66 ANIMAL FOOD EESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



its sanity, he consigned it to the town grave-digger, 

 enjoining that functionary to take care of it until fur- 

 ther orders respecting its ultimate fate should be im- 

 parted to him. A few days later, however, Peschka was 

 attacked by hydrophobia, of which horrible malady he 

 died in excruciating agony. The sanitary authorities of 

 Neustadt forthwith applied to the gravedigger for the 

 mad dog committed to his custody, intending to have it 

 destroyed. Their astonishment may be more readily 

 conceived than described when the sexton, in answer to 

 their requisition, calmly observed, ' The mad dog ? I 

 have eaten him ! ' ' You have eaten the mad dog ? ' in- 

 credulously exclaimed a horror-stricken sanitary official. 

 ' Better that than he should eat me ! ' rejoined the philo- 

 sophical grave-digger. It would appear not only that 

 this man of strange appetites had swallowed and digested 

 the rabid animal, but that it had agreed with him ; for, 

 as the story runs, he is still in the enjoyment of robust 

 health, and pursues his professional avocations with 

 unabated vigour." 



In May, 1842, a butcher of Besangon was sentenced 

 by the Tribunal of Correction to three months' im- 

 prisonment for selling dog instead of kid to his cus- 

 tomers. 



How the tastes of men differ ! Forster, in his " Voyage 

 Round the World," thus expresses himself: " In our cold 

 countries, where animal food is so much used, and where 

 to be carnivorous perhaps lies in the nature of man, or 

 is indispensably necessary to the preservation of health 

 and strength, it is strange that there should exist a 

 Jewish aversion to dogs' flesh, when hogs, the most un- 

 clean of all animals, are eaten without scruple. Nature 

 seems to have expressly intended them for this use by 

 making their offspring so very numerous and their in- 

 crease so quick and frequent." 



Mr. Wilson, who quotes the above, adds : " There is 

 no reason why it should not be more extensively prac- 

 tised in Europe. We know, for example, that Captain 

 Cook's recovery from a serious illness at sea, if not 



