Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/104



is a subject which, though not pleasant in itself, must inevitably have some interest for those who study the food question, as marking the extreme limit of human folly and depravity in the choice of diet. It has of late been brought rather forcibly into public notice by the revelation of the terrible events connected with the Greeley Expedition and the voyage of the yacht Mignonette ; but, as a rule, it is a subject on which people are rather reticent, and in the contemplation of which society does not greatly care to indulge. I confess I think this scruple on the part of our carnivorous friends rather too squeamish and sentimental, for cannibalism is not only a branch of that great ﬂesh-eating system of diet of which they are upholders, but it is beyond doubt the most logical and fully developed realisation of the principles on which that system is based.

Cannibalism, like ordinary flesh-eating, may claim to be a time-honoured institution. We read of cannibals in the history and legendary