spar had come to Nuremberg. But, in 1887, it proved
just as impossible to discover whither the Rev. Ansel Bourne had gone.
Mr. Bourne's lot was cast, not in the sleepy Royalist Bavaria of 1828,
but in the midst of the admired 'hustle' of the great Western
Republic. He was one of the most remarkable men in the country, not a
yokel of sixteen. He was last seen at his nephew's store, 121 Broad
Street, Providence, R.I., on January 17. On January 20, the hue and
cry arose in the able and energetic press of his State. Mr. Bourne, as
a travelling evangelist, was widely known, but, after a fortnight
unaccounted for, he arrived, as A.J. Browne, at Norristown, Pa., sold
notions there, and held forth with acceptance at religious meetings.
On March 14 he awoke, still undiscovered, and wondered where he was.
He remembered nothing since January 17, so he wired to Providence,
R.I., for information. He had a whole fortnight to account for,
between his departure from Providence, R.I., and his arrival at
Norristown, Pa. Nobody could help him, he had apparently walked
invisible, like Kaspar on his way to Nuremberg. He was hypnotised by
Professor William James, and brought into his Browne condition, but
could give practically no verifiable account of Browne's behaviour in
that missing fortnight. He said that he went from Providence to
Pawtucket, and was for some days at Philadelphia, Pa., where he really
seems to have been; as to the rest 'back of that it was mixed up.' We
do not hear that Kaspar was ever hypnotised and questioned, but
probably he also would have been 'mixed up,' like Mr. Bourne.

The fable about a Prince of Baden had not a single shred of evidence
in its favour. It is true that the Grand Duchess was too ill to be
permitted to see her dead baby, in 1812, but the baby's father,
grandmother, and aunt, with the ten Court physicians, the nurses and
others, must have seen it, in death, and it is too absurd to suppose,
on no authority, that they were all parties to the White Lady's plot.
We might as well believe, as Miss Evans seems to do, on the authority
of an unnamed Paris newspaper, that a Latin letter, complaining of
imprisonment, was picked up in the Rhine, signed 'S. Haues Spraucio,'
that the words ought to be read 'Hares Sprauka,' and that they are an
anagram of Kaspar Hauser. This occurred in 1816, when Kaspar, being
about four years of age, could not write Latin. No one in the secret
could have hoped that the Royal inf