tn 



CANNABIN. 



CANNON. 



I beginning to subside, a scruple of alum should be added 

 to Uu lotion, in order to dry up th* ulcer ; but nothing stronger than 

 thi ihould ever be applied, and even the alum should be cautiously 

 added, in proportion a* the dog U able to bear it. Purging and 

 alterative medicines will be awful auxiliaries. 



If the can u obstinate, and the ear begins to be extensively ulcerated, 

 and the ulcer spreads over the flap of the ear, a seton should be inserted 

 in the poll precisely between the ears, and extending from ear to ear. 

 Ail water-dug* are particularly liable to this specie* of canker. 



There is another variety of canker belonging to the flap of the ear, 

 to which the h< und and the pointer are especially subject. It in 

 either the consequence of that which has just been described, or 

 exists independently of it. A sore appears on the edge of the 

 flap of the ear of a true cankerous nature, and corrodes the very 

 cartilage. The treatment of this also is simple and effectual. The ears, 

 or at least the diseased ear, must be confined by a cap of leather <r 

 stronr calico, for while the dog can flap and beat his ear, it is evident 

 that the sore can never heal. This being contrived, a strong ointment 

 of alum or white vitriol (sulphate of rinc), or both combined, should 

 be well rubbed on the sore morning and night. The dimple alum 

 ointment should first be tried. 



Sportsmen too often round the ears of the dog ; that is, they cut ofT 

 the diseased parts. This disfigures the animal, and is rarely effectual. 

 Either .1 new ulcerative inflammation is net up by the operation, or the 

 whole ear having been inoculated and empuisoued by the discharge 

 from the old wound, the peculiar ulcer of canker speedily appears 

 again as extensive and as obstinate as before. 



CANNABIN. This name has been given to a resinous substance of 

 unknown composition, extracted from hemp. It is highly poisonous. 



CANNIBALS. AntkrapofJoffi, or men-eaters. In the Odyssey of 

 Homer we have the story of Polyphemus devouring human flesh ; and 

 in Herodotus, the Mansagetse (i. 216) are said to eat their aged parent*. 

 The Padtci of India (Herod, iii. !i) were in the habit of killing and 

 eating their relations when they fell ill ; a story which some would 

 reject with as little show of reason as others would believe it. Modern 

 facts, the tnitli of which is put lieyond all doubt, confirm the state- 

 ments of Herodotus. Among the ancient Tupls of Brazil, when the 

 Psjc" (chief) despaired of a sick man's recovery, he was by his advice 

 put to death and devoured. (Dr. Martins in ' London Oeog. Journal,' 

 ii. 109.) Herodotus (iv. 26) also says that among the Issedones, when 

 a man's father dies, his relations come and help to eat the dead man, 

 whose flesh they render more palatable by mixing it with that of some 

 animal. That these facts as to cannibalism, as reported by ancient 

 writers, are not to be hastily rejected, need hardly be remarked. 



In the middle ages, it is true, these stories of cannibalism were 

 wonderfully enlarged, and people who hod not yet embraced Chris- 

 tianity were pretty generally set down as anthropophagi. When the 

 Lombards invaded Italy at the end of the 6th century, it was reported 

 of them that they at human flesh; and a century later the same 

 aspersions were cast on the Slavonian tribes. It became the fashion 

 to bandy the accusation between enemies ; thus, during the Crusades, 

 the Saracens said the Christians ate human flesh, as well as the 

 unclean flesh of swine, while the Christians on their side maintained 

 that the Saracens ate men, women, and children, and were particularly 

 fond of a sucking Christian babe torn fresh from the breast of its 

 mother. The giants and ogres of our nursery tales are only the 

 Baraeaos of the holy wars seen through the magnifying glasses of 

 tradition and romance. 



It does not much surprise us that in those rude ages men should 

 try to fix a revolting practice on their sworn foes, but we can hardly 

 understand why the minstrels of the Christians should convert their 

 moat approved heroes into cannibals, and praise them for the quantity 

 of infidel flesh they devoured. Yet our Richard I. is put in this pre- 

 dicament by the author or authors of the romance of ' Richard Coeur 

 de Lion.' According to the poem, the first symptom of the king's 

 recovery from a dangerous sickness at Acre was a violent longing for 

 pork, and as pork was difficult to procure in a Mohammedan country, 

 bis cook dressed him a Turk's head, of which Richard ate with good 

 appetite, and felt himself quite well in consequence. After some more 

 repasts of toe same kind, he is made to say : 



" King Richard .lull warrant, 

 There In no Roll no nourluant 

 Unto an Kngllih nun. 

 Partridge, plow, heron, no svtn, 

 Cow nt ox, rhecp nc iwinr, 

 As the head of a Strezrne." 



The old travellers abound in stories of cannibalism, which we may 

 almost invariably pronounce to be false. Few persons would now 

 credit that the Indians and Chinese sold human flesh in the market, or 

 that the grand khan of Tartary fattened his astronomer* and magicians 

 with the carcases of condemned criminals; but Marco Polo, the 

 Venetian, who resided in China and traversed the Indian seas in the 

 lth century, in speaking of a people in Sumatra (the Battas), and of 

 the fierce inhabitants of the group of islands called the Andamana, 

 relates no more than has been confirmed by modem travellers. 



