s stabbed to the heart. He still had sufficient strength left
to walk about a thousand paces; and, indeed, the wound was outwardly so
insignificant, that it was at first believed to be a mere scratch. This
strengthened an opinion which was then gradually gaining ground, that
Caspar was an impostor; for it was firmly believed by some that he had
inflicted this wound upon himself, as well as the one received in 1829,
in order to quicken the somewhat languishing interest taken in him. Nor
did they give up this opinion when the wound was found to be fatal. They
then boldly asserted that he had wounded himself more severely than
he had intended. And not content with simply maintaining this absurd
opinion, they taunted him with it on his death-bed, so that he was not
even allowed to die in peace. Nothing was wanting to fill his bitter
cup. How terrible must have been the mental torture to wring from
so resigned a soul the exclamation, "O God! O God! to die thus with
contumely and disgrace!" The German is still more expressive,--_"Ach,
Gott! ach, Gott! so abkratzen muessen mit Schimpf und Schande!"_

Such was the life of Caspar Hauser. For nearly seventeen years the
inmate of a dreary prison, shut out from the light, without a single
companion in his misery, drugged when it was necessary to change his
linen, with no food but bread,--for seventeen years did he thus exist,
--his mind a perfect blank. Suddenly cast upon the world, amid strange
beings whom he could not understand and by whom he was not understood,
he long knew scarcely a sensation save that of pain. And when at last
he did become accustomed to civilized life, and the darkness which
enshrouded him disappeared before the rays of light that found entrance
into his intellect, it was only to awake to a knowledge of the utter
misery of his position. He then saw himself a helpless orphan, the
inferior of all with whom he came in contact, and a dependant upon the
charity of others for his support. He awoke to find that he had lost
seventeen years of this beautiful life, seventeen years which he never
could recall,--that he never could take his stand amongst men as their
equal, but would always be regarded as an unhappy being meriting their
pity,--much like that felt for the pains of some suffering brute. Nor
was this all. During the few years that were granted him in our
world, persecuted by some unknown person, against whom he was
helpless,--knowing that his life was aime