CANNIBALISM AMONGST SHIPWRECKED SAILORS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 195, 23 January 1875, Page 3

CANNIBALISM AMONGST SHIPWRECKED SAILORS.

The Daily Telegraph , referring to the arrival at Singapore of a portion of the crew of the Euxine, a British ship burnt at sea, says:—“ One boat’s crew has been rescued, minus one man, who, after being twenty days out, and after five days’ starvation, was killed by his comrades. They cut his throat and drank his blood, aud would have eaten his flesh, but that they were picked up the day after the crime. Nothing has been done to the survivors, and it seems strange that no British community ever does think of punishing outrages of this terrible description. Yet there is no more reason why a man’s throat should be cut because other people want his flesh than it should be cut because other people want his money A man in a city is often as desperate in his circumstances as a shipwrecked sailor on the ocean, and he is prosecuted if he steals a loaf of bread. Again, if Burke and Wills, when dying from starvation, had saved themselves by killing King and feasting upon him, they would undoubtedly have been objects of public execration ; aud how an act which is one of the foulest of crimes on land should be perfectly allowable at sea is very much of a mystery. This toleration of cannibalism is a blot upon the British marine, and everyone who goes down to the sea in ships would feel a sense of relief if it were once made known that the revolting practice would be put down by the strong arm of the law. Men would then know that if the worst came to the worst they would die together as friends, while now, in cases of shipwreck and starvation, they are transformed into wolves, plotting for each other’s blood; they meet death sullied by crime instead of purified by suffering. Sir Andrew Clarke has not seen his way to apprehend the crew of the Euxine, but if our Melbourne authorities even have the painful duty to perform, it may be hoped that they will serve humanity by putting our white cannibals on their trial for the outrage.”