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Show ? MYSTERIES THE WORLD HAS NEVER SOLVED o o KASPAR HAUSER Who Was He? By MADOC OWENS A MYSTERIOUS personage person-age was found leaning against a wall in the Bavarian Bavari-an city of Nuremberg in May, 1823. He was a youth of about eighteen, apparently an aristocrat. Blinded by the morning sun, he held his hands over his eyes. The police po-lice told him to move on, but he could not walk. They prodded him. He staggered and fell. Questioning him as to his identity, they found that he could not talk, so they carried him bodily to prison. It was evident that he was not an idiot. His face and demeanor de-meanor bespoke inherent intelligence. intelli-gence. Yet his inability to walk or " talk was unfeigned. He was not deaf and his vocal organs were capable ca-pable of reproducing any spoken word by repetition. The soles of his feet were convex, like those of an infant who has never walked. Every sound seemed to terrify him as did the sight of the commonest objects. On hearing hear-ing a bell ring he burst into paroxysm parox-ysm of weeping and the music of a street band caused him to swoon. Given a substantial meal, he turned from it with abhorrence and fell into convulsions. All that could tempt his appetite was hard bread and water. Someone sent him some toys to play with, but they caused him to cry with terror, until he caught sight of a wooden horse, which he snatched up with glee, clasping it in his arms and kissing it tenderly. Letter Is Only Clue. He was an enigma to the authorities. authori-ties. The only clue as to his identity iden-tity was a le'rter found upon his person and purporting to have been written by a Bavarian laborer. It stated that the bearer had been found at the writer's door 16 years before, and inclosed was a note by the youth's mother. According to this communication his name was Kaspar; he had been born April 30, 1812; his father was a captain in the Sixth Chevau-leger regiment, at Nuremberg,and his mother was a poor girl unable to support him. There were grave suspicions that these letters had been written as a blind, inasmuch as the youth showed many evidences of aristocratic lineage. line-age. He Begins to Remember. In Nuremberg dwelt a kindly savant, sav-ant, Prof. G. F. Daumer, who became interested in the mysterious youth, and took him to his home, hoping to develop his retarded mentality. men-tality. With surprising rapidity Kaspar thereupon learned not only to walk and talk, but to read and write. Within a few months he was able to relate so much of his strange history as he could remember. According Ac-cording to his story he had been confined all his life in a dark cell, penetrated only by a man whose shadow alone he could see and who came daily to wash him, dress him and bring him his sustenance, always al-ways bread and water. His only friend had been a wooden horse, and his jailer, although never speaking speak-ing a word to him, had for some mysterious reason expended a year's effort in silently teaching him to write the name "Kaspar Haus-er." Haus-er." Finally, one night his keeper had entered his cell, blindfolded him, placed in his hand the letter later found upon his person, taken him to Nuremberg, and left him leaning against the city wall. Professor Daumer's house soon became the mecca for thousands of persons who flocked there to see the mystery youth and hear his strange story. One day, within less than five months from the time when Kaspar was found leaning against the city wall, Professor Daumer was terrified to hear his interesting protege utter terrified cries for help, and, rushing into the room he found Kaspar writhing upon the floor. Blood gushed from a wound in his forehead, and when revived the lad said that a man with a blackened face had stolen into the room, stabbed him and fled. Hunt for Assailant. The police scoured the country for the assailant, without avail. About this time the case attracted the attention at-tention of the very wealthy Lord Stanhope, of England, who adopted Kaspar and sent him secretly toAns-bach toAns-bach that he might be hidden safely from his enemies and be educated by the celebrated Professor Fuhr-mann. Fuhr-mann. After a few years, his education edu-cation having been completed. Lord Stanhope arrived in Ansbach to take his ward back to England, where, it was planned, he should enjoy a life of ease, compensating him for the hideous persecutions of which he had been victim. Received