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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 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 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 1492 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 ? CHAPTER 90 . Heads or Tails . “ De balena vero sufficit , si rex habeat caput , et regina caudam . ” Bracton , l . 3 , 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 King , 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 . Now 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 .
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