ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 2D 



sional scattered pieces of driftwood, which tliej^ used, carefully soaked 

 anew in water if it had dried out, split into little fragments, and, 

 trussing the blubber with it when making their fires, the combination 

 gave rise to a roaring, sputtering blaze. If this driftwood failed them 

 at an 3' time when winter came round, they were obliged to huddle 

 together beneath skins in their cold huts, and live or die, as the case 

 might be. But the situation to-day has changed marvelously. We 

 see here now at St. Paul, and on St. George, in the place of the squalid, 

 filthy habitations of the immediate past, two villages, neat, warm, 

 and contented. Each family lives in a snug frame dwelling; every 

 house is lined with tarred paper, painted, furnished with a stove, with 

 outhouses, etc., complete; streets laid out, and the foundations of 

 these habitations regularly plotted thereon. There is a large church 

 at St. Paul, and a less pretentious but very creditable structure of the 

 same character on St. George ; a hospital on St. Paul, with a full and 

 complete stock of drugs, and skilled physicians on both islands to take 

 cai*e of the people, free of cost. Thei-e is a schoolhouse on each island, 

 in which teachers are also paid by the company eight months in the 

 year, to instruct the youth, while the Russian Church is sustained 

 entirely by the pious contributions of the natives themselves on these 

 two islands, and sustained well by each other. There are 80 families, 

 or 80 houses, on St. Paul, in the village, with 20 or 24 such houses to as 

 raanj^ families at St. George, and 8 other structures. The large ware- 

 houses and salt sheds of the Alaska Commercial Company, built by 

 skillful mechanics, as have been the dwellings just referred to, are-.also 

 neatly painted ; and, taken in combination with the other features, con- 

 stitute a picture fully equal to the average presentation of any one of 

 our small eastern towns. There is no misery, no downcast, dejected, 

 suffering humanity here to-day. These Aleuts, who enjoy as the price 

 of their good behavior the sole right to take and skin seals for the 

 company, to the exclusion of all other people, are known to and by 

 their less fortunate neighbors elsewhere in Alaska as the "Bogatskie 

 Aloutov," or the "rich Aleuts." The example of the agents of the 

 Alaska Commercial Company, on both islands, from the beginning of 

 its lease, and thecourse of the Treasury agents^ during the last four or 

 five years, have been silent but i30werful promoters of the welfare of 

 these people. They have maintained perfect order ; they have directed 

 neatness and cleanliness, and stimulated industry, such as those 

 natives had never before dreamed of. 



Number and condition of the islanders in 1880. — The popula- 

 tion of St. Paul is, at the present writing, 298. Of these, 14 are 

 whites (lo males and 1 female), 128 male Ateutians, and 156 females. 

 On St. George we have 92 souls: 4 white males, 35 male Aleutians, 

 and 53 females, a total poiDuIation on these islands of 390. This is 

 an increase of between 30 and 40 people since 1873. Prior to 1873, 

 they had neither much increased nor diminished for 50 years, but 

 would have fallen oft" rapidly (for the births were never equal to the 

 deaths) had not recruits been regularly drawn from the mainland 

 and other islands every season when the ships came up. As they 

 lived then, it was a physical impossibility for them to increase and 

 multiply; but, since their elevation and their sanitary advancement 

 are so marked, it may be reasonably expected that those people for 

 all time to come will at least hold their own, even though they do not 

 increase to any remarkable degree. Perhaps it is better that they 



'Messrs. Morton, Faleoner, Otis, Moulton, Scribner, and Beeman, 



