SHAKESPEARE'S BONES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1407, 6 April 1912, Page 9

SHAKESPEARE'S BONES.

Commenting upon a lecture by Mr. M. H. Spielmann, the "Daily News" remarks :—

"The well-known art critic who lias given a fresh start to the long controversy as to what Shakespeare looked like will find himself in very hot wafer if he pursues the suggestion that the tomb at Stratford should ho broken into. Our age is superstitious even beyond the common, mul we can imagine with what fervour Mr. Spielmann will bo pelted with/the famous doggerel:

Blest be the man that spares these stones, 'And curst be he that moves my bones.

The point, says Mr. Spielmann. is simplicity itself. Open (he coffin—which presumably contain the skeleton of the bard, if the skull turned out to be if perpendicular shape we should know the Bro°shout engraving to be wron>r; if tho skull receded, the reputation of the Chandos portrait would be done for. As for the Stratford bust, it would stand a much greater chance of being disposed of. But one thing, it is assumed, would be fairly certain: the skeleton would be in being and Pleasurable. Shakespeare has been dead br.relv 300 years. King Edward I had been in his tomb 470 years when, in 1774, the Societv of Antiquaries exhumr"! the body, and found the face and hands in perfect preservation. Quite ?o; but will any authority venture to defy the malediction contained in those appalling lines, the sound of which, as recited by the pious pilgrim, has been making the poet, turn in his grave ever since tho town and church of Stratford became a popular resort."

In a nole'nn the transmission of leprosy in tVve r»nort of tho coTiHttre for f<e TroDical Diseases Beseo.rrji F"nd. Dr. E. C. Lois;, principal me'lical officr of health for Basutoland, puts forward th» suggestion that leprosy may l>9 spread through the bites of certain insects. Priceless manuscripts of some of Ka.idel's best-known competitions hare iust Tieen nresented V>r the Iwnsr to the British Muslim. Thev fill six volumes. Par"* p f "The Messiah," containing soms if the best-known passages, and the Dead Ma r ch in "Saul," otp among the valuable hooks >n the collection. Mr. F. Sl*er>. of Plymouth. addre*.sin? i\ pothering of dent'sts at Exeter, said that he was convinced that tobacro-srnoVin.? was si cheap, fashionable and bew'Wiiwj vice, Wding us to overlook the debilitating effects of it as a first-class nervewrecker. The deatli took place at Fnlmour nn Fobruarv- 21 of Sir John Guy Newton Al]eyne, Bart., who was in his ninety-Fec-niicl year. He was vice-president of the Iron and Steel Institute, nnd was responsible for the Tre'ldinsr of tho enormous span rcof at St. Pancras Station.