Kaspar Hauser.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 860, 24 August 1888, Page 9

Kaspar Hauser.

Standard. Iu tho current number of the Quarterly Review thero is an article which tells once more, with lucidity and judgment, the strange tale of Kaspar Hauser. It was in May, IS2B, that a young lad v\»s found iu an unfrequented part of tho picturesque town of Nuremberg, that wonderful place which takes you back, at a bound, into the Middle Ages. He was leaning against a wall in a ver> constrained attitude, like a person unable to control the movement of his limbs. Ho could only utter some half-dozen intelligent words and a number of semi-articulate sounds, and could give no account of himself or of his belonging?, or of the mode in which he came to the place ; but he held in his hand a paper, which purported to furnish some explanations. The writer stated that he was a poor labouring man, with ten children of his own to support ; that the boy had been left at his house sixteen years before by a woman he did not know, with a note stating that his lather was in the Turemberg Regiment of Light Horse, and that when he reached his seventeenth year he was to be put into the same corps. There was no name or auy other clue to the writer of this document, which was examined by numerous experts, and unhesitatingly pronounced to be a counterfeit; intended to mislead, and in all probability the work of an educated man purposely adopting a coarse handwriting and bad spelling. Such as it was, it formed tho only external evidence as to the origin of Kaspar Hauser which ever came to light. The citizens of Nuremberg, having this strange foundling on their hands, speedily decided that he was worth keeping. They made provision for his maintenance, and devoted themselves to investigating his case with a z?ai which considerably outran discretion. The boy was at first taken for a mere imbecile. But further inquiry soon showed that he could not be so easily catalogued. An idiot he was not, though bis intellect was evidently in a state of arrested development. In fact, with che body of a young man he had literally the mind of a little child. To all intents and purposes he was in the condition of an infant a year or two old. His face had the blank, obtuse stare of babyhood, occasionally varied by a sweet and childlike smile. He noticed everything, but recognised nothing ; common objects of everyday life had no meaning and no name for him, though, like the child, he grasped at glittering and shining things. Bet it soon appeared that if some of his senses wero undeveloped, others were preternaturally acute. His eyes became inflamed in the daylight, but he could discern every object iu the blackest darkness. His hearing and smell wero abnormally sensitive. He could distinguish fruit trees by ths scent of their leaves, while the smell even of a rose or a violet affected him so strongly as to cause pain. When a small magnet was placed at some distance from his body, he had the sensation of a strong ourrenfc of air flowing towards him or away from him, according as the positive or negative pole was placed in relation to him. The physical condition -of this forlorn creature was equally unusual. His knee-joints were deeply indented, as if by prolonged and constant siting on the floor. Bis lower limbs were powerless,[so that he could neither walk nor crawl ; and the soleß of his feet were as soft as those of a baby. The worthy citizens of Nuremburg found an explanation for these characteristics, which they drew in great part from his own rudimentary language and gesticulations. The theory was (and still is) that he had been confined from his cradle in a dark apartment, so small that he could neither stand upright nor lie at fall length, so that he was compelled to remain permanently in a sitting posture. Id this hovel, which he had never quitted for a day, he had been given nothing to eat and drink but bread and water, and no companionship save that of a toy wooden horse. His only association had been with a person whom ho afterwards alluded to, with a kind of fear, as 4 the man,’ and who appears to have been his sole link with tho. outer world. The poor lad when taken in hand by kindly and earnest teachers, showed symptoms of awakening intelligence. He learnt to speak, to use his senses in the normal fashion, to walk, and even to ride. His keeper, ‘tho man,’ had taught him to write a few words, including his own name, ‘Kasper Hauser,’ in a round copybook hand; but the accomplishment was speedily carried further, and he could soon write and read aB well as a moderately intelligent boy of ten. In his new surround, ings he at first showed many amiabie traits. He was affectionate, kind-hearted, anxions to please, docile, and good-tempered. He had the quick, eager receptivity, and the ardent, though fitful, industry of a child. Unfortunately hs soon became a spoilt child. People cam 6 from a distance to stare at him ; and. savants and pedants flocked from all parts of Gormauy to make notes on Kaspar Hauser, and very often to try their various 4 systems ’ upon him. When he had been in Nuremberg some eighteen months an incident occurred which sent the ebbing tide of public interest to flood again. One day the lad was missing from the dinner table of the schoolmaster with whom he had been placed. Search-was made, and he was found lying wounded' in one of the cellars of the houße. According to his own account, the injury had been caused by hia old keeper,

* the man, 5 who had suddenly appeared, with his head muffled, and had struck the boy on the forehead with a sharp instrument. Such was Hauser’s story; but no independent corroboration was. ever obtained. The wound was not serious, and Kaspar Hauser soon recovered, to iiud himself more celebrated than before. Among his admirers appeared a personage more highly placed in the world than Bavarian burgomasters and Prussian professors.’ Earl Stanhope, the father of the historian, a wealthy and eccentric English nobleman, then travelling in Germany, took a violent fancy to the lad. He announced his wish to adopt him, and to make provision for his worldly prosperity. His kindly Nuremberg guardians did not feel justified in refusing so advantageous an offer, and so. the young mau was made oyer to the care of Lord Stan nope, and by him consigned to a tutor at Auspacli. Here the process of demoralisation went on rapidly. The Earl overwhelmed his protdgd with.presents and money, and the belief spread that he was to be the heir to great fortunes. Poor Hauser grew vain, pettish, and wilful. He lost his former innocence and simplicity, and became secretive, suspicious, and untruthful. Regarding himself, and being regarded by others, as the foster-son of the great English nobleman, he adopted ridiculous airs of pretentiousness and ostentation, and, worst of all, evinced deep ingratitude toward his Nuremberg benefactors. His industry aud application bad entirely left him, and he lost all desire to improve his attainments, which were still very backward. He was at length plaoed, with Lord Stanhope’s concurrence, in the lowest class of clerkships in the Government Chancery at Anspach, where bis work was almost limited to a little copying and similar easy tasks. Light as his task duties were, he consistently neglected them, and his idleness and misconduct brought him into serious disgrace both with his Nuremberg guardians aud with Lord Stanhope. The awkward problem as to what should be done with this young mau of twenty-two, who was so little fitted to bear his part in the business of the world, was solved in a manner no Jess startling and surprising than the other incidents of his career. In December, 1833, Kaspar Hauser appeared before his tutor with a deep stab in the region of his heart. He said that his old enemy * the man 5 had suddenly attacked him at a lonely place in the Court Gardens ; and at the spot he indicated there was found a paper containing a few lines scrawled in pencil, from which, however, nothing definite could be elicited, except the fact tnat they bore some reference to Hauser and his supposed assailant. But here again there was no clue that could lead to further discoveries ; and Hauser gradually sank and died, leaving the world in the same mysterious fashion as that in which he had first appeared to tho eyes of men. There is no theory either of his death, his life, or his birth which can be re. garded as even partially satisfactory. His origin is the greatest mystery of all. Was he in reality no more than the child of some poor girl who had been brought up by labouring people till they grew tired of the bnrden ; or was he, as many persuaded themselves, the illegitimate son of a great prince or great lady ? Or, again, was he an example of the strange phenomenon called ‘ hypnotism, 5 in which it is scarcely possible to distinguish conscious imposture for abnormal mental processes? This last is perhaps as tenable a hypothesis as any other. Several cases have been recently described by Dr Charcot and M. Bibot which lend colour to it ; but it doeß not account for all or nearly all’thatis told of Hauser. But his secret, whatever it was, died with him, and is never likely to.be revealed.