with what scraps of education that his life of poverty and
toil permitted. After he gathered sufficient education he
became a newspaper writer, and in 1877, at Rochelle,
Ill., was married to Miss Carrie Martin, who, with two
children, Grace and William Carlyle, "Little Billy," as
we call him, survive him. After the death of Mrs. Brann's
mother, he took to his home one of her sisters, now Mrs.
Marple of Fort Worth, and although often driven to the
most desperate straits to make a living, he proved to her
to be both a brother and a father. He continued his
newspaper career in Illinois and Missouri, until some
thirteen years ago, when he came to Texas, and gradually
became known by his connection with various papers of
the State. For a short time he had an interest in a paper
called the ICONOCLAST, published in Austin, but he soon
found himself back at his old trade, that of driving his
pen for others. At last, worn out by long years of
unremitting and generally poorly requited toil, wearied with
waiting for opportunity to write as he wished but could
not do as an employee of others, he determined to again
strike out for himself, as he had done in his early boyhood,
and in 1894 came to this city and established the ICONOCLAST,
which was a success from its first issue, and continued
to grow in circulation as he grew in reputation
as a writer, until the copy that witnessed his death reached
an issue of nearly 90,000.

The world, for several generations, has been discussing
whether Shakespeare wrote the plays that bear his name,
thousands believing that it was impossible for a man who