HUMAN RIDDLES THAT HAVE VEXED THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 28 (Supplement)

HUMAN RIDDLES THAT HAVE VEXED THE WORLD.

Who Killed Crown Prince Rudolf? Did Leif Ericsson Discover America?

(By VINCENT TOWNE.—AII Rights Reserved.)

DEATH MYSTERY.

"ETERNAL TRIANGLE."

TRAGIC HOUSE OF AUSTRIA

ALL of the hopes of Franz Josef, whTi Emperor of Austria-Hungary,

were centred in his only son, the Crown Prfnce Rudolf. This promising young man was married to the Princess Stephanie, daughter of Leopold 11., King of the Belgians, but the union was unhappy. Rudolf was of a lively disposition, carefree, dashing and fond of adventure, while his wife was moody, sullen and jealous. Thus were supplied two points of the '"eternal triangle." The woman in the case was the beautiful young Baroness, Marie Yetsera.

For some time Princess Stephanie had wtehed a divorce and Rudolf was willing to supply her with all of the legal grounds that she needed, but her stern father, the Emperor, fnrbade such procedure. Rudolf, like his cousin, the Grand Duke Johann Salvater, offered to relinquish all of his honours for the woman he loved—to give up his rights to the throne if he could but wed Marie Veteera.

Rudolf arranged a gay house party late in January, 1880. The scene was the castle of Meyerling, 12 miles from Vienna. His beloved Marie -was one of the guests. On the morning of January 30 one of Rudolf's servants entered his bedchamber and beheld a scene which turned his blood cold. Before him the sole heir to the throne of AustriaHungary lay dead. At first it was given out that the young Crown Prince during the night had died of apoplexy, but as he was only 30 and possessed of • magnificent physique, this story was not credited by medical and the suspicion became broadcast that the public was being deceived by the court bulletins. Snicide Report. Later there was issued an ment that Rudolf had committed suicide, and great excitement resulted. But a third shock was in store for the subjects of Franz Josef. There gradually leaked out the fact that the corpse of Baroness Marie Vetsera had been found with that of the Crown Prince. Then followed a long list of conflicting theories as to the cause of the Meyerling tragedy. According to one story Rudolf, during the gay house party at the castle, had told the baroness of his father's refusal to allow his divorce, and that she,- unwilling to live without him, had killed herself. Some say that she left a note beseeching him to follow her. into eternity, and that upon finding this he had covered her corpse with a pall of flowers, had lain upon the floor beside her couch and blown his out brains with an army pistol. According to a further theory the lovers, as soon as they discovered their marriage was hopeless, had entered upon a suicide pact, that Kudo'f agreed to shoot the Baroness between the shoulder blades and that he left a note explaining that he had placed the bullet where it "would not mar her beauty." Numerous Theories. It was asserted in some quarters that Marie had a fiance whom she had promised*to jilt for Rudolf, that this nobleman was present at the house party, that Rudolf in a fit of jealousy over her attentions to his rival had shot her, that Iter other lover had brained him with a chair, and that the Crown Prince's servants had later killed his slayer. There, was another story that Marie herself had shot Rudolf and had then taken poieon. And it was further related that the Crown Prince while hunting had been shot by a peasant whom he had once subjected to cruelty, whereupon the Baroness Marie* upon seeing his corpse brought back to the castle, had committed suicide from grief.

Some time after the tragedy a New York paper published evidence purporting to prove that Rudolf and his beloved Marie were living in voluntary exile in America under assumed names, and other papers, have from time' : to time hinted that the story of the Meyerling tragedy had been a hoax designed to cover up a scandal and enable him to lose hjmself in foreign lands. Several times it was reported that Rudolf had been seen in various ports of America. An authoritative encyclopaedia records

its scepticism of the official account of his death by stating that he was '"believed" to have taken Vis own life.

Man of Sorrows.

After Rudolf's mysterious death the right of succession to the throne of Austria-Hungary fell to the Emperor's brother. Charles Louis. But. sharing the proverbial ""Hapsburg luck," so long a synonym for tragedy, the latter died, leaving the succession to his son, Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Indeed, throughout his long reign Franz Josef had been a man of sorrows.

Shortly after his coronation had come his unhappy marriage with the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, their mysterious quarrel, her flight and their eight years of separation; then the execution of Franz Josefs brother, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and on top of the terrible Meyerling tragedy came the mysterious disappearance of Franz Josef's nephew. Grand Duke Johann Salvator; the disgrace and banishment of the Emperor's sole surviving brother, Louis Victor, the murder of Fran/. Josef's, consort, the Empress Elizabeth, at Geneva, and finally the assassination of the hpir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the latter'* morganatic wife, in June, 1914—that crime which precipitated the World War.

Probably the truth that has lain hidden behind the Meyerling tragedy for nearly 50 years will never be uncovered. The world knows as little about it today as it did upon the morning of its occurrence.

from Boston to Providence, and irregularly to the west, touching about the neighbourhood of Woonsocket.

The next year Thorwald, a brother of Leif, is said to have gone to Vinland with a single ship, passing three winters there, making explorations south and west and discovering a race of broadfaced natives, who offered furs in exchange for coloured cloth.

Later still, according to the Sagas, Thorlin Karlsefne, another Norseman, arrived in Greenland and married Gudrid, a widow, who induced him to make explorations in Yinland, whither they embarked, taking with them live stock and other necessities; and their son, called "Snorre," is believed by some to have been the first white child born on the American Continent. A colony, known as Norumbega, is said to have been founded by Thorfin, but within a few years it wa* abandoned, the early settlers being unable to endure the attacks of the natives.

Ancient Architecture Found. The river up which Leif sailed after leaving "Markland" is now supposed by some ethnologists to have been the Charles, in Massachusetts, and the colony of "Norumbega" is believed by these to have been upon the present site of Watertown. Ruins exhumed at Watertown some 45 years ago -were at first thought to have been of Indian origin, but Professor Gerard Fowke, of Cambridge, arrived at the conclusion that they differed from any work which the American Indian ever performed and that they were most closely paralleled by the ancient architecture of the Norsemen.

Among them were the foundations of two structures, 15ft wide \>y 40ft long, fitting the descriptions of certain "long houses" mentioned in the Sagas, and some ethnologists arrived at the conclusion that one of them was the house of Leif Ericsson himself and the other of Thorbrandson, one of his companions. They are built of rough boulders without mortar, and their very roughness and unevenness bear indications of their having been heaped one on top of the other without the use of metal tools for shaping them in any way.

An ancient stone tower in Touro Park, Newport, R. 1., is alleged by some archaeologists to have been a Norse temple erected by Ericsson's colonists, while other authorities have branded it as but a windmill tower erected by the English during the seventeenth century.

A skeleton found near Fall River. Mass., in 1835, lay within fragments of armour which some of our antiquarians have classed as Scandinavian.

But while all of these ruins and relics have convinced certain scientists that the Sagas are true, many other authorities brand the statements contained in these records as mere myths. The great historian, George Bancroft, was one who denied that the Norsemen ever reached America before the coming of Columbus.

Whether Leif Ericsson was a myth or the discoverer of America, or neither, will probably never be known.