Nuremberg, but throughout all Germany. The question as to whether he was an impostor or not was hotly debated; those who favoured the former theory insisting that he had killed himself accidentally when he only meant to wound himself and so excite sympathy. Some of the doctors declared, however, that that was quite impossible, for the wound was meant to kill, and could only have been self-inflicted by a left-handed person of great strength, for it had pierced through a padded coat. A large reward (1.200l.) was offered for the capture of the assassin, but in vain; and the spot of the murder was marked by an inscription in Latin:
HIC
OCCULTUS
OCCULTO
OCCISUS EST
(Here the Mystery was mysteriously murdered).
The same idea is repeated on his tombstone. 'Here lies K. H. the riddle of the age. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious.'
His death was the signal for a violent paper-war between his friends and his enemies. It raged hotly for years; but his friends have never succeeded in proving who he was; why, after having been shut up for so long, he was at last set free; or why his death was, after all, necessary; while his enemies have utterly failed to prove that he was an impostor.[1]
- ↑ This is rather a picturesque than a critical story of Kaspar Hauser. The evidence of the men who first met him shows that he could then speak quite rationally. The curious will find a brief but useful account of him in the Duchess of Cleveland's 'Kaspar Hauser' (Macmillan;. 1893.,)
