The Washington herald., 1912-11-24
WILSON'S Fiddle
SCENTS OF MYSTERY
Instrument Suggesting Nero, Marked
as Property of President-eleet,
Left at Repair Shop.

Has the President-eIect of the United
States anything in common with the late
Nero7 Or does he now plan to take ad-
vantage OF his few remaining days as q
simple, free citizen and follow in the
footsteps OF Paganni and Bob Taylor
asks the New York Evening Post
These speculstions were inspired by the
presence. in the workshops OF Hans Tiet-
gen. at IL West Fortieth Street, Of a
mysterious violin, an aged and battered
instrument. which came accompanied by
a card bearing the legend. Hon. Wood
row Wilson, Princeton, n. J. Personal
Tuning post. Bridge. Scroll" A young
woman brought II four days ago and ex-
planned that the last three words of the
inscription on the card indicated the num-
ber OF repairs desired. Yesterday she
called at the workshop. paid Herr Tiet-
gems fee. and departed with the violin.
She vouchsafed no name nor other ex-
PLANTATION. and the vioIln-maker asked for
nOne-hence the mystery.
The natural assumption IL, OF course.
that Gov. Wilson has either nourished in
secret a desire to be a vioilnist or In
tends now to indulge a new ambition. II
he is passing through an agoniZing no.
vitiate, no one can blame him for pre-
serving secrecy. but II on the other hand.
he has for years hidden his musical can
die 50 to speak. under a scholastic and
political bushel he will not be so readily
forgiven. A suggestion that he 10 pre-
pairing TO follow the example OF Nero
holds little water; he might under GER
tain conditions make Rome howl, but In
nothing he spoke or wrote during the
campaign is there an intimation that he
plans to fiddle while watching a general
confagration.
Herr Tietgen's deductions provide no
made purely from the standpoint of a
technician:
"Ach. It is a rotten fiddle" he said. and
made a motion as II to tear his beard at
the memory. There is so much wood
so much! II could for a week in water lie
already, and yet would II hurt be not. II
cannot be that your President II will play
upon. No, that believe I not. Before that
should happen, for him would l make
with these hands a fiddle. Yes. I-Hans
Tietgen.'
He went on to say that the instrument
was made about 100 years ago in Germany
in some Institution where they turn out
several dozens like il every day. and ship
them away by the carload He had heard
that one OF the President-elects daugh-
ters was musical. he suspects the young
woman who brought him the instrument
Of being a teacher of violin. and he there
fore prefers to assume that the repairs
were made for Miss Wilson rather than
for her father. And that is all he has to
say about it.
But the fact that the repairs were made
this week, just in time for the Bermudian
trip of Gov. Wilson. casts a very sus-
picious tinge over the whole proceeding
and encourage the thought that scale
and lingering exercises, inter-
spersed perhaps with Turkey IN the
Straw and "Forked Deer" the quality
Of violin music he must have heard in
his early youth in Virginia, and every
now and then a Bach prelude or a Mozart
sonata, may yet float from behind a
closed. blind OF the White House.