The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-22 00:00:00

SALISBURY AND DORSET JUNCTION.

In reply to the statement of the former contractor for this
line, which appeared in The Sun of yesterday, Mr. Horn, the
secretary of the company, states that the former contractor
for the line failed to carry on the works in September last,
and that notwithstanding the forbearance of the directors
during more than two months was unable to start them
again ; that the engineer's certificates were given with a
liberal spirit, and included payment not only for all work
done, but for materials on the ground, which materials were
several times taken in execution by creditors, and released
by them on proof that they were the company's property ;
that the present state of the line (after two months' vigorous
work by the' new contractor) was sufficient contradiction of
the assertion that nearly half the line was road() ; that, In-
stead of a balance being due to the former contractor, he
WU largely indebted to the company for payments in ad-

At the meeting of this society yesterday evening
-the president, Mr. Lubbock, in the chair—a long
and interesting paper, communicated by Mr. John
Crawfurd, was read "On the History of Cannibalism
in reference to Social Progress." The author of the
paper assumed the antiquity of (man to have been
coeval with the extinct elephant, cave bear, and other
animals, with the bones of which flint implements
have been found mingled in recent geological de-
posits. In that original state of existence he also
assumed man to have been but little raised from a
state of savage life above the lower animals, his only
superiority consisting in the possession of a pair of
hands and of a superior brain, the powers of which
were undeveloped. He had not constructed a lan-
guage, and his speech, like that of the lower animals,
consisted of interjections only. He had not acquired
the art of kindling a fire, and his only weapon was
a club—the branch of a tree torn off by the wind.
In this feeble and almost helpless state of his exist-
ence his food would, of necessity, consist of raw flesh
derived from the dead carcases of beasts, birds, and
fishes, assisted on the sea coast by shell-fish and sea
weeds, and in a few favoured•localities:by wild fruits.
He was utterly naked. In that state of the world
the wild animals would be more abundant and tame,
aud there would be no deficiency of food. But as
man increased in numbers and the animals on which
he fed became fewer aud more difficult to capture,
his ingenuity would necessarily be stimulated to the
invention of new means of procuring food. Then
would be invented the weapon pointed with bone or
stone, the bow and arrow, the blow-pipe for dis-
charging arrows or pellets, the bone fish-hook,
the net, and eventually the canoe, with the
stone axe and knife for their fabrication. Men then
clothed themselves in the skins of the wild beasts,
the flesh of which they had devoured, and in this
stage a language would be formed, and the art of
kindling a fire discovered. This was the stone age,
and that in which he imagined that cannibalism be-
gan. In the struggle for existence, neighbouring
tribes would necessarily live in a state of hostility.
Their wars would be about hunting and fishing
grounds, and the carnivorous savage who lived ex-
clusively on flesh would draw no nice distinction
between that of the lower animals and that of his
enemies when this indulgence gratified at once his
revenge and appeased his hunger. Chntiibalism, in
short; would be established. Mr. Crawford then
proceeded to cite authorities of historians and of
various travellers to different parts of the globe to
confirm his views, that all men in the progress from
the condition of a savage to that of a civilised being
became cannibals, and that as the arts increased and
the means of obtaining food of various kinds were
more abundant, then the practice of eating human
flesh was discontinued. The conclusions at which
he arrived from an extended view of the progress o
savage nations and from the present condition o:

many savage tribes now living in various countries
were as follow :

" Of the first stage, or of man's condition when
he first appeared on earth, with faculties as yet un-
developed by necessity, we can, of course, produce
no examples ; but what it must necessarily have
been is obvious. He was more naked than the beasts
of the field, and in this respect came only to be on
an equality with them after he had robbed them of
their clothing. His food consisted of raw flesh or of

raw fish cast dead on the shore. To this he added
a few wild roots and fruits, also eaten raw. His
dwellings consisted of caves and the hollows of old
trees. In this matter, therefore, he was only on a
parity with the bear and the opossum, but far worse
accommodated than the beaver, or even the fox and
hyena. So must, in the beginning, have lived the
first parents of all the races of man. • The second
stage of man's progress was produced by in-
crease of his own numbers, decrease in the number
of the lower animals which furnished him with food,
or increase in the difficulty of capturing his prey.
The superior qualities of his brain were now called
into exercise to enable him to surmount these ob-

etaeles. Then were invented implements of stone
and bone, with fire to produce warmth in aid of
scarcity of clothing first, and eventually to render
esculent, by cooking, articles that were_ uneatable

without it. This was the first period of the stone

age, that in which man lived almost exclusively by

hunting and fishing. In this stage of difficult' sub-
sistence, and rancorous hatred of one tribe to an-
other contending for food, most probably began the
practice of eating one another's flesh. In the third
stage, the implements still of bone or stone, there
were probably added the net and the canoe, and a
few plants began to be cultivated, and in some places
a few animals to be domesticated. This was found
to be the state of society in the two great islands of
Hispaniola and Cuba, among the Antilles, when
first discovered, and of several of the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, in some of which cannibalism had
ceased, while it was continued in others. In Asia
and its islands we have no example of a people in
the stage just named, and we are only assured of
its once having existed in Europe through the dis-
co

Teries of modern science. The pile-builders of the
Swiss lakes appear to have been exactly in this

stage. They lived chiefly on game, fish, and wild
fruit, but they seem also to have domesticated the

goat, the sheep, the dog, the hog, and the ox, while
they cultivated wheat and barley. Neither they nor
their immediate predecessors can be shown to have
been cannibals, but the great probability is that both
were so, unless they differed wholly from other races
of man in other regions that are satisfactorily shown
to have been so. In the lowest stage of the
same category must be included the ancient Cale-
donians of Caithness, as their character is exhi-
bited by the curious and instructive discoveries of
Mr. Laing. The fourth and last period com-
mences with the discovery of the metals, bronze
and iron, and their substitution for bone and stone.
statecannibalism f
society in France, Germany, Spain, and the most
civilised part of Britain 2,000
had ceased, but human sacrifices continuedanci inl
France and Britain to a hideous extent.o the flesh of
With the
exception that they did not partake
their victims, the ancestors of most of the present
are now the Bataks of Sumwaetrrae,inantdhethsaempeasytkste asof
civilised nations of Europe
Borneo, due allowance being made for the vast supe-

been general. No animals eat their own species,
and the same instinct that is implanted in the lower

animals would prevent even savage men from eat-

ing their fellows except from necessity, or from some

perversion of their natural feelings.
The PRESIDENT defended the ancient inhabitants
of the Swiss lakes from the charge of being canni-
bals, for none of the human bones found in the

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lacustrine deposits indicated that the flesh had been

used as food:

Mr. GALTON and-Mr. NASH also dissented from
some of the views taken by Mr. Crawfurd, who
replied generally to the remarks on his paper, and
the meeting adjourned.