Small Fry

Troy had a Palladium. Diomedes and Ulysses stole it. We know what happened to Troy. Boston had a Palladium, the Sacred Cod. It is or was a pine codfish, four feet eleven and a half inches long, ten inches thick at its thickest, clad in silver. It was a work of the eighteenth century. It hung happily in the old State House till 1793, when it was moved to the House of Representatives in the Bulfinch State House. In 1895, when the House emigrated to a new chamber, four messengers bore it, enfolded in the American flag, to its new home above the Speaker's chair.

That Cod was the pilgrim's pride. It was Commerce. It gave its name to local Aristocracy. It never shivered its timbers in generations of debate. Not New England rum in its prime was dearer or more venerated. For the last thirty-eight years it rested easily on wires. Corinthian columns were near it. Above it were illustrious names, such as Parkman, Motley. Beneath it, of late, has been Speaker Saltonstall. So fortunate a fish wouldn't have swum away of itself. Somebody from the gallery prigged it on Wednesday. The ingenious Cantabrigians of The Lampoon and The CRIMSON were at once suspected. There is talk of a youth carrying a long box with Easter lilies sticking out from one end; of other youths smelling of liquor. But codfish begets thirst. Were these the lads to seek an appetizer? With great acumen the police searched the waters of the Charles River Basin, apparently under the impression that the Sacred Cod had transformed himself into a flying fish and gone for a swim.

Shouldn't the premises of the American Antiquarian Society be investigated, as well as the rooms of eminent private collectors? How do we know that the jealousy of some other city--Worcester, Springfield, Hartford--may not have inspired the crime? So the lovers of old sanctities asked. Whoever did this deed is no common criminal. He has committed sacrilege. He has pillaged a shrine. Not since the mutilation of the Hermae at the other Athens has such an infamy been perpetrated. Friday the Cod was returned. Where is the Codnapper? --New York Times.