278 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



Mr. Coudert, after considering tliat question during luncli time, said 

 on the reconvening of tbe Tribunal : 



Wlien this learned Tribunal adjourned for the recess, I had just read extracts from 

 the British Connnissioners' Report chiirging butchery against those who killed the 

 seals on the Islands, and expressing the opinion that the slaughter which I have 

 described at sea was sportsmanlike in its character, in that it gave the animal a fair 

 sporting chance for its life. I could not do justice to that by any comment, and I 

 leave it for the Tribunal without any criticism. 



I should infer from tins that my learned friend Mr. Coudert, however 

 wide his sympathies may be — and I have no doubt they are very wide — 

 has no sort of sympathy with what is called the instinct of sport. His 

 idea would seem to be that humanity is the one thing to be considered. 

 He would approve, for instance, of a man who would sneak up to a 

 pheasant, get within 20 yards of it, and shoot it out of a tree, or would 

 shoot it on the ground. He would think that mitch more humane, and 

 nuich more to be encouraged, than the method of the ordinary sports- 

 man, who shoots on the wing and does give the bird a chance for its 

 life. In fact, he would agree with that person of whom I have read a 

 story, that when he was about to shoot a partridge running in a field, 

 his friend who was with him put his gun up, and said: "Surely you 

 are not going to shoot a bird in that way?" His answer was: " No; 

 I will wait until it stops"; and that was his idea of fair sport. 



We maintain that iielagic sealing gives the seal a fair chance for its 

 life and is in that respect preferable. There is one thing very certain: 

 if you were to i)ropose to nine men out often to go and join you in the 

 system by which the seals are killed on the Pribilof Islands, namely, 

 by knocking them on the head with a club when they are looking in 

 your face they would probably turn from you with no small degree of 

 contempt; while if you were to propose to the same men to go out in 

 the open sea in boats and kill the seals by shooting them, they would 

 think that a sort of thing to be encouraged, and would have no hesitation 

 in joining you. Mr. Coudert can have iu)ne of the sportsman's instinct, 

 or he would not have thought the remark of the British Commissioners 

 so very ridiculous. It so happens that at the end of one of these books, 

 vol. IV, App. British Case, there is an article from an American news- 

 paper, quoting from the London Times, in which they take the same 

 ground, that it is butchery, and unsportsmanlike, and that it ought to be 

 condemned on that ground. Every one on the other side of the water 

 knows of the complaints that are made in regard to the method of pur- 

 suing deer. They are driven into a, where the pursuers paddle out to 

 them in a boat and put a bullet through their heads. I think very 

 much may be said against this system on that hut it ground, that is a 

 matter of taste. I infer only from my learned friend, Mr. Coudert's 

 conception of it, that he has not much sympathy or feeling for the 

 instinct of sport. 



Pelagic sealing is spoken of in several places as having been destruc- 

 tive elsewhere, and I do not stop now to read extracts, because I think 

 the time has come when we may take it for granted that the Tribunal 

 have in mind a great deal that has been read and repeated to them in 

 these affidavits. In the Case of our friends, I find it often stated that 

 pelagic sealing is in jjart resi^onsible for the extermination of the seals 

 in the southern hemisphere and elsewhere. As a matter of fact, pelagic 

 sealing has never exterminated seals anywhere. 



Lord Hannen. — Has not that been very fully gone into? 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — It has perhaps been very fully gone into, and I am 

 not going into it any more. All that I was going to do was to point out 

 the sentence of the British Commissioners, paragraph 65, I think it is, 



