CENTURY-OLD RIDDLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20167, 8 June 1928, Page 3

CENTURY-OLD RIDDLE

SECRET OF SEALED BOTTLE MESSAGE PROM A DUNGEON. A hun/lred-years-old riddle has apparently been, soiveii at last by tne ex-caiex oi the Leipzig police. More than a century ago, in 1810, a fisherman on the Rhine found in his net a sealed bottle containing this letter in Latin: “'lo all wnu may read this: 1 am. a captive in the neigubournood of Laurenburg on tUe Rhine. In my subterranean uungeon 1 have been forgotten by all, even by him who robbed uie of my throne. Grievously ill a& a am, 1 can say no more. ’ ’ The message was signed with an outlandish name whose anagram reau “his son Kaspar.” Its puDlication in the newspapers made a considerable «tir f but as no clue was furthcoming to explain, the mystery it was soon furgotieu, till a new event occurred which revived the public interest. In 1828 there appeared in the streets of Nurembeig a young iud dressed as a peasant, who seemed unable to speak coherently, but kept repeating, parrotwise. a sentence he seemed to have learned by heart: “I want to be a cavalry officer like my father.” He had un him a letter which said that he was born on April 30, 1812, that his name was Kaspar, and that his father, who had been a cavalry officer in Nuremberg regiment, was dead. Naturally, he excite,! a good deal of interest, and there were those who, remembering the letter fished out of the Rhine, were struck by the similarity of the name. Later, when the youth had learned to talk, he was asked whether it was he who had written the letter, but he denied all knowledge of it. Soon a third incident occurred to deepen people’s sense of mystery. One .day Kaspar Hauser was found with a wound which he said had been inflicted by a man with a blackened face, but no trace of this man could be found.

Fortunately there were men imaginative enough to realise that there must be hidden hands at work; one of these men was an English nobleman, Earl Stanhope, who saw tne ia<l and became so interested in his story that he had Kaspar Hauser transferred to Anspach, to be educated in the house of a schoolmaster. Another friend made it his business to penetrate the mystery lying behind his strange case, at the same time giving the boy employment in his own offices. These precautions proved fruitless, however, for in 1833 Kaspar was once more set upon, and was so severely wounded that he died. After his death a storm of controversy arose, pamphlets being printed *o prove that he had been an adventurer and a fraud, while other writers maintained that he must have been the offspring of some great house, perhaps even heir to a throne, who had been put out of the way by those who wanted his inheritance.

Now these suspicions appear to have been verified by a Leipzig police inspector. According to him, Kaspar Hauser was the second of the two baby sons of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, both of whom vuere supposed to have .died in their infanev. He had been kidnapped, a dead baby being substituted in his place.

The letter found in the bottle was evidently written by some priest who knew of the secret, and. not daring to disclose it, satisfied his conscience by committing it to the Rhine.