TWO ATTACKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 177, 28 July 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

TWO ATTACKS.

ON NOTED GERMAN CHARACTER.

K A SPAR HAL'SER

1 lie strange story of the life and death of Kaspar Hauser must be included in any worth-while collection of unsolved murder. mysteries, although in many rcspel-ts. it remains in a class b\ itself.

At the time ot his death he was Presidnit of the Court of Appeals, and was one of the most noted characters in all Germany.

I his notoriety was attached to him oven as a boy. May 20. 1828, he appeared in the streets of Nuremberg dressed as a peasant, and seemingly very much bewildered.

The police picked him up, and for a time did not know what to make of his case. They found in his possession a letter; purporting to have been written by a German labourer, who said the boy bad bfen entrusted to his charge, as an infant, sixteen years before; that he had agreed to teach him to read and write, and to instruct him in the tenets of the Christian religion.

During all of this time he had kept him in close confinement, but now that all of his obligations had been performed he was turning him out in the world to make his own wav.

Another letter, said to be from his mother, stated that his name was Kaspar. that he was born on April 30. 1812, and that his father, who was a former cavalry officer in the Sixth Regiment at Nuremberg, was dead. Held As Vagrant. Not knowing what else to do, the authorities held him as a vagrant. On July 18, 1828, he was turned over to Professor Daumer, who undertook to be his guardian. and to see that his education was completed.

All went well until October 17, 1829. when the boy came into the house with Mood streaming down his face. He said that a man passing had suddenly drawn a sword and stabbed him in the forehead. He was unable to describe his assailant, except that he was "'a man with a blackened face."

Kasper Hanser had been talked about before, but this incident spread his fame far beyond the confines of Nuremberg. Earl Stanhope came to see him, and as the result of an interview sent him to Ausback to still further increase his education. As a consequence of this he displayed ability which promised to give him a brilliant career in the civil service. He became a clerk in the offices of Feuetbaeh. and after that president o£ the Court of Appeals.

Just when he was on the high road to fame and fortune, and at a time when his brilliant attainments had blotted out his earlier history, he was stricken down again.

He staggered into the house on December 14, 1833. his face pale and blood on his hands. He had received a deep stab wound in the breast. Between gasps lie declared that it had been inflicted by a man who was passing the house, a dark man with distorted features.

Before an investigation could be fairly started. Kaspar Hauser died.

Germany fairly buzzed with the story of this tragic end of a most remarkable life. The police searched everywhere for the assassin, but without success.

Koine persons pretended to see in the tale told by Hauser the elements of improbability. They expressed the belief that he had died from a self-inflicted wound As usual the medical experts differed. Some said that the theory o£ suicide was possible, and others insisted that it was not.

But why should he have stabbed him self?