This is Dickens's account of the controversy over whether the last surviving members of Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition of 1845 carried out cannibalism on their fellows, as reported by a Dr John Rae from one of the many missions sent out to locate them. Dickens is adamant they did not eat human flesh; his arguments are based on the fact that earlier expeditions in similar situations did not do so, but underlying this is an assumption that white Christian Europeans of the upper class simply do not do that sort of thing, unlike the lower classes and non-Christian savages. Disconcerting to hear Dickens argue this and a reminder that despite his huge contribution to the sum of human goodness within Britain, he was also a man of his times. 3/5 ( )