Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1898 — CANNIBALS’ QUEER ACTS. [ARTICLE]

CANNIBALS’ QUEER ACTS.

statistics in Regard to the Practice of Eating Human Flesh. Manuscript recently discovered in the neighborhood of Cairo gives some interesting Information in regard to cannibalism. For thousands of years the fashion of eating human flesh prevailed In Cairo and the adjoining country. The object, however, was not to satisfy hunger, but rather to honor the d.ead. Only the arms and legs were eaten, and for all we know to the contrary the remaining, portions of the bodies wore treated with becoming reverence.

Taking this established fact as a starting point, Flinders Petrie, the eminent English archeologist, recently sot himself to study the psychology of anthropophagy, and he was soon in possession of several other equally remarkable facts. For example, lie learned that of every hundred persons who eat human flesh twenty do so with the object of honoring the dead as well as of securing their good will,’and thus obtaining for themselves perfect happiness in the next world. Such is the custom of the Thibetans, as well as of the Australian and South American aborigines. The Thibetans were especially wont to hold most impressive religious ceremonies while the cannibalistic feats were going on. The Samoides do not hesitate to eat their parents, and in defence of their conduct they maintain that the dead will thus live more happily and altogether' more comfortably in the* future life. In ancient times certain tribes invariably ate their deceased friends and relatives, as they considered that it would be a monstrous thing to hand them over to the tender mercies of the worms. All cannibals, however, jure not actuated by such unselfish motives. According to a writer ill the Journal des Debates, many cannibals eat human flesh with the object of obtaining direct benefits thereby. Thus we are told that nineteen pier cent, of them eat the most stalwart warriors who fall in battle, with the hope of increasing their own courage and that they also eat dead children, with the object of thus recovering their lost youth. Again, ten p>er cent, eat their nearest relatives through religious motives, since they hope thus to escape the wrath of the gods. Moreover, five per cent, eat human flesh because they ho]re in this manner to piunish those whom they are eating. There is room for much further investigation in this direction, and those who know Mr. Petrie are confident that he will in the near future discover many more equally interesting facts regarding cannibalism.

A landlord’s duty to use reasonable care to protect |the property of his tenant from injury by the elements while repairing a roof or putting on a new one at his request is held, in Wertheimer vs. Saunders tWls.), 37 L: R. A. 146, to be one which he cannot delegate to an independent contractor so as to be relieved from liability if the contractor is negligent