The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-02-22

pecially fascinating. Inside the thea. tre is a Shakespeare museum and 9 l library, and an old gentleman, with 9 white beard, used to keep the library l One day, said Mrs. Ward, a country ] man went into the museum, and see- l ing the old gentleman, said: Be you l MT. Skajespeare?" "No," was the re- l ply, "why do you ask?" Because l wanted to say to you that you should l keep more lively things in your mu- seum." The old man expected to see stuffed elephants, lions and monkeys, and possibly Indian tomahawks and scalping knives from America, which are usually shown in British mu- seums!
 which Shakespeare has been charged
 Mrs. Ward said she regarded the story
 as apocryphal, since there were no
 deer kept at Charlecote at the time
 the stealing is said to have taken
 place. She did not consider it wonder
 full that Shakespeare left his wife soon
 after marriage and went to London
 happens now every day, she said, and
 no one remarks it. Sometimes a man
 has to go to New York to get into
 business, or find something to do. She
 said, thinking of the open winter
 which has prevailed in Modern Strat-
 ford, in Connecticut, that one does not
 often see snow in the old Stratford,
 but once she was at the theatre in that
 town, on the 18th of April, and when
 she came out there were three inches
 of snow on the ground. She spoke of
 Shakespeare's country as that of larks
 and nightingales, and said 'Oh, how
 many Americans I have taken out to
 hear them sing!''
 A good deal was said about the re- icrin rQrConY1tfOnS Uh ried on in England between the old
 and the new faith, the latter the in-
 vention of Henry VIII. The Catholics were persecuted, had to flee to holes and hiding places in garret rooms or
 behind secret panels, if they wished to conduct services, or escape those who were looking for them. Several of these rooms were seen, on the screen.
 Men were fined $100 each for not at- tending church, and very heavy fines were imposed for not wearing hat The tombs of the C1opton family were shown, and on one of them there were effigies of the man and his wife, while two children were represented as kneeling by the side of the tomb. This meant that they survived their pa rents. The next tomb of a Clopton showed the widow kneeling by the side of the sarcophagus, accompanied by 8 sons and daughters, all of whom had SurVIVeQ tne1r IdCner. The SlgnC of such an old fashioned family, which would have delighted our mod ern Roosevelt, caused laugh in the audience. The town of Bedford was shown and the Raven tavern, where the Bedford topers used to assemble to get gloriously drunk. Another set of wild fellows was called the Bedford did not drink quite as much as the topers. There is a tradi- tion that Shakespeare was one of the topers, but it is believed to be not | we'll founded on fact. A view of a group of the old morris dancers was 1 given, and it seems that one of the tunes they used to sing, in Shakes | peare's time, was Yankee Doodle. l Where the music came from nobody | in England knows, but the Americans | know very well where they got the | ,une A beautiful view of Middle | Temple Hall in London, was given, it | being the room in which Twelfth Night | vas first performed. Harvard house 1 n Stratford was shown, and Mrs. Ward | said that the father of John Harvard, 1 who founded Harvard college, was a butcher! This will be sad news for he cultured folks of Cambridge and Boston. In closing Mrs. Ward said hat few people seemed to realize that was living at the time of he gunpowder plot.