Show cannibalism AT SEA desire to eat humma hamu beings stronger on tb the ocean than on land then it comes to pass when the moment of keenest agony Is reached that the starving man begins to eye his companion with the wolf glare of a beast of prey his pangs become paroxysmal during their greatest intensity there springs up within him a fierce impulse to slay his neighbor that he may teed feed on his flesh and slake his thirst with hla his blood this terrible prompting to cannibalism sm it may be noted Is however rare save in cases of famine from shipwreck I 1 although it is customary to regard it as a common feature of starvation and to make thrilling 7 statements of the frequency with which even mothers will under the goad of hunger kill and eat their children end and though startling assertions I 1 sert ions lond to this effect have been made by historians of great sieges yet it aught to be said that as a general rule well authenticated cases of cannibalism is among civilized people will be found to occur only at sea T they are very vc ry rarely r a rely found on land and what la Is more curious still whenever famished shipwrecked men set toot on shore no matter how desolate and barren may be their rock of refuge they seem as if by magle magic at once to banish from their minds the very idea of or manlea man eating ting and that too though they might have been resignedly contemplating te tem mp it as an all imperative necessity a few hours before in the case of ensign E prentess Prent las of the eighty fourth regiment and his ca companions pan ions lons who were wrecked on the barren island off cape breton in 1780 tile the difference between famine on shore and on sea Is curiously exemplified pren ales records that they were able to endure the most tearful fearful pangs pan ga of hunger without over so BO much as a thought of resorting to cannibalism tor for relief so long however and only so long as they kept on land but when they toof too to their boats and it was not once merely that they experienced this in order cider to escape from their rockbound rock bound bod prison though they were not a whit worse eoff off for food than they were on land yet the moment they put to sea with one ac ard they began to think of killing and eating on one e of their number on the other ether hand band when the they y found their attempt to escape es cape futile and put back to shore whenever they landed the horrible I 1 idea of cap cannibalism seemed to io vanish |