"The New Cannibalism"

by: Vis Unita Fortior

Sun Jan 15, 2012 at 23:05:10 PM EST

There was a time when a stranded sailor or a fat missionary was a choice delicacy for barbarians. The human cutlet was a luxury, and was disposed of without asking grace or experiencing the colic. There are certain dark corners yet to be found on the planet where man-flesh is preferred to mutton, but on such depraved appetites civilization takes summary vengeance. It is true that men are to be found who read books and wear shoes, who chew off tke tails of little dogs at the flxed price of twenty-five cents, and in free fights do the same with human noses and ears, but we draw the line against stews or steaks made of babies and adults. There are, however, more ways of making veal of human kind than by cooking it in a pot or pan. Men fatten on each other without the use of a knife and fork, and one needs not to be put on a plate to make a dinner for some of his fellow-citizens. There is nothing carmine in the process, or suggestive of cannibalism as a Samoan would understand it, but it is a fact nevertheless. There is a deal of flesh crowding the modern coat that has come from other men's bones. It has not been carved therefrom, but it has been secured by other means. An octopus never bites what he absorbs, but he makes a bone-rack of his victim just the same. When one man defrauds another of his rights, his property, or his means of paying for his bread and butter, he is adding to his own avoirdupois what should be on another man's bones. When a merchant or manufacturer sacrifices living profits to close out a competitor, and to support his folly reduces the wage of the labor he employes he repeats the cannibal act. A coat sold under cost means a tailor with more to do than to eat, and a shirt sold on the same plan means a seamstress that has to squeeze a teapot for a cup of tea, or to get a loan on a sewing machine to pay her rent. Nor is this process limited to any particular set of people or class of society. It is general and epidemic. Owning a mill or a mine, or nothing but a wheelbarrow, makes no difference in the appetite of man-eating. Sinners in this matter are not lined up in that way. Dirt is never particular as to where it settles. It is a popular but delusive idea that the human buzzard always roosts on one particular branch of the tree. It is not so. There are as many modern man-eaters at one end of the social ladder as at the other. There is no class distinction in the vice that, like a canker, is eating out the heart of society. We prey on each other as one parasite makes a lunch of another. Take the modern craze for bargain-driving as an example. Cheapness is a goddess. Bargains are as honey to the mouth and wine to the lip. Something for nothing is a greater prize than a cluster of bays at an Olympian game. A necktie at less than cost is as precious as the necklace of Cleopatra. A house and lot at half their value has pearly gates and a heavenly charm. A farm on the same conditions is a land of milk and honey. For such bargains as these we hunger, thirst and pray. Everything and anything from a napkin to a rug, a package of pins to a gasoline stove, and from a mouse trap to a piano-if it is to be had for a fraction of its original cost-would empty Noah's Ark on a wet day. Behind all this the spectral procession of under-paid, under-fed and helpless labor. A banquet on the one side and bones on the other. And the average man rubs his hands over his shrewdness and good fortune in getting his tanned boots at half price, a cigar at a sheriff's sale, a mine from a bankrupt, or a machine that is practically given away. Out of this chaos the dust that is blinding us and turning our eyes from the real causes, we devise all sorts of schemes and reforms to protect ourselves from results, and while asking for soap continue to manufacture mud pies. So long as this avarice is rotting the public bone, we shall carry on the grim tragedy of the new cannibalism. FRED WOODROW