"In China It Occurs Sometimes That The
Governor Of A Province Revolts From His Duty To The Emperor.
In such a
case he is slaughtered and eaten.
In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of
all men who are executed by the sword." Dr. Rennie mentions a
superstitious practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he
has himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some
such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed a
relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to have
prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith balls are
steeped in the blood, and under the name of blood-bread are sold as a
medicine for consumption. It is only to the blood of decapitated
criminals that any such healing power is attributed. It has been asserted
in the annals of the Propagation de la Foi that the Chinese executioners
of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th
February), were seen to eat the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a
missionary in the Yun-nan province, recounts a case of cannibalism which
he witnessed. Bishop Chauveau, at Ta Ts'ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he
had seen men in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains
of a celebrated robber who had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of
Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy and
Swatau.
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