Laredo Weekly Times

COLLECTION OF PLAYBILLS

By Associated Press.

Chicago Jan 7— For two years an insurance man carried around in his hat an oddly inscribed little old Bible as a curio. One day he showed it to the librarian of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial and learned the name was a rare "shorthand" Bible. [imprint] 1656. By the plasterer, still following the [trade]. He is a bibliophile known as the possessor of a great collection of theatrical and operatic mementos. He knows books and the history. His blue playbills are part of an intimate narration of the legitimate stage which dates back as far as the early part of the Seventeenth Century, but is most complete and valuable in its record of American drama and opera.

In his modest abode home Thomas Connolly has the bills which advertised the top plays and players in the United States through the ages [resold?] the plays press clippings, photos of the more prominent of the actors, their signatures and bits of autographs, glimpses of Edwin Booth, Laura Keene, Mrs. Lotta Crabtree, etc. Still first editions which are not revealed full of old good and the noble year W. Vickers. John Pocket theater made notes of play history. It's still in there through his collection done Chicago to the new Auditorium in with the full. He was the promising light when the Italian Opera Company, with Mme Patti sang "Romeo and Juliet" on Dec 12 1889.

Many of the famous characters of the stage are his personal friends. For them he seeks old programs of their first nights and at Christmas sends them little mementos of the profession and players who have long since answered their last curtain call.

Of late years he has kept an autograph book now bearing the signature of Robert Mantell, E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, Eddie Foy, Lily Langtry, Enrico Caruso, Paderewski, Ellen Terry, Squire Bancroft, Sarah Bernhardt, David Belasco and scores of others.

The collection of playbills, librettos and programs was gathered from all over the world. In the file with programs at Madison Square Garden are bills from Brighton and Covent Garden and Drury Lane in London that date back as far as 1744. There is a first edition of Phineas Fletcher's "Sicelides, a Playtory," a drama in verse printed in 1631.

Those early editions, early copies of theatrical journals and the bills are worth more in cold cash with each passing year, yet Tom Connolly, picking over musty bargain shelves in out of the way bookstores here and abroad, bought them with the pocket change of a plasterer.

Included in the collection are many specimens from limited editions of old books: the original signature book of London's famous Lambs Club, two copies of the "Breeches Bible," a copy of the "Sin Bible" and one of the "Murderers' Bible" of 1765; an old Russian Bible and one in Italian, the records of the Albanian Society in London in 1600, dozens of perfect copies of the suppressed political and social satires of Great Britain and a rare copy of Charles Dickens' "Sunday Under Three Heads."

His stamp collection includes with rare foreign stamps the postage of the Colonial villages before there was a national mail service and the pony express stamps of later days, many on letters addressed to Abraham Lincoln and with notations in his hand.

Eventually the treasures will probably go to historical societies.