127 
there, and it only needs the capitalists to invest their money, in 
order to place the Association in a position to take steps to 
produce cotton, possibly at a less price and better quality than 
America. The natives of these countries, Australia, India, the 
East and West Indies, Egypt and West Africa, should also be 
made to understand the advantages of growing cotton for 
England, and that the money they earned would enable them to 
buy the finished cotton goods from us, thus making them both 
producers and purchasers—a valuable asset to the Empire— 
supplying their quota to the general good, and especially aiding 
in preserving the great cotton industry of Britain. 
SHAKESPEARE’S LONDON. 
By COLONEL FISHWICK, F.S.A. 27th October, 1903. 
Shakespeare was married in 1582, at the age of 18, and in less 
than four years went away from his native town, leaving behind 
his wife and three children. Various reasons have been assigned 
for this procedure, but none quite satisfactory. He is said to have 
been employed as a schoolmaster, and in search of scholastic em- 
ployment he may have drifted to London; or, having a natural 
love for the drama, and having at times been a spectator of the 
private companies of actors who visited Stratford, he became 
stage-struck, and set off to London. Be this as it may, we find 
Shakespeare in London about 1586. The city which attracted 
him was a very different place from the metropolis of to-day, 
but even then it was the centre of the kingdom, and of all that was 
best in Art, Science, and Literature, and amongst its inhabitants 
were numbered the leading men of the time, 