Mysterious Note. On the day before that set for this hacpj Cerariure for England, a stranger handed Kaspar a note requesting him to appear at a certain cer-tain place and learn the secret of his origin. Without confiding the circumstances to Lord Stanhope, the young man proceeded to the place appointed. Soon afterward he terrified his guardian by staggering into his apartment with blood dripping drip-ping from a knife wound in his side. Gasping the words, "Palace Uzen Monument purse!" he fell to the floor, dead. Acting upon this clue. Lord Stanhope hastened to the Uzen and there found a purse of violet-colored violet-colored silk, containing a slip of paper on which had been scrawled: "Kaspar Hauser, born April 10, 1812. Murdered December 14, 1833. Know by this that I come from the Bavarian frontier - on the river. These are the initials of my name: M. L. B." A price of 5,000 florins was placed upon the head of Kaspar's assassin by Lord Stanhope, and for years the police strove to solve the mystery. mys-tery. But their efforts were futile. Kaspar Hauser remains to this day, perhaps the most baffling enigma that ever vexed the mind of man. BLAVATSKY The Mystic A CLOUD of incense smoke rising from the Syrian desert on a night in 1870 assumed as-sumed the shape of an old man with a long, white beard. "I am Hiero, one of the priests of a great temple erected to the gods that stood upon this spot," quoth the grim spectre. "This monument monu-ment was the altar. Behold!" Two caravans had met in the desert. des-ert. One had contained the alleged performer of this miracle, the first modern woman to gain world-wide fame in the role of the Great Unknown. Un-known. Like the master of the mediums, this sphinx boasted of a childhood replete with abnormal occurrences. oc-currences. She was born in southern south-ern Russia, amid the piled-up coffins cof-fins of victims of the awful cholera epidemic of 1831, and, while they were baptizing her in the Greek church, she snatched a lighted taper ta-per from the altar and set fire to the flowing robes of the priest. Early in her childhood it was claimed that while asleep she could give correct answers to questions asked by persons who would take her hand. Thus would she reveal the hiding places of lost property and 'twas said impart other medi-umistic medi-umistic information. Daughter of Nobleman. This uncanny child was Helena Petrovna Hahn, daughter of Gen. Alexis Hahn, a noble German who once settled in southern Russia. When she was seven her mother died and she was sent to live with her grandfather, the governor of Saratow. But after she took up her abode in his palace her governess discovered that she was possessed of the devil. She went into trances, scaring the old governor into goose-flesh. goose-flesh. At the age of seventeen Helena married General Count Blavatsky, a gouty Russian of seventy, from whom she separated after a brief period of domestic unhappiness. Next she attempted to penetrate the forbidden boundaries of Tibet, but was turned back by the fanatical natives. After wandering in India and elsewhere in the Orient, she returned to Russia, where, at the gloomy and gruesome chateau of a certain prince, she frightened the nocturnal guests with weird demonstrations dem-onstrations of table-tipping, spirit rappings, thought readings, levita-tion levita-tion and the opposite phenomenon making light articles heavy. Returning again to the Orient, she visited Egypt and Syria, and finally came to America,' where she was exploited as a spirit medium under the alleged control of "John King," a dead pirate, and much as Gagli-ostro Gagli-ostro had founded his Egyptian free masonry for the regeneration of mankind, so Madame Blavatsky, in 1875, established, the famous Theo-sophical Theo-sophical society. Mysterious Brotherhood. She now declared herself to be a disciple of a mysterious brotherhood brother-hood of mahatmas, whom she had met in Tibet and who had the power of causing apparitions of them-sc?ves them-sc?ves to appear where their bodies were not. Visitors to her sanctum were amazed to receive mysterious letters dropped before them as from the ceiling, and to hear alleged al-leged communications from the Tibetan mahatmas. It was said to be a common occurrence for a visitor vis-itor to ask her a question and the same day have the postman hand him a letter under a foreign postmark post-mark bearing a direct reply to that question. Blavatsky died May 8, 1801. WNU Service. |