a plum tree by their odor at a distance at which others could barely see the trees; he was overcome by the exhalations of a graveyard several streets off; he could distinguish metals by their different attractions for his fingers, while the vicinity of a hardware shop brought on convulsions; when examined by a homeopathist, he proved in his own person the truth of homeopathy. As to the speculations as to who he might have been, it is enough to say that the gossips and the scholars were equally busy and, with characteristic Teuton thoroness, a bibliography of nearly three hundred numbers was accumulated, recounting the various versions of the story of Kaspar Hauser. The sifted facts out of which, or in spite of which, the various myths sprouted and flourished, are few and luminous. The boy appeared on the streets of Nuremberg with a letter in his hand, which he had doubtless written, and was put in prison as a helpless wayfarer. The original protocol shows that he walked a mile on that day, recited the Lord’s prayer, spoke with dialectical peculiarities, said that he had gone to school, showed his fondness for horses, and admitted that the object of the letter, addressed to a captain of cavalry, was to secure him a post in the service. He seemed to feign simple-mindedness and to avoid answering questions. In the one letter was another purporting to have been written sixteen years previously by the mother of the boy, but obviously a forgery. This started the story to which the Burgomaster gave wings by a proclamation elaborating the “wild boy of nature” theory, and embellishing it with fantastic “details calculated to give verisimilitude to an otherwise improbable tale.” Learned ignorance in the person of a Professor Daumer—to whom Kaspar was intrusted for his education—still further distorted the simple facts. Tho at first the boy could not speak (this is Daumer’s story) and could only understand those who treated him as an infant, this helpless and untutored babe, after three days, performed on the piano, soon after knitted a stocking, and in four weeks was able to entertain the Burgomaster with an account of his years of solitary confinement. Within a month this worthy, but mentally blind, professor had transformed the wild boy into a model of social elegance, who
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