DRUM COVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

DRUM COVERS.

VALUABLE PAPERS USED."

The British" Record Society, believing - that many parchments and other documents cf historical value are hidden away in solicitors' offices, stored in attics and cellars and even serving as sides of toy drums, is launching a campaign for this better preservation of public and private documents. The romance of how soma of the priceless documents in the British Museum were obtained was lately deU> scribed by Mr. E.. Flower, of the Mann- i script Department. He said: ""Recently I went to see a man in thei country who had unearthed from a cellar a bundle of documents which.meant vsiw. little to him. I went through them and! found a letter from Matthew Prior thei < poet (who died in 1721)-, and document* < and letters signed by King William Hl* \ and most of the statesmen of the Revoln* 4 tion period. • ■ " The owner's father attempted to burn, the collection because of the room it took' ; up. Ha stuffed all the docniKenta intu , a kitchen range and the chimney caught j fire, with the result that wer# j pulled out again. They ars now in th# j British Museum. : " Practically the only documentary evi- • dence we have of Shakespeare tne man—« jtn contrast to Shakespeare the writer-—* ' is m legal documents'; his will and the ; evidence he gave and signed in deposw j tion form when he gave evidence in a cas«i beiora the Couri ct Eequesta.-