250 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M, P. 



Senator Morgan. — I assume tliey must be necessarily the subject of 

 disease. 



Sir IviCHA'RD Webster. — But there is very remarkable evidence 

 about it. 1 ought to have been able to answer it off hand, but I turn 

 to that which contains more knowledge and truth about Seal life than 

 anything else, and that is to the Eeport of the British Commissioners 

 I call attention to jiaragraph 339 of the British Commissioners Eeport: 



It can scarcely be doubted tbat the fur-seal of the Noi-th Pacific is also subject to 

 diseases of various kinds, the prevalence or otherwise of which have their eifects ou 

 the numbers at each particular period. Inquiries made on the subject have, how- 

 ever, not brought to light any notable mortality which has been attiituted to dis- 

 ease, nor do ijrevionsly published reports include any mention of such mortality. 

 It may thus at least be inferred that no notably fatal disease has attacked these 

 animals while upon their breeding islands witliin historic times, but it is not safe to 

 affirm that disease has been wanting, or that epidemic diseases may not, at any given 

 time, appear, and require to be allowed for in any regulations made respecting the 

 killing of seals. 



In the Report of Mr. C. H. Jackson on the fur seal islands of Cape Colony, already 

 referred to, he writes: "Upon several islands, esjiecially in the Ishabar group, are 

 to be found the remains of vast numbers of 'seal', proliably the effects of an epi- 

 demic disease at some distant jjcriod". 



On the same subject and referring to the same region, Mr. H. A. Clark writes as 

 follows, quoting "Morell's Voyages": "In 1828 Captain Morell, in the schooner 

 'Antartic', visited the west coast of Africa on a fur-seal voyage. At Possession 

 Island, in latitude 26*^ 51' south, he fonnd evidence of a pestilence among the fur-seals. 

 The whole island, which is about 3 miles long, he states, was covered with the car- 

 casses of fur-seals, with their skins still on them. They a^ipeared to have been dead 

 about five years, and it was evident that they had all met their fate about the same 

 period. I should judge, from the immense multitude of bones and carcases, that not 

 less than half-a-million had jierished here at once, and that they had fallen victims to 

 some mysterious disease or plague." About 17 miles north of Possession Island are 

 two small islands not over a mile in length, where Captain Morell fouud still further 

 evidence of a plague among the fur-seals. "These two islands," he sftys, "have 

 once been the resort of immense numbers of fur-seals, which were doubtless destroyed 

 by the same plague which made such a devastation among them on Possession 

 Island, as their remains exhibited the same appearance in both cases". 



Elliott, after stating that ho has observed no disease among the seals of the Pri- 

 bilof Islands, quotes a recorded instance of a plague affecting the hair seals of the 

 north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Islands, and adds: " It is not reasonable to 

 suppose that the Pribilof rookeries have never suffered from distempers in the past, 

 or are not to in the future, simjjly because no occasion seems to have arisen during 

 the comparatively brief period of their human domination". 



At page 62 of the Census Report. I hapjien to know the jilace men- 

 tioned very well indeed, and some-thing about the seals, too — speaking 

 of the hair seal, Mr. Elliott puts this in his note : 



The thought of what a deadly epidemic would effect among these vast congrega- 

 tions of Pinnipedia was one that was constantly in my mind when on the ground 

 and among them. I have found in the British Annals (Fleming's) ou page 17 an 

 extract from the Notes of Dr. Trail: " In 1833 I inquired for my old acfiuaintances, 

 the seals of the Hole of Papa Westray, and was informed that about lour years 

 before they had totally deserted the islands and had only within the last few montns 

 begun to reappear. . . About fifty years ago multitudes of their carcasses were cast 

 ashore in every bay in the north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland, and numbers 

 were found at sea in a sickly state." 



I cannot help thinking that with an enfeebled race for the reasons 

 which I have been referring to, and with the want of suj^ply of sufficient 

 virile males such a condition of things is not less likely in the future 

 than it has been in the past. 



Mr. President, on many of the matters upon which I have addressd 

 you, there is interesting information to be found in connection with the 

 photographs which are before the court ; but of course I do not want to 

 stop to occupy time by those being examined, as the Tribunal can ask 

 lor information upon them if they desire anything further in that con- 

 nection. 



