Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/108

Rh for culinary purposes, that it is to be regretted that no enterprising cannibals volunteered to open a department in the late Health Exhibition as a counterpoise to the Vegetarian dining—room, and an encouragement to flesh-eaters in general.

But of late cannibalism has for some reason or other fallen into disrepute, even among those who ought logically to be numbered among its supporters. Its scientific and systematic practice is now relegated to a few barbarous nations, while Europeans, although still addicted in the main to flesh-eating, become cannibals only under the pressure of some great necessity, as in time of siege or shipwreck, and even then the utmost exertions are usually made by the survivors to keep secret the manner in which they preserved their own lives. When the fact became known that cannibalism had been practised by the survivors in the Greeley Expedition, “the public conscience,” as the daily papers informed us, “was inexpressibly pained and shocked at these revelations.” Now, all Food Reformers must necessarily be glad to notice any sign of the existence of a public conscience