The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Science
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The rescue of the Greely party of Arctic explorers (a few days too late)
has given the public two extraordinary sensations. The first exciting
incidents were those of the rescue of a party of men who had gone a
few miles nearer to the Pole. We were allowed two weeks of satisfaction
and rejoicing over the rescue and the scientific gains of the Greely
expedition. Then came a sickening revelation of cannibalism among the
starved and dying explorers. The sensational press never seemed so
hateful as it did when it went prying into the horrors of the last
month of that struggle for life. The cap-sheaf was put on indecency
by a pictorial paper which gave a picture of one of the dead men, and
printed under it that, after he was dead his comrades ate his flesh. The
shamelessness of such journalism can not be rebuked; civilized language
has no adequate terms. It is, however, no longer possible to deny that
cannibalism is one of the remote possibilities of Arctic exploration. The
fact may or may not temporarily arrest the efforts to uncover the secrets
of the frozen North. We do not perceive a sufficient reason in the fact.
We know that horrors hang around all histories of such discovery—this
among them. But this is only a more disgusting fact. We know that the
circumpolar battles between man and nature cost human life, rich and
costly life, vast sufferings and cruel disappointments. It would be a
strange thing if the full exposure of a revolting fact which is not new
to the initiated few, should raise a murmur among the many now for the
first time enlightened—a murmur so strong as to restrain governments from
further explorations. We doubt if public opinion can in that way get a
leverage under the scientific enthusiasm and overthrow it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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