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Kaspar Hauser.
there would never be a war. He had begun to live only five
years before, and wanted to live longer.
His fear of a knife or any other sharp instrument was proverbial ;
he could not even see the scissors pointed at him without turning
pale ; the slightest cut or wound of any kind made him ill, ang
to suppose that a person of so timid a disposition would deliber-
ately stab himself in so horrible a manner was the height of
absurdity. In refutation of this decision Meyer and others
asserted that Dr. Albert was influenced by certain high person-
ages, and he retorted by declaring that, on the contrary, he had
heen offered bribes to be silent, or to give adverse testimony,
Dr. Heidenreich prepared a long and carefully written report,
which was strongly in favour of the theory that Kaspar Hauser
had been imprisoned from infancy to maturity, and was finally
murdered; but the influence of the opposite party was sufficiently
strong to prevent the immediate publication of the article.
In January, 1834, about a month after Kaspar Hauser’s death,
Ludwig Feuerbach wrote to Professor Daumer (in answer to a
request for information) that he had visited Dr. Heidenreich and
shown him Daumer’s letter, and Dr. Heidenreich had replied
that his report of Kaspar Hauser’s wound and of the autopsy had
not yet been printed, because the committee of investigation
thought it best not to make such a paper immediately public,
therefore he could not give Professor Daumer any information
upon the subject. Feuerbach, however, added that if Daumer,
in preparing his defence, wished to refer to Heidenreich he could
say that the position, direction, and depth of the wound showed
that it could not have been self-inflicted, and that the forthcom-
ing reports of the physicians would substantiate that opinion and
place it beyond doubt.
Daumer followed the suggestion of his friend, and his state-
ments made a great uproar in the suicide party. Heidenreich
seems to have been frightened by the tumult, for he made haste
to declare in print that he was not acquainted with Professor
Daumer, and had never made him any personal declaration upon
the subject; at the same time he did not contradict the substance