7 6z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Till very recent times the people of Ispahan celebrated what 

 they called the festival of the camel, or of the sacrifice of Abra- 

 ham. The high priest of Mecca sent his adopted son, mounted on 

 a blessed camel, which was led through the city with great pomp. 

 At a given moment the king shot an arrow into its flanks ; in a 

 wink the poor animal was thrown down, hacked to pieces, carried 

 off, and distributed widely. Every one wished for some of it, if 

 it were only the smallest fragment, to be put into a kettle of rice. 

 The Ghilicks and the Ainos adopted a bear, and fed it freely till the 

 day of the public festival, when the people struggled for pieces of it. 



Sometimes, in these criminal festivals, the public only plays 

 the part of a spectator. It does not itself kill the victims, but 

 only witnesses the slaughter, the bloodshed, which executioners 

 are commissioned to perform. In Etruscan funerals the relatives 

 of the deceased caused a convict to be publicly tormented : some- 

 times they blindfolded him and gave him a stick ; then the execu- 

 tioners excited dogs against him, and the unfortunate victim had 

 to defend himself with his stick. Such spectacles, which seem to 

 have been amusing to the populace, are represented in many 

 Etruscan paintings. The shows of gladiators at Rome, fights of 

 gladiators with one another, and of gladiators with wild beasts, 

 were simply transformations of the funeral sacrifices of the Etrus- 

 cans, but more ferocious, for they generally ended in the death of 

 a large number of men. The passive Roman people had such a 

 passion for these games that they became a means of political 

 domination ; parties sought to secure the votes of the populace by 

 giving them spectacles in which large numbers of men and beasts 

 were killed. 



In ancient Mexico, where crime was punished very severely, 

 and was pursued with much energy, an immense throng came to- 

 gether every year to witness the numerous and terrible human 

 sacrifices in honor of the god Huitzilopochtli. The spectacle, with 

 its atrocious cruelties, was a source of delight to a people among 

 whom intoxication, theft, and murder were punished with death, 

 and who possessed a remarkable political organization and civili- 

 zation. This transformation of the populace into spectators was, 

 without doubt, an advance ; but it is nevertheless surprising that 

 such ceremonies should have been tolerated among peoples so 

 civilized. 



We see, therefore, that collective crime has opposed a greater 

 resistance than individual crime to the progress of civilization. 

 But why have these criminal festivals endured so long, while in- 

 dividual customs have been undergoing transformation ? " The 

 axiom, the whole is the sum of its parts, does not apply to multi- 

 tudes," writes M. Reclus. M. Sighele has brought a large number 

 of proofs to the demonstration of this precept that is, that the 



