ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 27 



herding, wbere tbey are coritinnally in motion and crowding eacli other, thence to an 

 intense excitement on the killing ground, and linally in a condition a little better 

 than madness rushing into icy cold water. 



Uncivilized and partly civilized man has no pity for dumb brutes, and as these 

 drives are conducted entirely by the natives, who prefer indolence in the village to 

 the discomforts of a drive in the fog and r;iin, it follows that the seals are often 

 driven much iaster than they should be, and absolutely without thought or care. 

 But this is not all. The seals that are spared soon haul out again near a rookery, 

 £.iid perhaps the very next day are obliged to repeat the process, and again through- 

 out the season, unless in the meantime they have crawled out on a beach to die, or 

 have sunk exhausted to the bottom. The deaths of these seals are directly caused 

 ae I shall explain and, as far as I am aware, it is mentioned now for the first time. 



Mr. Palmer then states that lie believes death to result chiefly from 

 the consumption of the natural store of fat while the animal is too 

 exhausted to go in search of food. He continues: 



I remember looking with curiosity for the cause of death in the first seal I found 

 stranded on the beach. Externally there was nothing to indicate it, but the first 



stroke of the knife revealed instantly what I am confident has been the cause 

 752 of death of countless thousands of fur seals. It had been chilled to death; 



not a trace remained of tlie fat that had once clothed its body and protected 

 the A'ital organs within. . . I opened many after this, and always discovered the same, 

 but sometimes an additional cause, a fractured skull peihaps. I have even noted, 

 those left behind in a drive, and watched them daily, Avitli the same result in many 

 cases. At fii'st they would revel in the ponds or wauder among the sand dunes, but 

 in a few days their motions became distinctly slower, the curvature of the spine 

 became lessened; eventually the poor brutes would drag their hind flippers as they 

 moved, and in a few days were become food for the foxes. In every case the fat had 

 disappeared. 



During the eight years minoritj- of the few male seals that have escaped their 

 enemies it is safe, I think to assume that at least four summers Avere spent in getting 

 an experience of the drives. Does any one think that they were then capable of 

 filling their proper functions on the rookeries? 



The natives have been provided with whistles, and when a boat finds itself near a 

 rookery (and a pretence for its presence is easily found) good use is made of them, 

 with a consequent confusion among the seals and a proljable increase in the next 

 morning's drive. 



Sir Charles Ru«sell. — IS^ow finally, after speaking of the method 

 pursued on the Commander Islands, he contrasts the state of affairs as 

 observed by him on the Pribilof Islands, in these words: 



On the American side, on the contrary, the seals are driven as fast as possible, the 

 only ones being weeded out being those too weak to go further, while of those 

 rounded up on the killing-ground by far the greater number are allowed to escaj)e. 

 Out of a drive of 1,103 counted by me only 120 were killed; the rest were released. 



Now, upon that, the comment made by the British Commissioners is 

 not, I submit, an unfair one, they say: 



If it were possible to drive only those seals which it is intended to kill, little 

 exception could be taken to the method of driving in the absence of any better 

 method, but the mingling of seals of varied ages upon the hauling-grounds from 

 which the drives are taken, even under the original and more favorable conditions 

 of former years, renders it necessary to drive to the killing jilace many seals either 

 too young or too old to be killed. 



And then finally, at the top of page 269 of the Counter-Case: 



Thus, it has occurred that, in late years, considerable and increasing numbers of 

 breeding females have been driven to the killing-grounds with the killables, though 

 when recognized there in the process of selecting for killing, they have been released. 



Now 1 will only make this comment on that evidence to which I have 

 referred: does it not seem to each Member of the Tribunal that the 

 laudation bestowed upon the system on the Islands has been a little too 

 unqualified : that it is difficult to say that their methods are not marked 



