MissScarlett: Ernst Falkbeer in the (London) Sunday Times, July 12th 1857:<Then lately, again, the chess world has had to deplore the loss of two great amateurs, who if not first-rate players, kept, however, a distinguished place in the chess hierarchy. The similarity of their melancholy fate makes their loss the more painful. The one, an officer in the Prussian Guards, Count v. d. G---, a man of great scientific acquirements, and a chess player of high repute, has, we have heard, suddenly experienced one of those strokes, where reason reels upon its throne, and utter mental darkness makes life worse than death. There is but little hope of his long surviving this terrible misfortune; it is, at least, a consolation, that some of his best games are conserved in the Berlin chess circles. The other, the well-known singer Herr Staudigl, has had a similar fate, and in consequence died some weeks ago, raving mad. Although not a first-rate player, he was one of the staunchest supporters of chess, and leaves one of the choicest and most copious chess-libraries on record. When, two years ago on leaving Vienna, we shook hands with him, we perceived not the slightest sign of that fearful malady.>
Morning Chronicle, August 28th 1856, p.5:
<A letter from Vienna, in the Augsburg Gazette, announces the death of Staudigl, the singer. He died in a madhouse.>
Kibitzing
