ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 225 



females. If tliey did, the coustaiit war would prevent the increase of 

 the herd at all, aud therefore, if it were possible to take the ceusus of 

 this herd as it was when Eussia discovered the Pribilof Islands where 

 from the time ot the creation there had been no human interference 

 with sex, it would not have been found there were as many males as 

 females. Suppose there were in the sea as many females as males, so 

 that, indiscriminately shootinj>-, 50 i3er cent of all that were killed 

 were females, I should like to know, in the light of common sense and 

 common experience and the knowledge that is derived from the prop- 

 agation of all animals of this class, what the result of that would be. 

 It is a mere question of speed. In the business of extermination, the 

 fewer females they kill, the longer tliey retard the result, but that it 

 comes is just as certain from a slaughter of half of the females, as it 

 would if they killed a greater number. But we do not stop there. 

 We do not concede that to be the case. We say that the evidence in 

 this case completely demonstrates that the proportion of all the seals 

 that are taken in pelagic sealing from one year to another is at least 

 85 per cent. It is taken at 75 per cent as a minimum, and it is stated 

 at 95 per cent and even higher than that in the specific evidence I will 

 call attention to, because this is a fact so important that it needs to be 

 exactly understood. The evidence that converges from various differ- 

 ent points, that are independent of each other, completely establishes 

 that of all this pelagic sealing, at least 65 i)er cent are females. 



In the first place I want to call attention to what the American 

 Commissioners say. I have only one word to say about that report, 

 and any one who has read it through will not require that word to be 

 said, because it will have occurred to him. It is the work of a couple 

 of men whose authority aud reputation as naturalists is not questioned. 

 We have no persons in America more competent to speak on this subject, 

 if they speak honestly, than they. A ijerusal of the report will show 

 whether it is or is not a partizan document, on one side of the case, 

 made for a purpose, or whether it is or is not a perfectly fair, candid, 

 truthful, and scientific treatment of the subject. It would not make it 

 so if it were not so, for me to assert that it was. It does not deprive 

 it of that quality to assert that it is not. I respectfully commend that 

 report, every word of it, to the perusal of the Tribunal, if it has not 

 already engaged their careful perusal, in view of the question whether 

 it is to be taken as fair and just, and I leave it without any eulogy or 

 observations of my own to that candid scrutiny. They give a table 

 which contains the approximate result of pelagic sealing and the note 

 states where they get their information from, which is the best they 

 could get. Then they say : 



It cannot be denied that in pelagic sealing there can be no selective killing, as 

 far as individual seals are concerned, and only in a limited degree by restricting it 

 as to place and time. It necessarily follows that female seals junst be killed and 

 seals whose skins owing to age and condition are much less desirable. As a matter 

 of fact, there is sufficient evidence to convince us that by far the greater part of 

 the seals taken at sea are females; indeed, we have yet to meet with any evidence 

 to the contrary. The statements of those who have had occasion to examine the 

 catch of pelagic sealers might be quoted to almost any extent to the oftect that at 

 least eighty per cent of the seals thus taken are females. On one occasion we 

 .examined a pile of skins picked out at random, and which we have every reason to 

 believe was a part of a pelagic catch, and found them nearly all females. When the 

 sealers themselves are not influenced by the feeling that they are testifying against 

 .their own interests they give similar testimony. The master of the sealing schooner 

 ".J. G. Swan" declared that in the catch of 1890, when he secured several hundred 

 seals, the proportion of females to males was about four to one, aud on one occasion 

 iu a lot of sixty seals, as a matter of curiosity ho couiitecl the uuiiibor of females 

 with young, tiudiug forty-seveu. 



^ S, PT XV— 15 



