96 



CANNIBALISM. 



GARY, ALICE AND PHCEBE. 



who were on their way from Hong-Kong' to 

 Australia. All on board were saved, and 

 managed to reach one of the neighboring small 

 islands, where the captain left them to get 

 help. He reached New Caledonia, where the 

 French authorities immediately sent out a man- 

 of-war to save the shipwrecked travellers. On 

 the 5th of January, 1859, the ship reached the 

 island, when it was found that, of the 300 men, 

 only four were alive. The rest had all been 

 eaten by the natives. One of the survivors after- 

 ward testified, in Sydney, that the blacks had 

 beaten their victims with clubs to make their 

 flesh soft. Cannibalism prevails also in New 

 Britain, the Santa Cruz Islands, the New Heb- 

 rides, on New Caledonia, and on the Loyalty 

 and the Feejee Islands, as well as on some isl- 

 ands inhabited by Malays, the Marquesas Isl- 

 ands, and New Zealand. On the Loyalty Isl- 

 ands cannibalism has been extinguished only 

 since 1855, while on New Caledonia it still 

 exists. Among others, the French engineer 

 Gamier has been an eye-witness of the can- 

 nibalism of the New Caledonians, and gives 

 very revolting accounts of the same. In reply 

 to the question how the New Caledonians 

 adopted this horrible practice, Gamier gives a 

 conversation with one of them, who said that 

 the Europeans had better and more food. For 

 them human flesh was the best. But this is 

 opposed by the fact that cannibalism was for- 

 merly connected with religious rites. 



The highest development of anthropophagy, 

 however, has been reached in the Feejee Islands, 

 concerning which, Wilkes's Narrative of the 

 United States Exploring Expedition during the 

 years 1839-1842 (Philadelphia, 1846) says that 

 the practice does not exist there for religious 

 rites only, but because the islanders consider 

 human meat a great delicacy. On the Mar- 

 quesas Islands, the Irishman Lament (" Wild 

 Life among the Pacific Islanders," London, 

 1867) was shown a hut where a white man, 

 who had killed a chief, was to have been killed 

 and eaten, but he had escaped the day before 

 his intended execution. According to "W. J. 

 Pritchard, Jr. (" Polynesian Eeminiscences, or 

 Life in the South Pacific Islands," London, 

 1866), the Samoa islanders are not entirely free 

 from anthropophagy, but instances of the 

 practice very seldom occur. 

 ^ Anthropophagy has ceased in New Zealand 

 since the English have made their power 

 felt by the Maories. According to F. von 

 Hochstetter, in his excellent work on New 

 Zealand (Stuttgardt, 1863), it was introduced 

 into these islands only within the last few cen- 

 turies. "When the missionaries rebuked one 

 of the chiefs for cannibalism, he replied : " The 

 large fish eats the small one ; the dog eats the 

 man, the man the dog, dogs eat each other, 

 and one god eats another god." 



Cannibalism has disappeared from North 

 America, Mexico, and Peru, and is disappear- 

 ing among the Brazilian tribes. It is also 

 disappearing in the South Sea islands, both in 



consequence of the extinction of the natives, 

 and of the rapid advance of the white settlers. 

 Still the number of cannibals is quite large, as 

 the following figures will show: The Battas 

 number (according to Friedmann) 200,000 

 souls ; the cannibals in the delta of the Niger, 

 about 100,000 ; the Fans (according to Fleuriot 

 de Langle), 80,000 ; the cave-cannibals in South 

 Africa, 10,000 ; the Niamaniam, 500,000 ; the 

 Miranhas and Mesayas (according to Marcoy), 

 2,000; the other South American cannibals, 

 1,000 ; the natives of Australia, 50,000 ; and 

 the Melanesians (New Guinea not included), 

 1,000,000; accordingly, the total number of 

 cannibals still living is about 1,943,000, or the 

 690th part of the population of our globe. 



CAKY, ALICE and PHCEBE, two sisters, dis- 

 tinguished in literature, both of whom died in 

 the year 1871. I. ALICE, born April 26, 1820, 

 in Hamilton County, Ohio, about eight miles 

 from Cincinnati ; died in New York City, Feb- 

 ruary 12, 1871. Her parents were people of 

 considerable culture and refinement, but, from 

 the privations incident to a newly-settled 

 country, her early advantages of education 

 were very moderate. She commenced writing 

 verses at the age of eighteen, and wrote largely 

 and acceptably for the press in prose and verse 

 for the next ten years, without compensation. 

 In 1852, with her younger sister Phoebe, Alice 

 came to New York City, and the two devoted 

 themselves thenceforth to a literary life. The 

 sisters had some property, a fair literary repu- 

 tation, and habits of industry and frugality 

 which enabled them to content themselves 

 with a moderate income, and they had just 

 made their first successful literary venture, a 

 joint volume of poems, when they decided to 

 remove to New York. They were prospered 

 in their enterprise, not with that large measure 

 of success which falls to the lot of perhaps one 

 in ten thousand of those who enter upon a 

 literary life, but with that gradual growth of in- 

 come which eventuated in a competence. Alice 

 was an indefatigable worker, though her pleas- 

 ant and cosy home was at all times accessible to 

 her friends, and her society always pleasant. 

 She wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, for Har- 

 per's, for Putnam, for the New York Ledger, 

 the Independent, and other literary periodicals ; 

 and her articles, whether prose or poetry, were 

 gathered subsequently into volumes which had 

 a warm welcome both in this country and 

 abroad. But she also wrote novels and poems, 

 which did not make their first appearance in 

 periodicals. Her poems are characterized by 

 a rare naturalness and grace, and, though not 

 ranking in the highest class either in creative 

 genius or exquisite finish, have such merits as 

 entitle her to an equality with the best of the 

 poets, male or female, of the second rank, in 

 our time. Her prose is remarkable for its un- 

 hackneyed grace and realistic character. Her 

 descriptions of domestic life are ^ charming, 

 and her plots well sustained and interesting. 

 Besides the volume above mentioned, Alice 



