THE CANNIBALS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7912, 28 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CANNIBALS.

(From tho London “Daily Mail.”) What was onco a mere rumour, and now’ is an ascertained fact, that the Germans are converting the bodies of soldiers who have died for their country into the material of war and food lor pigs, has stirred the conscience of the civilised world. In xvar, as in peace, all men deserve decent burial. And what ceremony should be too solemn for those who have tlacrificed their lives in what they believe a just causle? The Germans, outside the pale of Christian hopes, profess as little respect for the dead as for the living, and think that an ounce of nitro-glycerine or a full pig-tub is of greater value than the dignity of man or reverence for tho dead. Thus horror is piled upon horror, outrage upon outrage. Nor, indeed, at this hour need we profess the smallest surprise. The gallant soldiers who think it just and proper to sink hospital ships and to torture poor, helpless pristoners might be expected to insult their dead by wringing a pitiful profit from their flesh and bones. A company, with capital of a quarter of a million, is assured of a handsome return, and there is no trade too degraded for the greed of a German. An excellent, witty idea, is it not? —the by-products of dead soldiers ! We ealn imagine the cunning satisfaction of the portly chemists who devised the plan and who made it pay, and perhaps when defeat has overtaken tho horde of barbarians it will not matter much to them that they have given tho civilised world one more reason u> cast them out from the society of nations. VILE HUN CYNICISM. That the Germans still retained the habits) of the cannibal, to be sure, Was unknown to us. We knejw that they ' had practised the vile and savage habit as late as the seventeenth century, i when tho Prussians stalked one another in their native forests, prompted not by an heroic lust of battle but by hunger and an empty p-ot. But to-d'ay tliev have improved stealthily upon the ancient practice. They are cannibals at one remove. They have not yet, as far a» wo know, descended to making their dinner off their own kind. They aire content to eat the pigs and the chickens which their dead comrade? have fattened. But in all essentials they are cannibals, gorging upon men of their own tribe. And herein they prove themselves worse than the worst of savages, who, even though they harbour no superstition against the consumption of human flesh, refuse in horror to feed upon those who share their totem. \»o have heard in the past many paeans sung in praise of German science. Statesmen fresh from the flattery of Berlin, their spiritual home, have told us that there were maiyv lessons which we might learn from the chemists of Germany. We were falling behind in the race, it was -biaid, because our professors were not equal to the State-fed teachers of Berlin and Leipzig. We were admonished to take the splendid example of efficiency which they set us, if we would keep our Empire alive. And now we see to what climax of infamy the prostitution of sicenco has carried the Boc-hes. They have taught, themselves how to extract food from the dead, how.Jo make the poor, dad remnants of wliht were once soldiers into oil and fat and food for swine. And thus they go round and round in a vicious circle of shame; the pigs eat them, and their comrades eat tho pigs. Of what advantage, indeed, is knowledge if it be unchecked by the scruples of religion, and teaches men no bettor lessons) than the lessons of shamelessness and irreverence? Bf/ their vile cynicism tho Gormans have separated themselves from the civilised world, and it will need no preaching after the waa* to persuade us never again to give our hand in friendship to a race of white cannibals. When peace is signed, and the Bodies attempt once more to trade and chaffer with ml, we shall remember only how they treated their dead, and resolve that with such monsters even the plain processes of buying and selling are impossible. What have we to do with the were-wolveg of these days, with the ghouls who despoil graveyards, with tlie rasclg. whose bodies are inhabited with the souls of hyenas ? A GERMAN ANTIGONE. With what disgust the civilised would regajrds the Germans is now evident. We are presented with a concrete case of cannibalism which icannot be explained away. And what will the German women themselves think of this abasement of a vwunted science when it comes to their ears? We have full knowledge of their effrontery, of their hardness of heart. The,-/ have shown themselves like the nether mill-stone to the weak and suffering. But even they will hardly hear with equanimity that their sons amd husbands, dead upon the battle-field, are food not for kites' but for pigs, or serve the gups, which failed to defend them, with high explosives. Wo are told that the women of Germany a»re kept sternly in their places, that* they are deemed not fit to think or learn, but to work. And in the prut tliev may have been subject to the harsh, inexorable, uwhivairic law of the State. To-djyv, however, they are put to so rude a test as no women have ever been asked to face, alnd they will be inhuman, like their masters, if they do not rise in fierce indignation and dlemand that those who liPive bled and died for them shall receive alfter death the honour of decent buri'r.l and the rites 'which are due to heroes. According to the Greek legend, Antigone was buried alive because she dared, in defiance of Ibo tyrant, to perform the rites duo to her dead brother. Is there no Antigone in Germany who will demand for the ch' (1 the respect which is their right? If there be not, if there be no protest beard against the last shame of the Huns, then is the nation involved in a common, inexpiable disgrace. For us it remains to say that we can no morn enfsilv make nence with these ghouls thro we would" with tho head-hunter; of Borneo. We shall inflict such terms, as we approve, upon them as wo would' upon savages. As tliev have broken all the law,' of war, so tlier halve outraged its decencies Once* it was said to bo sweet and crnicly to die for the Fatherland. The Hups have improved upon the -maxim of Horace. Die for the Fatherland first, they