Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-10-22

An Expert In Such Things Claims
That an Analysis of the Signatures
Left by the Immortal William Strips
Him of All Literary Credit.
The question of who did write
Shakespeare does not concern William
McConway, who has written a mono
graph on his Shakespeare theories, so
much as could William Shakespeare
of Stratford write at all?"
Mr.. Conway is convinced that, whoever
did write the plays, it was not the
bard of Avon, SO called. He bases his
tain existing signatures made by VII
liam Shakespeare and which seem to
prove him to have been an i~lliterate
man.
Mr.. McConway admits that, though
so evidently illiterate, Shakespeare
possessed native ability. manifested by
his money getting faculties, and adds
the fact that as a theatrical manager
Shakespeare secured to himself the
plays that he did and thus stamped
himself a competent man of business
and a judge of public taste. But in
regard to certain deficiencies exhibited
by his signature Mr.. McConway, after
having made a study of the character
istics of signatures, says:
"~Observations of the efforts and per-
formances of illiterate men in the la
borious production of signatures has
led me to the conclusion that here was
a man ashamed of his inability to
write, made so by his associations and
the rise in his condition of life, seek
ing to cover his intellectual nakedness
with a garment provided by a sympa-
thizing friend.
1.-THE sympathizing friend in this in
stance foated into the Imagination in
the form of some s~crivener who set
the copy SO laboriously reproduced In
the form of the signatures to the deed
and mortgage of 1913 and to the will
of 1916"
Mr.. McConway refers to the original
documents ~unearthed by Professor
Wallace In 1910, and his theory is that
the solicitor who drew up the papers
of the mortgage and of the will Is the
man who made for Shakespeare a copy
of his name, which the illiterate Shake
speare then followed in scrawling, I'M
certain imitation to make the sigma
lures to the documents. This saved
him from the humiliation of having
to make This X mark"
A second document put In evidence
by Mr.. McConway is a fragment re-
lating to litigation in respect to GER
tain money interests In the Globe the
alter. IN this fragment appears, in two
places, the name "Wilm, Shakespeare
written by the professional scrivener
who prepared the case. Mr.. McCon-
way points out that S~hakespeare's own
signature appended Is a laborious imi.
tation, performed by a man who could
not read his chirography when he had
written it.
Mr.. McConway is convinced that this
scrivener is the a who made the
copy which enabled "Willm. Shake
speare'' to execute legal papers with
out the humiliation of the "X mark"
The rule of legal procedure required
the evidence to be written out and
signed by the witness before leaving
the presence of the court
Special attention Is called to this
signature" says Mr.. McConway, "as
it is much abbreviated. The great
dramatlst,' who had at his command,
as evidenced by his putative works, a
wealth of words measuring five times
the number gathered into the diction-
airy of the time, uses but a moiety Of
the characters which he had been
taught to use as the telegraph to rep
resent his name.
eve are told that he was instructed
to appear later before the court for a
further examination, but the record no.
where shows that he ever appeared,
although the other witnesses appeared
a second time. Would they be consid-
cred cynical who might surmise that
the position in which Shakespeare of
Stratford found himself when called
upon to attach his signature to the rec
ord in open court was II of extreme
embarrassment in that he could not
without some exposure of ignorance
use his copy to guide his penT'-New
York Sun.