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.. < chapter lxxxix 2  FAST-FISH AND LOOSE-FISH >

     The allusion to the waifs
and waif-poles in the last chapter but one, necessitates some account of the
laws and regulations of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed
the grand symbol and badge.  It frequently happens that when several ships are
cruising in company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and
be finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly
comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature.
For example, --after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the
body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting
far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly
tows it alongside, without risk of life or line.  Thus the most vexatious and
violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some
written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was
that of Holland.  It was decreed by the States-General in A. D.
.  But
though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American
fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter.  They
have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's
Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of
Meddling with other People's Business.  Yes; these laws might be engraven on a
Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so
small are they.  I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.  II.  A
Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.  But what plays
the mischief with this masterly code is the
.. <p 394 >
admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to
expound it.  First: What is a Fast-Fish?  Alive or dead a fish is technically
fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at
all controllable by the occupant or occupants, -- a mast, an oar, a nine-inch
cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same.  Likewise
a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognised
symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly evince their
ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to
do.  These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen
themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks --the
Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist.  True, among the more upright and honorable
whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an
outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale
previously chased or killed by another party.  But others are by no means so
scrupulous.  Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover
litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard
chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs)
had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of
their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself.

     Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale,
struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of
the plaintiffs.  And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their
captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by
way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line,
harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of
the seizure.  Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value
of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.  Mr. Erskine was counsel for the
defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the judge.  In the course of the defence,
the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent

     crim.  con.  case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his
wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon
.. <p 395 >
the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he
instituted an action to recover possession of her.  Erskine was on the other
side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had
originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason
of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had as last abandoned her;
yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when
a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent
gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found
sticking in her.  Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples
of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.  These
pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned judge
in set terms decided, to wit, --That as for the boat, he awarded it to the
plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but
that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged

     to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the
final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with
them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody
who afterwards took the fish had a right to them.  Now the defendants
afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.  A common
man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object
to it.  But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great
principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied
and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws
touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the
fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; For notwithstanding its complicated
tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the
Philistines, has but two props to stand on.  Is it not a saying in every one's
mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing
came into possession?  But often possession is the whole of the law.  What are
the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves
.. <p 396 >
but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law?  What to the
rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish?  What is yonder
undetected villain's marble mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is
that but a Fast-Fish?  What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker,
gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family
from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish?  What is the
archbishop of Savesoul's income of 100,000 pounds seized from the scant bread
and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of
heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular 100,000 but a
Fast-Fish?  What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but
Fast-Fish?  What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland,
but a Fast-Fish?  What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas
but a Fast-Fish?  And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of
the law?  But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.  That is
internationally and universally applicable.  What was America in

     but a
loose-fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing
it for his royal master and mistress?  What was Poland to the Czar?  What
Greece to the Turk?  What India to England?  What at last will Mexico be to
the United States?  All Loose-Fish.  What are the Rights of Man and the
Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish?  What all men's minds and opinions but

     Loose-Fish?  What is the principle of religious belief in them but a
Loose-Fish?  What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of
thinkers but Loose-Fish?  What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish?
And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
.. <p 397 >