Civilized Hypocrisy
The chapter culminates in exposing the hypocrisy of civilized diners who recoil at whale consumption while engaging in comparable practices. The knife handle used to carve roast beef consists of ox bones, while the teeth picks after goose consumption are crafted from the same bird’s feathers. Even the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders wrote official circulars with goose quill pens until recently switching to steel nibs. These revelations expose the arbitrary boundaries that civilized society draws between acceptable and unacceptable forms of consumption.
第六十六章 The Shark Massacre.
When a captured Sperm Whale is brought alongside late at night after long and weary toil, it is not customary to proceed at once with the business of cutting it in. This laborious process requires all hands and is not quickly completed. The common practice is to take in all sail, lash the helm a’lee, and send everyone below to their hammocks until daylight, with anchor-watches set in rotation to ensure everything remains secure.
Customary delay before cutting in captured sperm whales
The standard procedure involves two crew members keeping watch for an hour at a time in rotation, monitoring the deck through the night until daylight allows the cutting operation to begin. This delay ensures the crew is well-rested before undertaking the exhausting work ahead.
Shark predation risks for moored whale carcasses
However, this delay presents a critical problem in certain waters, particularly along the Line in the Pacific, where enormous numbers of sharks gather around moored whale carcasses. In these waters, a whale left moored for six hours would be reduced to little more than a skeleton by morning, making the usual overnight delay impractical.
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