Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1885 — The Koszta Affair. [ARTICLE]

The Koszta Affair.

Martin Koszta had been one of the leaders in the Hungarian revolution against Austria in 1849. After the rebellion had been suspended he fled to Turkey for refuge. The Austrian government demanded him from the Turks, but the Ports refused tojgive him up, though, after some correspondence on the subject, it was agreed to exile him permanently to some foreign land. He chose to be sent to the United States, and came to New York and took out partial papers of naturalization during his stay. In 1854 Kaszta returned to Turkey, contrary to his promises to the Porte. At Smyrna he received a passport from the American Consul and went ashore. The Austrian Consul at Smyrna, hearing of thp exile’s presence there, and having no power to arrest him on shore, hired some bandits to throw him into the bay, where a boat picked him up and conveyed him on board and Austrian frigate. Captain Duncan Ingraham, United States navy, was at anchor in the bay with the American sloop St. Louis, and he forthwith ordered his guns loaded and pointed at the Austrian vessel, threatening to fire into her if Koszta was not immediately surrendered into the charge of the French Consul. The Austrian Captain yielded the point and gave up the prisoner. The affair gave rise to a long discussion between Baron Hulseman, the Austrian Minister at Washington, and William L. Marcy, the American Secretary of State. Secretary Marcy got the best of the argument and Koszta was . restored to the United States.— lnter-Ocean. “Doctors declare,” pays the Chicago Journal, “that electric light will eventually destroy the eye-sight. When Edison heard the remark he retired into his innermost laboratory, and when he had shut and locked and put a chain against -the door, whispered to himself, with a sardonic smile: ‘First catch your electric light. "