The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-16
M E N, w o M EN
 A N D T HIN c s

an emDolden to give some Iurlner facts about the village of nativity of the immortal bard of Avon.
 Shakespeare loved Stratford-on- Avon, where he was born, where his father had died, where his son was buried, who has left as his only trace on earth,' according to Victor Hugo, "one line in the death register of the parish" It reads: "1597, August IT. Hamnet Filius William Shakespeare"
 It is the custom among some city born peoplpe to speak slighungly of small town souls" as if any soul en- tering the body of person born in side of metropolis was of necessity 'cabined and cribbed" and not ex- pected to grow in culture or expand in spirituality or enlarge in wisdom.
 
 I'll not take time to enumerate the small town souls" who have broadened wider the bounds of knowledge, but will confine myself simply to one small town soul' which grew to such an extent that hundreds of years after death his writings are the crowning pride of English literature, Shake speare. the myriad poet.
 Born at Stratford- on Avon, town of around 1000 people in his day and at present several thousand under ten thousand. a town off the great com mercial highways, in back eddy less than 100 miles from London, yet it is known throughout the Epglish-sp ing world because, forsooth, it was the birthplace of a lad who first saw the light of day in an humble house which today is held in trust for the nation which has made of it literary shrine.
 With the nearby country, it made up an an independent community that at tended to it's own affairs with great thoroug ghness. It might be of interest when wave of hysteria iso covering the country on account of the possi- bility of the re-enactment of the 'blue laws to know that Shakespeare's town was some little regulator when  it came to enforcing public morals.
 Stratford- -on-Avon is no mushroom town which sprang up over night when the world awoke to the fact that one of its greatest geniuses was born in it. Stratford, or Strafford- n-Avon, as it is sometimes written, is place of great antiquity. A Roman road may have run past the site; as coins, etc, have been found, and the district at any rate was inhabited in Roman times.
 The manor was granted by King Offa to the bishopric of Worcester; and it was under the protection of the bishops of Worcester, who were grant ing them privileges as early. as the reign of Rihcard I (whose reign began in 11Sa) that the inhabitants of the towns assumed burghal rights. The corporation, itself the outgrowth of a medieval religious guild, that of the Holy Cross, founded in the thir- teenth entury for the support of poor priests and others exercised great au- thority over the town foE many years
 The corporation was especially severe on rebellious servants, idle ap- prentices, shrewish women, the pigs that ran loose in the streets and (after 1605) persons guilty of profanity. Regular church attendance and fixed hours of work were required. The cor poration frequently punished with fines. and it brings John Shakespeare, the poets father close home to some of us when we read that he was fined on one occasion for not cleaning the trash before his house. The village possessed 30 ale-houses and even in those days were trying to regulate them.
 The dissolution of the Guild of the Holy Cross was the cause of the incorporation charter of Edward VI in 1858, by which the town was in corporated under the title of the bailiff and burgesses. who were to bear the name of aldermen. Other charters with notifications were latev granted. We learn that John Shake speare, father of William, was bailiff, as it is record : that he li- censed actors to give performances in the town (156s-156s). The governing body now consists of mayor, six aldermen and 8 councillors.
 It was such village that gave birth to the Small town soul" which not only made his home town famous but put halo on the brow of the Anglo Saxon for having gwen to mankind such an immortal. But to give bet ter perspective of the England into which Shakespeare was born. it might be well to state that when he was born, England had fewer inhabitants than are now crowded into London, and that the great city itself then had only few more thousand than now live within greater Birmingham. | It may be said that Shakespeare went to agreat city to make his repu- | just as soon as he felt able he came back to Stratford on Avon to spend his days at New Place, and rests in the chancel of Holy Trinity church, hi Is wife lying next to him. The slab over ] the poets grave bears the lines: | Good friend. for Jesus sake forbeare To dig the dust enclosed heare | Blest be the man that spares these stones
 And curst be he that moves my bones."
 To no town has the memory of one l famous son brought wider notoriety than that which the memory of Will ! liam Shakespeare has brought to Stratford; yet this notoriety sprang in to growth only towards the end of the eighteenth century. The task of pre- serving a modern eyas the huild;r c