"
Now we are very anxious not to be misunderstood by our readers. In
writing this paper, we do not mean to urge the reintroduction of
Cannibalism among us at once. The public mind may not yet be ripe for
it; but we desire to assist in placing the subject in its proper light,
and in showing that an enlightened impartiality can find very much in
defence of the Fijians,--more, indeed, than the Rev. Mr. Froude has been
able to accumulate in favor of his wife-devouring hero,--or than Mr.
Spratt can say in favor of humanization in general, and the breaking-up
of the Union in particular, by the reopening of the African
slave-trade,--or than our venerable chief-justice has contrived to say
in favor of reintroducing slavery in conquered territory, where positive
law had abolished or excluded it, by the abstract Constitution itself,
_proprio vigore_, (not quite unlike a wagoner, it seems to us, that
carries the soil of distant parts, _ipsa adhesione_, as it sticks to
his boots, into the tavern-room,) without special law, which even the
ancient civilians very stupidly declared to be necessary.
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