It is amusing to observe that the kreophagist who, on the one side, regards abstinence from flesh food as an absurd delusion is equally confident that cannibalism, on the other side, is an unpardonable infamy, forgetting that many of the excuses that are made for flesh-eating might be made with as much justice for cannibalism also. "Prejudice is strange," says Professor Flinders Petrie. "A large part of mankind are cannibals, and still more, perhaps all, have been so, including our own forefathers, for Jerome describes the Atticotti, a British tribe, as preferring human flesh to that of cattle.... Does the utilitarian object? Yet one main purpose of the custom is utility; in its best and innocent forms it certainly gives the greatest happiness to the greatest number."[52] Nor can it be held that all cannibals are a specially degraded race, for Livingstone and later travellers quote well-authenticated instances to show that tribes addicted to man-eating are sometimes more advanced, mentally and physically, than those which abstain from such diet; and as to the hygienic merits of the regimen, does it not stand on record, in an old English ballad, that Richard Cœur de Lion was cured of a dangerous malady by eating a Turk's head, which was served up to him as the best substitute for pork? The kreophagist at present is able to pass unlimited censure on the cannibal, because the poor savage has not the wit to argue with the civilised man; but if, in these days of University Extension schemes, such a person as a scientific anthropophagist should ever make his appearance, who can say that the position might not be somewhat reversed? Footnote 52: For interesting facts concerning cannibalism, see Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie's article, _Contemporary Review_, June 1897; "The Fall of the Congo Arabs," by Captain Sidney L. Hinde, 1897; and "The Land of the Pigmies," by Captain Guy Burrows, 1899. VEGETARIAN: Let me introduce you, gentlemen. You are blood-relations, I think, and should have much to say to each other. The Kreophagist—the Anthropophagist. KREOPHAGIST: Good morning, uncle. But I cannot admit the relationship if it is true that you are addicted to the atrocious habit of cannibalism. ANTHROPOPHAGIST: How atrocious, nephew? If you eat one kind of flesh, why should you abstain from another? Are you aware that they are chemically identical? Pig or "long pig"—where is the difference? KREOPHAGIST: Where is the difference? Can you ask me such a question? VEGETARIAN: It is uncommonly like the question you have been asking _me_! ANTHROPOPHAGIST: Your objection to human flesh is altogether a sentimental one. You are a food faddist. It is the universal law of nature that animals should prey on one another. KREOPHAGIST: It is not _my_ nature to eat my fellow-beings. VEGETARIAN: Why, that is the very same answer that I made to _you_!