Note 721 — Chapter XIX · FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, AND MEDICINE

The influence of fish, wherever important, in commerce is noteworthy. They furnished, as we have seen, designs for a mint or cognomina for Roman Nobles. An interesting and probably very ancient instance occurs in the oath taken this very year (1920) by the Stipendiary Magistrate of Douglas, Isle of Man: “I swear to do justice between party and party, as indifferently as the herring’s backbone doth lie in the midst of the fish.”