“One day a stool was placed across his knees, with a piece of paper upon it: an arm was stretched out over his shoulder, a pencil put into his hand, which was taken hold of, and guided over the paper. ‘I never looked round to see whom the arm belonged to. Why should I? I had no conception of any other creature beside myself.’ This proceeding was repeated seven or eight times: the arm was then withdrawn, but the stool and paper left behind. He tried to copy the letters he had been made to trace, and pleased with this new occupation, persevered till he had succeeded. Thus it was that he learned to write his name. About three days afterwards—as far as he could judge—the man came again and brought a little book (a prayer-book which was found on him). This was placed on his knees and his hand laid upon it; then, pointing to one of the wooden horses, the man kept on repeating the word ‘Ross’ (horse) till he had learned to say it after him. According to his own account, this was the first time in his life he had ever heard a sound of any kind, as the man came and went noiselessly. Then, in the same fashion, he was taught two sentences—‘In the big village, where my father is, I shall get a fine horse.’ ‘I want to be a trooper as my father was’—which he repeated by rote, of course without understanding them. When his lesson was learnt the man went away, and he began playing with his toys, making so much noise that the man returned and gave him a smart blow with a stick, which hurt him very much.

“‘After that I was always quiet.’ The last time the man came it was to take him away. His clothes had been changed while he slept; a pair of boots were now brought and put on; he was hoisted up on the man’s shoulders, and carried up a steep incline into the open air. It was night-time and quite dark. He was laid down on the ground, and fell asleep at once. When he awoke, he was lifted upon his feet, and placed in front of the man, who, holding him under the arms, pushed forward his legs with his own, and showed him how to walk. But the pain and fatigue were very great, and he cried bitterly. The man said impatiently, ‘Leave off crying at once, or you shall not get that horse;’ and he thereupon obeyed. Then he was again lifted up and carried; again dropped asleep, and again he woke to find himself lying on the ground. This was repeated over and over again. There were the same painful attempts to walk; the same floods of tears, checked by the same threat; and then the same rest on the ground, with ‘something soft’ under his cheek. By degrees he began to walk alone, supported by the man’s arm, though at first only six steps at a time. The sunshine and fresh air together dazzled and bewildered him, and he scarcely took note where they went. They never travelled on a beaten track, but generally on soft sand; never went up or down hill, or crossed a stream. Sometimes he attempted to look about him; then the man instantly desired him to hold his head down. His clothes were once more changed; but the man, even while dressing him, stood behind him, so that he might not see his face. The two sentences he had learned were again and again impressed on his memory as he went along, the man always adding impressively, ‘Mind this well.’

“He also said, ‘When you are a trooper like your father, I will come and fetch you again.’

“The journey cannot have been a long one, as he only took food once; he himself computed it had lasted a day and a night.

“Finally the letter was put into his hands with the words: ‘Go there—where the letter belongs;’ and the man suddenly vanished from his side. He found himself alone in the street of Nuremberg—having never till then perceived that he had entered the town, or, in fact, seen it at all. He was quite dazed and helpless, but someone kindly came and took charge of him and his letter.” ...

So great was the interest caused by this story, which easily roused the sympathy of the illogical—people are always readier to sympathise than to inquire—that Kaspar was (July 1828) formally adopted by the town of Nuremberg. An annual sum of 300 florins was voted for his maintenance and education. He became the idol of society. It was openly hinted that he was the legitimate son of the reigning House of Baden, who stood in the way of the next in succession, and would have been long since in his grave had he not been rescued by a faithful retainer, who kept him in close confinement to conceal him from his pursuers. In the course of a year or so, however, the interest in him began to wane. His tutor, who had at first been delighted with him, was beginning to find him out. Kaspar, in fact, was both cunning and untruthful. One day a particularly gross instance of his deceitfulness came to his tutor’s knowledge. The same morning Nuremberg was electrified by the news that Kaspar’s life had been attempted in broad daylight, and actually under his tutor’s roof. A man, he said, with a black handkerchief drawn across his face, had suddenly confronted him, and aimed at him a blow with a heavy woodman’s knife, crying, “After all, you will have to die before you leave Nuremberg.” The voice was the voice of the man who had brought him to the town. He described him accurately. But no such man could be traced.

The wound was very slight. Almost certainly it was self-inflicted, with the object of stimulating the flagging public interest by a new and romantic incident. That at any rate was its effect. Pamphlets by the dozen appeared, and in 1832 President von Feuerbach published his “History of a Crime against a Human Soul,” which moved all hearts by the pathos and eloquence with which it pleaded the cause of the mysteriously persecuted “Child of Europe.”

But the Nurembergers were no longer eager to continue their allowance to the boy, so Lord Stanhope, who had always befriended him, now came forward, and made himself responsible for his education and maintenance. The rest of Kaspar’s life is somewhat dismal reading. He had to endure the process of being found out by successive people at successive places, for he had all the astuteness but also all the vanity of a lunatic. Once again, it appears, he attempted to reawaken the flagging interest of the public. At Ansbach he tried to repeat his Nuremberg success, and to confirm the existence of the mysterious persecutor who was supposed to haunt him. But this time he failed. Once more he got stabbed, but instead of a slight, he inflicted on himself a deadly wound. Now though he had taken much trouble to make the conditions of the affair as mysterious and misleading as possible, a long judicial investigation resulted in the irresistible conclusion that “no murder was committed.” At Ansbach stands the tomb of the poor deluded and deluding “Child of Europe,” a monument of folly not all his own.

“Hic jacet
Casparus Hauser
Ænigma sui temporis
Ignota Nativitas
Occulta Mors,
1833.”