell into de-
cay their owners, never moved by senti-
mental considerations. made repairs in
solid and economical manner, with the re-
suit that the street, with the exception of
one short strip. has long been lined by low.
featureless brick-fronted tenements rang
ing in date through all the decades of the
nineteenth century. One large section on
the side of the street almost directly onpo-
site to Shakespeares birthplace, is barely
four years old. Its architecture is of OBJ
trusiyely suburban type. Even Shakes
peares birthplace as it is now, is no sur
vival from Shakespeare's day. The struc-
ture had suffered experiences very lik,
those of its neighbors before it was pur-
chased for the public in 1S47. Some thirty
years earlier half of 1t was furnished with
q brand-new brick 'front.' AMI the timber IA
cade concealed and damaged. The present
exterior is the outcome of thoroughgoing
reconstruction which conformed to a sketch
made IN l1SS. In order to isolate the reno
waited premises houses each side of IT
despite the fact that they were in part of
sixteenth and seventeenth century con-
structfon. were demolished at the date of
the restoration and their sites left vacant
However necessary such "spoliation'' was
it deliberately added some fifty years ago
one more-and by no means unirnportanf-
element OF divergence between the aspect
of the birthplace and street in the sixteenth
century and that which it bore in the nine
teenth. Consequently "the irregular beauty
of historic Henley street" is. as far as tbe
present condition of the street is concerned
altogether Pigment of the imagina ton.