CANNIBALISM. 477 



be sacrificed by them, were I unexpectedly to come up with them, 

 fully confiding that they would put me upon the same footing with 

 themselves when they cast lots to decide who was to be the devoted 

 victim. 



As to the flesh itself of man, there can be nothing in it of an ob- 

 jectionable nature as food more than in that of animals in general. 

 I can easily conceive that an expert cook can make it into a dish 

 quite as savoury as that of beef or mutton ; but then, he must keep 

 his revolting doings a profound secret, otherwise nature would startle 

 at the very appearance of the dish when served at table, and man 

 would turn sick at the sight, because he has that within him which 

 says, Thou shalt not feed upon thy fellow-man ; this, in fact, being a 

 general prohibition, from the Maker of all things, that one animal 

 shall not prey upon another animal of the same species. 



Unfortunately we cannot come at the true nature of an animal 

 when anything has intervened to change its original habits. For 

 example, captivity in a cage will cause a parrot to feed on flesh-meat 

 a thing which it is never known to do when wild in its native 

 woods, where instinct teaches it to live on vegetable food alone, and 

 where it is sure to fulfil the law imposed upon it by the Creator. 



Again, when the habits of a brute animal have been changed by 

 domestication, it is known by experience occasionally to feed upon 

 its own species ; so that, when a sow has been pent up in an incom- 

 modious sty, on the eve of farrowing, or, as we unmannerly boors 

 of Yorkshire say, a day or two before pigging, she has been known 

 to devour some of the litter. But whether the victims were dead or 

 alive at the time of this unnatural act, I have never been able to 

 learn ; for, on questioning farmers if they have actually seen sows 

 feeding upon their living little ones, the answer has been anything 

 but satisfactory. From this I have formed the conclusion, that the 

 sow, being in too small an apartment, must have overlaid part of the 

 litter, and eaten those which she had killed, her appetite having be- 

 come depraved by confinement probably more so by this imprison- 

 ment than by artificial food, as I cannot learn that such unnatural 

 deeds are ever perpetrated in the fields, or when the sow has the run 

 of a capacious yard. 



I must here pay a compliment to the herds of wild swine which 



