Cannibalism undoubtedly originated amid over-crowded populations in some pre-historic age. Among moderns (civilized and savage) it merely exists as a survival of social conditions which have long since passed away. At some former era of the world’s profoundly mysterious history, men-animals increased in swarming myriads as they are doing now; until at last on the surface of the soil there was scarcely standing room for all. Then the air became laden with the reeking effluvia of their strumous bodies, leprosy, poisoning the wells and rivers, and transforming Babylons into charnel houses and tombs. The rearing of tame cattle for food in such an environment, probably became too expensive and cumbersome. Perhaps even the cattle would also be swept away by some blight or rinderpest. Under such horrible circumstances, survivors might from necessity resort to anthropophagy. Gradually the new habit would grow upon them and become a settled custom.

The segmental fragments of pre-historic civilizations are — the Cannibal Savages of to-day — the savages that we are displacing, pushing aside in order that we may enslave them and repeat over again the same weary old round of growth, power and decay.

Shiploads of dead soldiers, dug out of old battle-fields, possess a regular commercial value. They are imported into England, to be chemically treated and manufactured into fertilizers for enriching exhausted wheat fields. Human hair commands a steady sale, and “cadavers” may be bought for dissection, in any great city for a dollar, C.O.D.

The tanning of human skins for glove-making and book-binding (Meudon!) is an old established industry.

The transfusion of blood from animals into human veins, and from healthy humans into unhealthy ones (for a price), is regularly practiced by medical men. The grafting of flesh, bone, and skin, has also been successfully performed.

American sheriffs and detectives hunt down tramps and criminals with specially trained bloodhounds, just as Russians hunt wolves, and sheepfarmers hunt coyotes and dingos. It is nowise unusual for Negros to be first captured, then chained to a stake, flayed alive, soaked in kerosene, and burnt to death amid exultant shrieks of corybantic delight.

Roman Senators fattened their lampreys and eels upon the drowned bodies of old worn out slaves, and patrician maids and matrons (with uplifted thumb) sent many a gladiator to kingdom come. For innate cruelty of deed, no animal can surpass woman.

In Mohammedan Europe, boys are unsexed by the lancet, that they may thereafter be more safely employed as harem-attendants and in Christian Europe “eunuchs are made and trained and priced, to sing the praise of a risen Christ.”

Young girls are nightly bought and sold for currency, like horses and hogs, at the street corners: and upon the profits of licensed polyandry “pillars of the church” become millionaires. Even the salaries of fulminating evangelists are paid out of Rahab’s rent.

Baths of human blood are not unknown to students of history: and Jack the Ripper, with his letters written in harlots’ blood; enclosing pieces of fried woman’s liver to the London Chief of Police, is certainly not a fabulous ancient legend.

Is this the record of a breed of “dearly beloved brethren”? What hollow mockery these holy phrases are, to be sure? — The Brotherhood of man! Ha!Ha! The Brotherhood of Devils rather!

Allegorically speaking the clothes we wear — the houses we live in — the food we eat — the books we read, have been carved (by force) out of other men’s bones and flesh. Literally they are the hides, sinews, flesh, pulp, and outer woolen covering of captive animals, transmuted by human slavery into garments, lumber, implements, thoughts, shoes, and daily dinners. Indeed man’s tushes are against all other animate beings whatsoever; and in turn, their fangs are against him. So it goes on, and on, and on, as merrily as marriage bells. Viæ Victus! And behold, it is good! This world is no Nirvana, where peaceful pleasure flows. It is a gruesome butcher-shop, where slain men hang in rows.

From the scientific point of view, it is but a single step from the eating of captive cattle, horses, sheep, hares, rabbits, deer, hogs, etc. to the eating of captive men.

It may grate upon unstrung nerves to be harshly told these gruesome facts in straight language. However, calm sensible readers must unreservedly admit that Man is not a pretty, harmless little cherub; not even a “lamb,” but the fiercest of all the vertebrates. He is the fighting, roving, pillaging, lusting, cannibalistic animal, par excellence — the King of the Great Carnivore. When he takes his walks abroad, the “wild beasts” of the field and the birds of the air, even the most courageous of them, are stricken dumb. Shuddering they fly from his shadow (or his odor down the wind) hiding in trembling and quaking with terror.

It is man’s destructive energy — not his altruism; that makes him absolute monarch of all he surveys; and yet, how feeble he is if compared to the powers of Nature that gave him being? No other beast will stand and face him, except it cannot run away — not even a snake, a tiger, or a wolf.

Structurally, men are fashioned for purposes of inflicting and suffering pain. Every human anatomy is an elaborate nerve and bone infernal machine — a kind of breathing, perambulating Juggernaut — a superb engine of lethal immolation that automatically stokes its furnace fires with its victims.

Men rush upon each other (or upon their prey) with hoarse war-shouts and bloodshot eyes, as prowling beasts of the deserts and jungles do. Man banquets upon his quarry with greediness, snarling, and growling with ferocious triumphant delight, just like unto wolves: but he loves to act the hypocrite — turn up the whites of his protesting eyes to ‘heaven’ — weep crocodile tears over his mangled, bleeding, and palpitating carrion. How exultantly he lilts his Te Deum, his Kyrie Eleison, his Et in terra pax, his Glorias, and his Alleluia’s; while with blood-clotted jaw and distended paunch he licks his gaping wounds?

As the painted Redskin chants his vengeful ghost-song; so the furious Paleface whoops his double-leaded editorial. As the hungry lion roars at midnight o African karoo, or in Himalayan jungle; so the piratical Anglo-Tueton roars his ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ his Brittania Rules the Waves,’ or his ‘Watch by the Rhine.’ Exactly as the Moslem fanatic yells “Allah Akbar,” while slicing up hated “Christian dogs,” so the vicious Englishman thunders forth his “Hip, Hip, Hurrah!” while driving and elegant bayonet-dagger into the liver of “wicked heathens;” whose property he thereafter annexes — as a matter of course; for “business is business, don’t you know.”

Man’s anatomy, external and internal; his eyes, his teeth, his muscles, his blood, his viscera, his brain, his vertebra; all speak of fighting, passion, aggressiveness, violence, and prideful egoism.

Even the component elements of a human body are themselves in a constant state of internecine warfare. Our bony framework and pulsating tissues, are vast campaigning grounds; whereon microscopical animal-culæ in countless myriads, fight out their ephemeral lives, as we ourselves do — with tooth and claw. When one swarm of microbes, germs, or spores, conquer (in the struggle for sustenance) disease, or death supervenes to us, as the case may be. When rival hosts vanquish, then our flesh, nerves, bones, and blood become their happy hunting grounds, and our health returns — at least until the bacilli-battalions have finally eaten us out: or they have been, themselves, conquered and exterminated by fiercer swarms.

It is not improbable that this earth itself is a living breathing organism and that the Tribes of Man are microbes and bloodsucking vermin (on its outer cuticle) imagining themselves “the whole thing.” Just as itch-creating parasites burrow into our own hide, so (in our turn) we may be unpleasant parasites, burrowing in the hide of some nobler and grander Being.