THE WHITE WHALE 
CHAPTER LXXXIX 
369 
HEADS! OR TAILS! 
“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam ” 
Bracton, l. 8 , c. 3. 
Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with 
the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the 
coast of that land, the Ring, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must 
have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail — 
a division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple ; there is 
no intermediate remainder. How as this law, under a modified form, is 
to this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a 
strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is 
here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle 
that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, 
specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, 
in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in force, 
I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that happened within the 
last two years. 
It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some 
one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing 
and beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off 
from the shore. How the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under 
the Jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. 
Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal emol- 
uments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment 
his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. 
Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his 
perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of 
them. 
How when these poor sunburnt mariners bare-footed and with their 
trousers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat 
fish high and dry, promising themselves a good £150 from the precious 
oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and 
good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares ; 
up steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, 
