198 ALASKA INDUSTEIES. 



1887. 



Special Agent Tingle; annual report for 1887. 



Office of Special Agent Treasury Department, 



St. Paul Island, July 31, 1887. 



Sir : I liave the lioiior to transmit herewith my report for the year 

 ending July 31, 1887, with the steamers' receipts for 100,000 seal skins 

 shipped. 



Statement A,^ inclosed, shows the daily killing of seals for food and 

 by the lessees; Statement B,i the killing on both islands consolidated. 

 It is very gratifying to be able to report almost no loss from seals per- 

 ishing on the drives. Men are sent to follow up the seals and skiu such 

 as perish and bring the skins to the salt houses. The loss in clubbing 

 is also insignificant. This result is owing to greater care being exer- 

 cised by the natives and lessees' men in handling the immense droves of 

 seals, and the saving in clubbing small seals, which appear as rejected 

 in the statement, is mainly owing to the presence on the field of the 

 Treasury agent and the personal superintendence and strict orders of 

 the lessees' general agent, who requires of his men the greatest care in 

 killing, so that none but acceptable seal skins are taken. Indeed, the 

 unnecessary slaughter of seals whose skins are not merchantable is a 

 thing of the past, as a comparison of this season's statement with 

 former years will show. 



The ice hung around St. Paul Island until the 13th of May, the 

 weather being very cold, which no doubt was the cause of the light 

 supply of killable*^ seals the early part of June. By the 20th of the 

 month they landed in as great numbers as usual, and more than could 

 be handled each day by the depleted force of natives entitled to partici- 

 pate in the work of skinning or sealing. No difficulty was experienced 

 by the lessees in securing their quota of fine skins in thirty-nine work- 

 ing days, an average of 2,564 per day. The time has come when, in my 

 judgment, the lessees should be authorized by the Secretary of the 

 Treasury to employ additional natives, and teach them the business of 

 sealing in all its branches, as death has played sad havoc with the 

 sealers of the islands, as shown by a statement I herewith inclose, 

 marked G,^ compiled from the records by the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany's general agent, Dr. H. H. Mclntyre. From this list you will see 

 the mortality among the men since 1870 has been fearful, andthesmali- 

 ness of the effective force of able men and boys in 1887 to do the work 

 of taking 85,000 seal skins on St. Paul Island during the time allowed by 

 law is insufficient. Were it not for the fact that one-half the work per- 

 taining to the taking, salting, bundling, etc., of the skins is done by 

 Unalaska natives, brought up by the lessees for the sealing season and 

 returned to their homes at the close of the season's business, and eight 

 white men, employees of the lessees, the work would not be done on 

 St. Paul Island without continuing the killing in the fall. About forty 

 natives of Unalaska, the same tribe of people who inhabit the fur-seal 

 islands, are brought annually to the islands, and paid by the lessees 

 for salting, booking, bundling, etc., in order to advance the work, the 

 island natives receiving the full sum of 40 cents per skin. It would be 

 entirely just to take this extra expense from the sum total of the native 



1 Misaing. 



