Ill Manning's 'Old Neiv Zealand' 345 



things nowadays in England) dealt out to our arctic 

 explorers for the express production of scurvy. Birds 

 he had in plenty, ducks and unsurpassable pigeons ; 

 and yet he has not been able to hold his own. Did 

 the vice of cannibalism give a hint of the existence 

 of some ineradicable source of mischief in him ? No ; 

 for other races, cannibals but the other day, hold 

 their own and more than their own. In spite of 

 kumera and fish and sharks and birds, and in the 

 case of the chiefs, dogs and rats, the Maori was 

 down to our own time a most determined Menschen- 

 fresser. Possibly from the want of some tonic, 

 stimulant, sedative, or arrester of decomposition, he 

 had the most determined longing for flesh ; and so 

 he ate his foes if handy, but never turned up his 

 nose at his friends if well killed and in decent 

 condition. 



It is curious to mark how the most temperate 

 races of the world are apt to burst out in the most 

 unexpected and atrocious manner, to the utter con- 

 fusion of all ' Good Templardom.' I do not by any 

 means advocate intoxication, but I must say that I 

 am sorely puzzled by the fact that absolute sobriety,^ 

 absolute abstinence from any form of sedative or 

 stimulant, in a nation invariably produces infinitely 

 more harm than good in the long run ; and, as I have 

 hinted, the 'abstaining,' non-smoking, non-drinking 



' Are there symptoms of this truth in the extreme intemperance of 

 our own abstainers, and in the ferocity of our Friends, at least as far 

 as utterance goes ? 



