Many readers have been inclined to doubt the frightful account
recently published by Mr. S. St. John of the revival of cannibalism in Hayti, but a narrative just received from the West Coast of Africa shows that the practice exists in our own territories. Captain Barnett, District Commissioner in Cape Coast Castle, recently found it necessary to suppress a riot in the interior by force, and finding that it was fomented by a native priest, ordered the fetish-house to be entered. He there found portions of two human bodies baking in a large brass . pan, their owners having evidently been murdered by blows which crushed-in their skulls. Vaudouism, which now rages in Hayti, is, in fact, an old African creed, and its priests hold cannibalism necessary to their rites. The crime will, of course, be summarily put down in Cape Coast Castle ; and we think it will be found that the plea of religion, which is a better plea than that of hunger, will not be admitted.
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