ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 613 



for the sake of tLeir skins. As a matter of fact, their skins were much 

 more useful than seal-skins. I venture to say, and those gentlemeu 

 who know that part of the world will say if I am right or not, that for 

 one person to whom seal skins have brought comfort and warmth, in 

 all probability buffalo skins brought it to ten. They were articles sold 

 for a moderate price, and I recollect myself when you could get them 

 for 4 or 5 dollars, and were universally used by people of moderate 

 means. But the Buffalo race had no influential Corporation interested 

 in their existence, and yielded no revenue to the Government and nobody 

 took the slightest interest in them. They were slaughtered by white 

 men called "skin-hunters" and Indians; and, if we may resort to the 

 law of nature, I do not know how we are to get nearer to it than to see 

 the method in which those Tribes, who have been called by some of 

 the greatest novel-writers "the untutored children of nature", were 

 prompted by the laws of their nature to deal with dumb aninmls. 



Uncivilized men were acting under the law of nature; civilized men 

 never interfered to prevent it. Other instances can -be found, in the 

 feathered tribe for instance. I am sure one or two members of the 

 Tribunal to whom I am speaking remember the Passenger Pigeon. 



Senator Morgan. — With reference to the Buffalo. Jn order to civilise 

 these Indians and get them into agricultural pursuits we were obliged 

 to permit their support of wild game to perish. 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — I accept the suggestion. I am very glad you have 

 mentioned it. Sir, for this reason. Tbat matter is alluded to in either 

 the argument or Counter Case of the United States, and it is said that 

 it was necessary to exterminate the buffalo in order to make way for 

 the Eanchmen, and for a better and superior race of domestic cattle. 



Senator Morgan. — That is true also. 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — That is true to a certain extent. I am perfectly 

 willing to admit that eventnally the buffalo would have had to give 

 way; but there are at this moment thousands — nay, tens of thousands 

 of square miles where the Buffaloes have been exterminated, but where 

 civilization has never come, and where, for the best i)art of another 

 generation, both in Canada and I believe the United States, it may not 

 come, but the buffalo has been exterminated because it had no friends — 

 that is the whole story. The Eanchmen did not like them; the Settlers 

 did not like them; and nobody cared either for humanity, or civiliza- 

 tion ; or for the interests of the buffalo. 



Senator Morgan. — Very much like the rabbits in Australia and in 

 England, they may be considered to be noxious animals. 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — With great deference, I do not think the buffaloes 

 could be considered like the rabbits in Australia. I venture to say that 

 3'ou yourself Sir, on reflection, will hardly consider it a fair analogy. But 

 we all know — those who have Journeyed over the prairies — that we 

 have found the bones by hundreds of these animals which have been 

 slaughtered. I have been told by one i)erson that he has seen 2,000 

 killed in what is called a single run in a small ])ortion of the day. The 

 bodies were left on the prairies, and nothing taken but the skins. At 

 iill events neither civilization, humanity nor anything else interfered to 

 l)r event it. 



I was going to refer to the PaS'^enger Pigeon as another instance in 

 reference to birds. They are birds, whose habits in one respect, are 

 strongly analogous to the habits of the seals. The Passenger Pig-eons, 

 within my recollection, were in absolute myriads in the United States 

 and the Northern States of Canada. Their habit was in the breeding 

 reason to take up their abode in an enormous tract of wood. 1 have 



