.. < chapter xxv 27  POSTSCRIPT >


     In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I

would fain advance naught but substantiated facts.  But after embattling his

facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable

.. <p 111 >

surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause --such an advocate, would

he not be blameworthy?  It is well known that at the coronation of kings and

queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for

their functions is gone through.  There is a saltcellar of state, so called,

and there may be a caster of state.  How they use the salt, precisely --who

knows?  Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his

coronation, even as a head of salad.  Can it be, though, that they anoint it

with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery?  Much

might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal

process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a

fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.  In truth,


     a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got

a quoggy spot in him somewhere.  As a general rule, he can't amount to much in


     his totality.  But the only thing to be considered here, is this --what kind

of oil is used at coronations?  Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar

oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.  What

then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted

state, the sweetest of all oils?  Think of that, ye loyal Britons!  we

whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!

.. <p 111 >