Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-05-31

into all modern languages, and his
songs were alike popular in the
drawing-rooms of the aristocracy
and with the herdsmen of the
puszta.
The revolution of 1S4S found the
poet in the foremost ranks of the
national party. He published a
political paper, and his poems fired
the heart Of the Magyars against
that grim hater of liberty, Czar
In October, 1S4S, he
entered the army, and was made
captain Of the Honveds, battling in
the Banate for the freedom of Hun
gary. Afterwards he was aide-de.
camp Of General Benz, and received
from the hand Of this famous leader
a decoration on the battlefield of
Muehlbach on account of his heroic
conduct. In consequence of diff.
Guilty with the war department be
resigned, but in July he met again
with BEN and was prevailed upon
once more to accept an appointment
on his staff. And now came the
catastrophe of his mysterious dis
appearance. 1t was on July 81,
1849, when the battle of Schass-
burg was fought with the Russians,
lasting from 10 o'clock am. until Z
pm. On the side of the Russians,
General Skariatin, adjutant of the
Gar, was killed, BEN had a horse
shot under'him, and was only with
great difficulty prevented from be.
ing taken prisoner. His staff was
scattered, and when mustered again
Petoef was missing. He was seen
in the midst Of the battle; then he
made for q corn-feld, and there
every trace of him was lost. His
body was not Sound, he was not
among the prisoners or the fugitives
who were afterwards heard from;
he was spirited away. After a few
years his widow married again, but
the Hungarians all these years never
believed in his death, having a
vague idea that the Gar kept him
a prisoner in some out the-way
place. Truly a singular and won
derful career! The son Of poor
parents, during the first twenty
years of his life an ungracious good
ior-nothing, an Indifferent student,
tramp, private in the army. timer
ant actor, several times on the point
Of starvation, nearly exhausted by
priyation and ambition, and then
suddenly during the next five years
of his life the pride of his nation,
Hungary's greatest poet, popular
with the Magyars as never a writer
before him, a reformer of the lang
uage, Greater Of entirely new ele-
ments in the national literature,
alike great and original in all
branches of poetry, from the plain
song up to the highest work of fc-
ton, in every field a master, multi
lateral and creative as only few
have been in all literature of civil
lied nations, in fine social standing,
a happy husband and father, bene-
factor Of his poor relatives, then
public orator and agitator, party
leader and hero on the field of bat
tle-and at last, scarcely twenty
five years Of age disappearing like
a falling star; a man Of our days
and yet already mythical person!
Truly, this life itself is a grand
poem.
A few weeks ago a man by the
name of Andrew Boras, who was
thought to have died long ago and
whose wife had remarked twenty
two years since, appeared Guddenly
in Szathmar and said he had been
kept prisoner in a Siberian mine
and that in the same pit Alexander
Petoefi was working. The sensa-
tiSn which this rumor has produced
through all Austria-Hungary is
very great. 1t is possible that the
unreserved hatred Of the Hun
garians against Russia invented
this story to drive the nation into
an alliance with their formerly
hereditary foes, the Turks, against
the son of the liberty-hating head
Of the Holy Alliance, but notwith-
standing it is not at all improbable
that the report may prove true, In
Russia stranger things have hap
pened. AS Count Apdrassy, one of
Petoef's old friends and co-patriots,
stands now at the head of the en-
pire, the truth of this report will
soon be sifted, and If the poet is
yet among the living the world will
very soon know it,
-a.-o-p
No Chance for Soldiers of Fortune.
The Turkish authorities have
given soldiers of fortune and foreign
officers the cold shoulder. General
Klapka, whose reputation among
military men was high, waited for
employment in Constantinople for
several months, and finally, when