ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 213 



''Very well; we do not interfere witli your territory; we carry on a 

 legitimate industry" — "But you are obscuring tlie liglit and rendering- 

 the liglitliouse in a great measure valueless." They reply; "We cannot 

 help tliat; we are in the exercise of our right." And there is. not one 

 of these cases tliat my learned friend can answer, because each case, as 

 it stares you in the face, shows the impossibility of establishing any 

 princi])le of law that justities a class of outrages of that description; 

 much less can you cite any case in the history of the world in which 

 anything of that nature ever was submitted to. 



Now I have discussed, as I said in my opening observations this 

 morning, this proposition of law ou the basis of tlie theory that the 

 objectionable business or industry was innocent in itself, — was fishing, 

 was doing anything which in and of itself^ if you could look at it aside 

 from its consequences, could not be objected to upon moral, legal, or 

 any grounds; and 1 have tried to show, and the more this proposition 

 is reflected ui)on, the clearer it becomes to any mind I think that is 

 capable of clear thought, that even there, where the question is between 

 the indiv idual and the nation, he must forego the small gain that he 

 would make by the destruction of an important national interest. 



But wliat is this case? It is a case where the pursuit, which is 

 claimed as of right, exterminates the race of animals, as well as destroys 

 the industry. So far as it destroys the industry, so far as that conse- 

 quence alone is concerned, it would come within the proposition 1 liave 

 been dealing with. It might destroy the industry, but still be in other 

 respects an innocent pursuit in itself. Then would come the question, 

 whether the rule I have cited, is the true rule? But this case is noth- 

 ing of the sort. It is the extermination ofi" the world of a valuable 

 race of animals, the last of their species; and it is doing that in a man- 

 ner, in the first phice, that violates all the law that is administered 

 everywhere for the protection of such animals. In the second place, 

 it is so inhuman and barbarous that it would be indictable in any coun- 

 try under the head of cruelty to animals if it brought no extermination. 

 There are things that the owners of animals may not do. You may 

 slaughter your domestic animals if you please; that is an incident to 

 the right of property, and is (me of the uses to which they are put: 

 You may put them to death because they are no longer serviceable, or 

 for the purpose of making use of their flesh or their skins; but there 

 are methods of putting them to death that the law of no civilised 

 nation will allow. There are ways of disposing of your ox and your 

 ass that would subject you to indictment, althougli it is your own and 

 on your own premises, under the law of any country that I know any- 

 thing about or desire to know anything about. Barbarism and inhu- 

 manity to the humbler creation of the Almighty is as much prohibited 

 by the ]nw as the infringement of property rights. 



There is a class of people who seem to think, if you may judge by 

 what they say, that gain is the only foundation of right in regard to 

 anything which can be called property; that dollars and cents are all 

 there is of it; that the principal function of men on this earth is to 

 trade and to vote, and when those are answered, the function of law 

 is at an end. I do not so regard it. I say that this business, — I assume 

 now for the purpose of my argument what I expect to demonstrate 

 from this evidence, — I say that the conduct which is claimed here to be 

 a part of the freedom of the sea, instead of being something which, if 

 it had no particular consequence, would be innocent and lawful and 

 inoffensive as well as profitable — I say that it has a double curse upon 

 it: first, that it is exterminating from the world the race of animals, in 



