Show ar WHO WAS KASPAR HAUSER W HEI the police of 0 first discovered tills this youth apparently p ar antly ly about eighteen years of age leaning up against a wall la in one of 0 the public squares with hit hands over his eyes to protect them from the glare clare of the sun they at first thought that lie he was some idiot who had escaped from a sanitarium but investigation soon developed that here was a case as unique as that eliat of the man to in the iron mask and resembling it in a number of ways not only were the boys eyes weak but his muscles were as flabby as those of an infant and the soles of ills ids feet were convex like those of a baby that has never learned to walk he had to be carried bodily to police headquarters and even there the sight eight of the commonest objects appeared to terrify him while the slightest of sounds caused him to cover his cars and wince as it his eardrums ear drums were accustomed only to total silence on the other liand hand his face indicated that lie he was of good parentage and the clothing which he wore was wa fashioned of the softest finest materials in an effort to discover something about his identity one of the police officials ff ered him a pencil which to the surprise of those present he be seized and wrote the two words kaspar hauser which as it afterwards developed was tile the only clue he could gl glie gle e to his past prof G F daumer of the university of nuremberg hearing about the strange case took the yo young alig man to ills his home amazed not only by the fact that he be could neither talk nor walk but that lie would eat cat nothing but bread and water the professor however started to educate him at once and in a surprisingly short time the youth had progressed sufficiently to give a graphic story of his experiences for ns as long ong as lie he could remember he had been confined to a dark cell into which the sun suit had never penetrate bratel 1 lie ile had been visited once a day by a man mail who washed and dressed him and fed him a ration of bread and water it was this man who had taught him to write the words kaspar hauser which professor daumer believed to be a false name given to him in order to mislead the authorities and to conceal ills real identity finally he declared lie he had been blindfolded and led into the street where this the police had found him the young mans story naturally created a last amount of comment lit in all sections of europe and the daumer house become became the center of attraction for the curious many of whom maintained that they might be able to identify hauser but none of whom were able to produce tile the proof of their contention the next development in the mysterious chain of circumstances surrounding the youth came about five months after haulers Ha users discovery by the police when he staggered into professor dammers Da umers library halt half blind ed by the blood which dripped irom an open gash in ills forehead it was some come time before he recovered consciousness ness sufficiently to state that a masked man had struck at him with a saber that he had lodged dodged the blow and that his asse assailant llant had fled before he be could give the alarm the inference which alli the police drew from the attack was that tile the same person who had imprisoned the boy was now striving to kill him lest lie divulge the secret ot of his birth shortly afterward the case came to the attention of the wealthy lord stanhope Stanli ope who he convinced that hauser was vlas of aristocratic and perhaps of roial parentage adopted him and sent him under guard to Au alspach Ans where he was educated some three years later lord stanhope Stanli ope in anspach with the intention of taking ills back to england with him on the morning of the day that they were to leave hauser received a note telling him to come to a certain place where lie would learn the secret of ill ills birth less than a hour later the eng ilski nobleman heard moans from outside ills apartment and opening the door was just in time to catch hauser as he fell blood welling velling from a knife wound lit in his side ile he lind had barely the words monument palace grounds when lie fell dead lord stanhope hunted to the auzen monument and found there a slip of paper hearing bearing in ili the young mans handwriting the cryptic message kaspar hauser murdered at tile the age of twenty one know by this that I 1 come from the bavarian frontier on oil the river tile the initials of my name are II 11 L B anil and not even the offer of a reward rf of florins florans by lord stanhope nor the investigations of countless amateur and professional detectives could throw the slightest doht upon the birth or death of chiq linnian enigma |