366 
MOBY DICK; OR 
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 engraved 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 admirable 
brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to ex- 
pound 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 waiting it plainly 
evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their in- 
tention so to do. 
These are scientific commentaries ; but the commentaries of the whale- 
men themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks — the 
Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and 
honourable 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 they (plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpoon- 
ing the fish ; but at last, through peril of their lives, were obliged to for- 
sake not only their lines, but their boat itself. — Furthermore, 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. Yet again: — and when those defendants were remon- 
strated 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 
