الفصل الفصل 25 · 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 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 castor 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!