{"id":"01KFNR89PB7YDYZZZ27ZABW0GJ","cid":"bafkreifftvxn7v7h2zfhksvmx7ji2ge6tzqqpz7ozq5hg3rhukx367g4ne","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15532,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.766Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 44","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":15474,"text":"harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because\r\nit was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons\r\nand line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish)\r\nacquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards\r\ntook the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took\r\nthe fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.\r\n\r\nA common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might\r\npossibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the\r\nmatter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws\r\npreviously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in\r\nthe above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,\r\nI say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human\r\njurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of\r\nsculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,\r\nhas but two props to stand on.\r\n\r\nIs it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law:\r\nthat is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often\r\npossession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of\r\nRussian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession\r\nis the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s\r\nlast mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble\r\nmansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish?\r\nWhat is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor\r\nWoebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from\r\nstarvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the\r\nArchbishop of Savesoul’s income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread\r\nand cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure\r\nof heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular\r\n£100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary\r\ntowns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer,\r\nJohn Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic\r\nlancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all\r\nthese, is not Possession the whole of the law?\r\n\r\nBut if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the\r\nkindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is\r\ninternationally and universally applicable.\r\n\r\nWhat was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the\r\nSpanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and\r\nmistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What\r\nIndia to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All\r\nLoose-Fish.\r\n\r\nWhat are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but\r\nLoose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is\r\nthe principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the\r\nostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but\r\nLoose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what\r\nare you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.\r\n\r\n“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.”\r\n_Bracton, l. 3, c. 3._\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 44"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84AAHSNQ4BFJ0ASPHB53","peer_label":"76","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84AAHSNQ4BFJ0ASPHB53","peer_label":"76","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR89M6TEGR8NCXPAWF22KQ","peer_label":"Chunk 45","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89RT66VMK21YRBREEEXQ","peer_label":"Chunk 43","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.496Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.687Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}