JEERED TO DEATH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1359, 9 February 1912, Page 6

JEERED TO DEATH.

SAVANT COMMITS SUICIDE TO ESCAPE RIDICULE. The suicide of Dr. Josef Pic, professor of history at (he Czech University at Prague, has eausr-d great sensation in Hohemia; certainly (says the Vienna correspondent of the "Daily Ken's") the motive for the net is unusual. Professor Tic belonged to tho now small group of archaeologists who, in opposition to the views of the majority of Czech and German savants, regard ' the so-called "Koniginhof Manuscripts" as genuine. These manuscripts—alleged to be the original of tho Czech heroic poems—arc tho clever forgery of a Czech philologist named AYcnzel llanka, who pretended to have found them in the church tower of Koniginhof in 1817. Ilanka made, liowvvcr some linguistic blunders, and used pigments which were certainly unknown in the thiifeiith centtuv. As the latter circumstance was discovered in the 'eighties of last century,, nearly all savants of note in this country lost their faith in the genuineness of the manuscripts. Dr. Tic's belief, however, was unshaken, and in course of time he became the most energetic and passionate advocate of the forgeries. Ho published numci'ius pjitnnlilets on the subject, deluded another chemical examination of tho pigments, and vigorously denied lip to his last hour that the manuscripts wore spurious. The controversy between him and his colleagues tasted many years, and Tragiio newspapers filially took tho matter up. made tun of tho professor, and dubbed him an ignoramus. The mockery became so cruel and persistent that lie could not stand it any longer, and blew out his brains with a revolver.