In the lth and 17th centuries, the wildest accounts of the natives 

 of the newly-found lands in America, and of places on the African 



coast recently brought within the range of European commerce, war* 

 circulated by ignorant sailors and believed by credulous writers. In 

 many of these cases there was a small matter of truth at the bottom, 

 which was wonderfully magnified by fear and credulity. It was re- 

 ported, for example, that the Caribbees preferred sucking infants to 

 all other food that the Peruvians kept mistresses for the purpose of 

 breeding children for their tables, and fattened, killed, and ate these 

 woman when they were past child-bearing and, not to mention nume- 

 rous other instances, that the Anzigas of South Africa exposed human 

 flesh for sale in their shambles, as we do beef and mutton. The 

 industrious old compiler, Purchas, says he was assured of the hut- 

 nu-ntioned fact " by John Battell, of Essex, a near neighbour of 

 and a man worthy of credit." Even in modern times, the inhabitants 

 of Van biemeu'a Land have been set down as cannibals, in Dent re- 

 casteaux's Voyage, because the bones of a kangaroo were mistak< 

 those of a young girl. Mr. Kane, who recently resided some time 

 among the Indian tribes of Canada, speaks of particular families in 

 several tribes as being confirmed cannibals. But be says these 

 Weendigoes, " eaters of human flesh," as they are called, are always 

 made to encamp apart from the main body of the tribe, though they 

 ore treated with respect and a sort of reverence. With them, as far as 

 he could ascertain, the practice always originated in extreme hunger ; 

 but it was believed that the taste once acquired the Weendigo was 

 afterwards wholly unable to resist its indulgence. (Kane, ' Wan< 

 of an Artist among the Indians of North America,' Lond. 185'J.) This 

 is the most recent testimony to the prevalence of cannibalism. 



Many persons, who admit that human flesh has been eaten 

 the pressure of necessity, as in sieges, shipwrecks, &., still maintain 

 that there is no evidence of any race or people eating human flesh 

 from choice. But proof the most conclusive has been brought a 

 the New Zealanders, who devoured their captives taken in war in t In- 

 most open manner. It is also stated on good authority that e\. n the 

 New Zealanders who had been humanised by intercourse with ICuro- 

 peans and their voyages in European ships, resumed il 

 man-eating as soon as they returned home. That the horrid ; 

 lasted long in New Zealand is proved by a captain in the French navy, 

 who stayed some months at the island. (See ' Voyage de la Favorite, 

 de 1'amiee 1S30 a 1833,' par M. Laplace.) The practice has now 

 become obsolete. 



The Battas of Sumatra are undoubted cannibals, and there ;u 

 native tribes in Guiana, in South America, who fatten and eat their 

 prisoners. ('London Oeog. Jour.,' vol. ii. p. 70; but compare vol. ii. i 



We refrain from offering any conjecture as to the origin of can- 

 nibalism. No explanation we have seen appears to us satisfactory. 



CANNON, the generic term for large guns. Under this head mil 

 be described the method of making cannon in the foundry. 

 were originally composed of strips of metal bound round and kept 

 together with iron rings ; to this succeeded the improvement of casting 

 them in one piece, which was done at first by casting them hollow I y 

 means of a core. [AHTH.LEUT.] At the beginning of the 18th century 

 it was a debated question among several artillerists, whether cannon 

 should be cast hollow or solid. In 1749 a founder of Geneva, of the 

 name of Maritz, informed the court of France that he "had discovered a 

 method of boring guns and mortars that hod been cast solid ; he was 

 at once employed, and worked first at Lyon and tlu-n at Stnwburg, 

 and the guns were considered very satisfactory, so much so, indeed, that 

 from that time guns have usually been cast solid, and afterwards bored. 

 In costing guns hollow, it was found that they were much weaker in 

 some ports than in others, in consequence of the irregularity of the 

 cooling of the metal ; whereas, when they are cast solid, the 

 which cools first, has a much closer and sounder grain, and the centre, 

 which is afterwards bored out, is unequal and spongy in parts. 



Cast-iron ordnance for the government in England is principally 

 made at private foundries by contract; the Low-Moor Comjony, 

 whose works ore at Blackford, in Yorkshire, and the Messrs. Walker, 

 of the Gospel Oak Foundry, in Staffordshire, being thv pi 

 contractors. Within the last few yean an iron foundry has been 

 established in the arsenal at Woolwich, from which a few guns are 

 turned out, principally as a check on private manufacturers, and to 

 avoid the necessity of government being wholly dependent on them. 



The usual method of casting iron ordnance is this : A model repre- 

 senting in form, but a little larger than the piece, is mode in *< mil- 

 liard, well-seasoned wood, or else of cast-iron ; the muzzle of the gun, 

 or rather model, is continued for some feet by a solid cylinder, t 

 in the mould the portion for the dead head, a waste poition, v.! 

 afterwards turned off, and is only added to ensure the whole of the 

 metal of the gun being solid and good, and to supply the shrinkage 

 when cooling, which is generally about -08 inch for each foot in length. 

 A jacket or box is employed to form the mould in; this jacket is 

 I into about six parts in its length, each port being again divided 

 into two parts, with flanges on each side, to connect them together l.y 

 screws and nuts. Tbewnould it-elf, which is composed of sand anil 

 clay -water, is made by commencing with the breach, the m< 

 which U placed on a board, and rovernl with charal-dust and 

 clay-water, to prevent its adhering to the mould, the jacket i 

 nicely adjusted at the projirr distance from the model, and the inter- 

 silo* filled by ramming in sand and clay-water; the next piece is 

 then put on, the jacket adjusted and filled as before, and so on till 



