At the siege of Rochelle it is related that, urged by starvation,
a father and mother dug up the scarcely cold body of their
daughter and ate it. At the siege of Paris by Henry IV the
cemeteries furnished food for the starving. One mother in
imitation of what occurred at the siege of Jerusalem roasted the
limbs of her dead child and died of grief under this revolting
nourishment.
St. Jerome states that he saw Scotchmen in the Roman armies in
Gaul whose regular diet was human flesh, and who had "double
teeth all around."
Cannibalism, according to a prominent New York journal, has been
recently made a special study by the Bureau of Ethnology at
Washington, D.C. Data on the subject have been gathered from all
parts of the world, which are particularly interesting in view of
discoveries pointing to the conclusion that this horrible
practice is far more widespread than was imagined. Stanley claims
that 30,000,000 cannibals dwell in the basin of the Congo
to-day--people who relish human flesh above all other meat.
Perah, the most peculiar form of cannibalism, is found in certain
mountainous districts of northeast Burmah, where there are tribes
that follow a life in all important respects like that of wild
beasts.
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