294 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



Mr. Phelps. — I will ask General Foster to point out tlie red baud 

 circle there. 



[(ieneral Foster did so.] 



Mr. Phelps. — That indicates a radius of 20 miles — 10 miles encli 

 way. It is said in the evidence they are accustomed to send their little 

 boats out that far. 



If at every point that General Foster has indicated where seals were 

 taken you sup])osed a radius of 30 miles, you will see, if we laid that 

 down on the ma]), we should paint it all over with red so that it would 

 not be distinguishable, — having regard to every change of course, if 

 w^e indicated the area covered by the little boats in this way, — 10 miles 

 in every direction. You have to bear in mind that these are but a 

 small part of the sealing fleet. The entire number of the vessels is 

 given as 117. This represents 19 vessels. 



Mr. Carter. — We have the logs only of these 19 vessels. 



Mr. Phelps. — Yes; that is all we have the logs of. Now, suppose, 

 Sir, that we had the logs and were to take the pains of adding the 

 courses and localities of the balance of these IIG vessels, that is to say 

 97 more; we have given 19, — suppose we marked that map ott" with the 

 courses of the 97 more, it is plain and perfectly apparent that the whole 

 sea would be covered with such a network that it would be indistin- 

 guishable. 



You would require a magnifying glass even ui^on such a large map 

 as that to follow the line of vessels; and when you add to that the area 

 covered by the small boats of the vessel, the entire sea is covered; and 

 I should like to know what chance the female seals would have of 

 escaping? That they have escaped in past years to some extent is 

 because there were fewer vessels. With the whole IIG, and as many 

 more as may be engaged in this hereafter, you would have the map, 

 showing the courses, so blotted and covered as to be indistinguishable. 

 You see what the destruction in the mouths of May and June is in the 

 North Pacific Ocean; and you see so far from my friend Sir Eichard 

 Webster being correct in what he undoubtedly supposed or he would 

 not have said so— what he undoubtedly supposed was a sufficient ])ro- 

 tection of the gravid females — that these vessels would be all the time 

 behind the herd and only engaged in picking up such holluschickies as 

 were behind the female seals, when you come to look at the evidence 

 on both sides as to the arrival of the holluschickies you will find they 

 are very little behind the others. When you come to look, as we did 

 yesterday, at the amount of the catch, you will find they are 85 per 

 cent females at least. So that these vessels could have no object in 

 being there in the month of June to pursue that little remnant of the 

 holluschickies which would give them just about 15 per cent of what 

 they hitherto made, and those, small and young seals and less valuable 

 skins. 



\ou see from the necessary result, if we did not go any further, — if 

 this was all the evidence in the case, that from the necessities of the 

 case you cannot protect these gravid females by any such provision as 

 my learned friend Sir Richard Webster suggests — that is, to keej) your 

 vessels back till the 1st May. They are not inside the Aleutian Islands 

 until late in June or in the course of June. As it is, they are there 

 from very nearly the end of June or the 1st July and they pass very 

 rai)idly, and up to that time they are, of course exposed to the depre- 

 dations of the sealers and to the same capture that has always taken 

 I)lace. 



