The National tribune., 1884-08-21
THE ARCTIC SENSATION.

1
THE ARCTIC SENSATION.
The prevailing feeling in the minds of all
sensible men and women in regard to the
Greely expedition revelations is that of pro-
found disgust. That is, not disgust with any
thing which the Greely party was compelled to
do, but disgust at the obscene harpies who insist
upon bringing every shocking detail to light,
to be gloated over, magnifed and distorted
into the utmost responsiveness that it viii bear
What hyena-mind man must have who will
insist that the friends of those who died in the
eternal ice of the far north shall have their
bodies exhumed and submitted to medical ex-
animation TO determine whether they have
furnished food for their surviving companions !
Is it not enough that these men have
died after appalling suffering? Is it not
enough that the hearts of their friends
and families bleed at every pore over their
loss, and the horrible manner in which it was
brought about? 1t is the coarsest brutality to
force them TO know things which must add
enormously to the grief they feel To talk
about being compelled to do this in the interest
of truth is the most intolerable bosh. There
is no truth connected with the polar expedition
that requires to be vindicated by forcing the
knowledge upon the family of Lieut.. Kisling
were delivered to them were only few bones,
from which the greater part of the flesh had
been stripped to furnish food for his starving
comrades, and that he himself had eaten his
comrades flesh before he died. What ghoul
that would be who would come to us after we
had laid dearly beloved child, wife or sister
IN the grave, with an exact and circumstantial
account of how corruption had converted the
lovely features into mass of corruption! The
men are no less inhuman scoundreIs who are
forcing the obnoxious details connected with
the Greely expedition upon the public atten-
tion. If any truth were to be served by the
terrible exposure, we should have it at what
ever cost But all the world joins in condemn
ing the revelation of injurious or disagreeable
facts when there is no reason for such revela-
tion
There isno doubt that Private Chas B. Henry
was very properly executed for heinous crime
against the lives of his companions. Nor is there
any doubt that, in the terrible straits for food
to which the party was reduced they ate what
was eatable of the bodies of their comrades
who had died before them There is nothing
in this to be astonished at and certainly moth
ing to cast a shadow of blame upon the surviv-
ors. Henry clearly forfeited his life, and was
treated with extraordinary clemeney He
should have been shot long before he was. Any
afectation of horror at their having eaten
human flesh is mouthing idiocy. When rescued
they were in the very last stages of starvation.
Within few hours every one of them would
have been dead. IF they could have prolonged
their lives halliday by eating the flesh of
their duty to do so. IF the flesh was more
nutritious than the seal-skins and leather boots
to which they did resort, and it undoubtedly
was,-they should have made use of it first.
People who sit down to three abundant meals
a day may talk very slibly of the g horrors of
cannibalism." The same people doubtless think
that the worst punishment visited upon Pri-
vate Henry should have been the ordinary
penalty for petty larceny. But those who
think and talk these absurdities are wholly
incapable of comprehending the desperate in
tensity of the situation. They cannot under
stand the long and bitter fight these brave
young men made for life, nor the effect of such
an awful struggle upon the minds of those who
waged it.
In the minds of reasoning men and women
all that has been told, charged or hinted at
does not detract one iota from the fame of the
devoted men who are now slowly tottering back
to life. On the other hand, it greatly enhances
their laurels, by bringing out with greater
viyidness the frightful sufferings they under
went in their self-imposed mission of widening
the circle of human knowledge.