{"id":"01KJNXJV7FEH874SVN4BQEKS4D","cid":"bafkreigosu2ptppcy6kewsgtzb4p76omveaf2agpmpvtuwozbmk4vxzhiu","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":880790,"char_start":872897,"chunk_index":123,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1974,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to\r\nwife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though\r\nshe keeps so many moody secrets.\r\n\r\nThe schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously\r\nmentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while\r\nthose female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or\r\nforty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious\r\nof all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter;\r\nexcepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met,\r\nand these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.\r\n\r\nThe Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a\r\nmob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness,\r\ntumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no\r\nprudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous\r\nlad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though,\r\nand when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about\r\nin quest of settlements, that is, harems.\r\n\r\nAnother point of difference between the male and female schools is\r\nstill more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a\r\nForty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a\r\nmember of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with\r\nevery token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as\r\nthemselves to fall a prey.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.\r\n\r\nThe allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one,\r\nnecessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale\r\nfishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.\r\n\r\nIt frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company,\r\na whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed\r\nand captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised\r\nmany minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For\r\nexample,—after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the\r\nbody may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and\r\ndrifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a\r\ncalm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the\r\nmost vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the\r\nfishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal,\r\nundisputed law applicable to all cases.\r\n\r\nPerhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative\r\nenactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in\r\nA.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling\r\nlaw, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and\r\nlawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse\r\ncomprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the\r\nChinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s\r\nBusiness. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne’s farthing,\r\nor the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.\r\n\r\nI. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.\r\n\r\nII. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.\r\n\r\nBut what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable\r\nbrevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to\r\nexpound it.\r\n\r\nFirst: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast,\r\nwhen it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at\r\nall controllable by the occupant or occupants,—a mast, an oar, a\r\nnine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the\r\nsame. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any\r\nother recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it\r\nplainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well\r\nas their intention so to do.\r\n\r\nThese are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen\r\nthemselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks—the\r\nCoke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and\r\nhonorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where\r\nit would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim\r\npossession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But\r\nothers are by no means so scrupulous.\r\n\r\nSome fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated\r\nin England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of\r\na whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had\r\nsucceeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of\r\ntheir lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat\r\nitself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up\r\nwith the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it\r\nbefore the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were\r\nremonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’\r\nteeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had\r\ndone, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had\r\nremained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore\r\nthe plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale,\r\nline, harpoons, and boat.\r\n\r\nMr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the\r\njudge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to\r\nillustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case,\r\nwherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife’s\r\nviciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in\r\nthe course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to\r\nrecover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then\r\nsupported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally\r\nharpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of\r\nthe great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned\r\nher; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and\r\ntherefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then\r\nbecame that subsequent gentleman’s property, along with whatever\r\nharpoon might have been found sticking in her.\r\n\r\nNow in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the\r\nwhale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.\r\n\r\nThese pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very\r\nlearned judge in set terms decided, to wit,—That as for the boat, he\r\nawarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to\r\nsave their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale,\r\nharpoons, 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."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.087Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.087Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}