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



Senator Morgan. — But it would prevent the property from being 

 vested in you if you shot the jiame contrarj' to law. ^ 



Sir KiCHARD Webster. — I really do not know that; and for my 

 purpose it is i^erfectly immaterial, because I do not care whether, when 

 the animal is killed, it belongs to the United States, or belongs to a 

 public officer, or belongs to me. My point, respectfully, Sir, is that until 

 it is killed there is no property in anybody at all. It is absolutely 

 immaterial to my argument whether when the animal is killed and taken 

 possession of the property in the body is in tlie ])erson who has killed 

 it or in the person ui)on whose land it falls, or, if you like, in the Gov- 

 ernment. The whole point we are discussing to day is, — Is there any 

 property in the live animal before possession has been taken of it; and 

 I do not perceive that any light is thrown ui)on that point by consid- 

 ering what technical rule applies as to the property in the animal when 

 killed. 



Senator Morgan. — Then, as I understand you, the only way of 

 acquiring property in the fur-seal is to kill it? 



Sir Richard Webster. — Unquestionably the only way of acquiring 

 property in the fur-seal is to kill it. 



Senator Morgan. — That is what I meant. 



Sir Richard Webster. — I am not referring, Sir, if you please, to 

 property in the islands that enables you to exclude other people. 



The President. — You can take possession of a living fur-seal, I 

 suppose. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Of course. I ought I suppose to have 

 included that; but from the question of Senator Morgan 1 did not think 

 he meant that. 



Senator Morgan. — I -did not mean that. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Let me give the answer. Of course if you 

 have a pond staked out on the shores of the Pribilof Islands and you 

 drive the seals into that water and keej) them there and feed them every 

 day, as you would animals in a zoological garden, then they become 

 coarctatus. They become restrained, and so long as you keep them there 

 you can take them out and shoot them and catch them. You have 

 reduced those seals into possession. You can possess a living seal as 

 well as a dead one. But I was dealing with the case of a seal which 

 was found at large, swimming, and I was answering the Senator with 

 reference to the point he was putting to me, that of a free swimming 

 seal in the high seas. Nobody can, according to the law as it stands 

 to-day, obtain the property in that seal except by taking possession of 

 the animal. That is my contention, and if I have not answered your 

 question sufficiently to explain my meaning, I know you will indicate 

 it to me. 



Senator Morgan. — That answers the question entirely, I think. You 

 say there is no way of taking possession of the seal except by killing it. 



Sir Richard Webster. — It is always important, Mr. President, to 

 be careful that a statement of that kind is exhaustive, and therefore I 

 thank you for putting the question to me. I was excluding zoological 

 gardens from my mind for the moment. Of course I admit that if you 

 retain animals in the sense of keeping them inclosed in a pen, that is 

 another method of obtaining possession of them and keeping them 

 alive. 



The President. — Yes; and not only one but several of them in a 

 herd, I supjiose? 



Sir Richard Webster. — Oh certainly; there is not the slightest 

 difierence. 



