ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 33 



purposes of the islanders during' the years from 1817 to 1837, tliat the 

 Uuited States figures exclude the number of pups killed upon the 

 island for the purposes of native food; and the average annual killing 

 of pups upon the island — I wish the Tribunal to realize this fact — 

 amounts to, as there stated, 4,()00 pups annually. It does seem to me 

 a curiously uneconomic condition of things if the seals were worth pre- 

 serving that the lessees were not made, as part of the conditions of 

 their bargain, to supply adetpiate food which would dispense with this 

 sacrifice of seal life which they profess to be so valuable. 



Lord Hannen. — Does it appear what i)roi)ortion of the 1,G00 pups 

 are nuile, and what proportion are female, or is it indiscriminate"? 



Sir Charles Russell. — They are iudiscrimiuate so ftir as we know 

 I think. 



Sir Richard Webster. — They are male. 



General Foster. — They are males of course — they are all young 

 males. 



Sir Charles Russell. — That may be taken to be so. 



General Foster. — I think Sir Charles is not aware of the fact that 

 we dispute this table of figures on this question. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I think. General Foster, I may, quite 

 respectfully and courteously, say that I assume that everything that 

 tells against your argument, and your position, you do dispute; I am 

 not at all relying upon your assent to these figures. 



Lord Hannen. — It is an addition, then, to the number of male pups. 



Sir Charles Russell. — It is an addition to the number of male 

 puj)S killed. I thought they did not discriminate the pups. I take 

 the fact to be that the instructions and injunctions are that they shall 

 kill only male pups ; but whether those are accurately carried out, is 

 another matter, because we cannot lose sight of the iact that the 

 evidence of the fur dealers which has not been questioned as has been 

 apparent, shews, although it is against the ijolicy and orders of the 

 United States officials, that a considerable percentage of female seals 

 are killed on the Pribylof Islands. 



General Foster. — The pup-skins never go to market. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I am not, in this connection, talking of 

 pups at all — I am going to shew that even if the directions are given, 

 it does not follow that the directions are carried out, because as I said 

 from the Furriers evidence, which I read I am sorry to say a great 

 many days ago, it is shewn that of late years there was an appreciable 

 percentage — stated in tlie evidence of some of them I think to be from 

 10 to 15 per cent — I think one of them says 25 per cent — but up to 15 

 per cent at all events, of female skins in the Pribylofi" consignments. 



ISTow, Mr. President, as my friend Mr. Foster has thought right to 

 inter[)ose to say that they dispute these figures, I must call attention 

 to the fact that from the year 1871 down to the year 1889, the figures 

 are taken from the document which I am now about to describe. On 

 page 134 the British Commissioners say this : 



The figures for these years— that is 1871 to 1889— were taken from Correspoiideuce 

 relatiug to Bohriug Sea, Seal Fisheries, Farliameutary Paper [C. 0368], pp. 44-47, 

 and include all boals, otlier than ])U]>s. killed I'or any ])ur|iose. From 1870 to 1889 

 (both inclusive), 92,804 jiups were killed lor food, an average annual killing of 4,643. 



There is the authority for it which Mr. Foster can examine for himself. 



That, Sir, is at page 134 of the British Commissioners Report, so that 

 the authority for the statement is vouched. And if it be the fact that 

 the instructions have been literally carried out which enjoin the killing 

 of males, and the killing of males only, then this is an addition to the 

 annual depletion of the male life of the seals. 

 B S, PT XIV 3 



