DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



flaying of a fat Dog ; upon which I asked the Mandaryn, 

 Wherefore that was done ? Who answered, That it was a 

 healthful sort of food, especially in Summer, it being very 

 cooling." He remarks of the Tungus tribes that they eat 

 cats and dogs, and figures the butchering of these animals 

 near their tents, stating that " Very few of them are found 

 without several dead young Dogs hanging near them." He 

 also figures the Tungus trial by ordeal, which is described as 

 follows : " The Waywode asked the Accuser if he would, 

 according to the Tunguzian Custom, put the Accused to his 

 Oath ? To this he answered in the Affirmative ; after which 

 the accused took a live Dog, laid him on the Ground, and with 

 a knife stuck him in the Body, just under his left Foot, and 

 immediately clapped his Mouth to the Wound, and sucked out 

 the Dog's Blood so long as he could come at it ; after which 

 he lifted him up, laid him on his shoulders, and clapp'd his 

 Mouth again to the Wound in order to suck out the remaining 

 Blood. An excellent drink indeed." 



In a work dating from the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century we read : 



" We will not attempt, in a spirit of false delicacy, to conceal 

 the fact that the lower class in China is in the habit of eating 

 the flesh of the dog, the cat, the rat, etc. 



" But that which must be more astonishing is that according 

 to tradition and the witness of the learned, it appears that the 

 Chinese actually classed ass and dog-flesh as butcher's meat at 

 a period in which, as its population was numerically moderate, 

 means of subsistence could not have been scarce. This was a 

 difficulty which, for a considerable period, embarrassed Pere 

 Cibot, who spared no research in his endeavours to elucidate 

 the point. At last he discovered in a celebrated work written 

 for the instruction of the princes of the Imperial Family, that 

 in ancient days three kinds of dogs were distinguished : the 



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