CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 295 



I was bewildered beyond description, I did not doubt his word ; I could not 

 question a single item in a statement so stamped with the earnestness of truth as 

 his ; but its dreadful details overpowered me, and threw my thoughts into hopeless 

 confusion. I saw the conductor looking at me. I said, " Who is that man ?" 

 . " He was a member of Congress once, and a good one. But he got caught in a 

 snowdrift in the cars, and like to been starved to death. He got so frost-bitten 

 and frozen up generally, and used up for want of something to eat, that he was sick 

 and out of his head two or three months afterwards. He is all right now, only he 

 is a monomaniac, and when he gets on that old subject he never stops till he has 

 eat up that whole car-load of people he talks about. He would have finished the 

 crowd by this time, only he had to get out here. He has got their names as pat as 

 A, B, C. When he gets them all eat up but himself, he always says : — ' Then the 

 hour for the usual election for breakfast having arrived, and there being no oppo- 

 sition, I was duly elected, after which, there being no objections offered, I resigned. 

 Thus I am here.' " 



I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been listening to the harm- 

 less vagaries of a madman instead of the genuine experiences of a bloodthirsty 

 cannibal. 



