486 CANNIBALISM. 



been called into action by education, would find no repugnance in 

 making soup of his slain enemy; and that he would enjoy it, just as 

 we ourselves should enjoy soup made of ox- tail, or of any other 

 carnal ingredient. Probably, had a savage been present at one of 

 our late Crimean battles, whilst he would have condemned the 

 human slaughter (or rather, let us call it, the inhuman slaughter) as 

 wrong and unnecessary in his eyes, he would have yearned for a 

 dish made from the leg of a healthy sergeant newly-slain ; and, if 

 salted swine, in its raw state, with green coffee-berry garniture, had 

 been on the same table, he would have rejected this, and would 

 have made his meal on that. 



We can only come at the true flavour of flesh meat by eating it 

 raw seeing that rich sauces, fire, and cookery, so change the nature 

 and appearance of it, that, after it has undergone the culinary pro- 

 cess, an expert connoisseur in things appertaining to gastronomy 

 would find it a difficult task to know whether he were about to par- 

 take of monkey-pie or human pasty. 



I myself (but not at Walton Hall) have witnessed individuals in 

 genteel life make a hearty meal of pie made of carrion crow, having 

 mistaken it for one of pigeon. In this instance, it was appetite and 

 not prejudice that " ruled the roast " for had the parties been aware 

 of the real nature of the pie, we may take it for granted that it would 

 have been ordered out of the dining-room, abhorred and untouched. 



In my opinion, the veriest savage in existence is conscious that he 

 commits a crime when he kills his fellow-man in what we term cold 

 blood. But in the simple act of eating the flesh of man he does not 

 feel himself culpable, because civilisation has not worked upon his 

 imagination so as to place the act in a repugnant and in a disgusting 

 point of view. 



By the way, this imagination of ours in civilised life is a stern com- 

 mander. We all know that stewed horse is just ag good, nay, some- 

 times much better than stewed cow ; yet such is the general preju- 

 dice, that, in nine cases out of ten, the latter would be eaten with an 

 appetite, whilst the former would be rejected with abhorrence. 



Before I can bring my mind to believe in the existence of canni- 

 balism, such as I have defined it at the commencement of these 

 fugitive notes, I must be convinced that there really does exist a 



