ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 277 



Government officers when their counts are phiced side by side. For 

 instance, the list of the Treasury agent on the islands, when the skins 

 are nrst shipped, is the official indorsement of the company's catch for 

 the year; but when the ship reaches San Francisco, then these skins are 

 all counted over anew by another staif of Government agents. Should 

 the tally of the seal-island agent be defective, and show that it was so 

 by the recount of the custom-house officers in San Francisco, then, did 

 it run over 100,000 skins, the company would have an annoying and 

 unpleasant explanation to make, while the resident Treasury agent 

 would be charged with maladministration of his affairs. Therefore, as 

 it has never happened before until this season of 1881 that the two 

 counts at San Francisco and St. Paul have agreed to a unit, the com- 

 pany has given strict and imperative orders that no more than 99,800 

 or 99,850 skins shall be annually taken by its agents from the seal 

 islands. Taking the full quota of this season of 1881 was contrary to 

 its exjjress direction. 



It is an exceedingly difficult matter to count these skins, precisely to a 

 dot, when they are rapidly hustled into the baidars and then tossed below 

 the decks of the rolling, i^itching ship which receives them; a rough sea 

 may be running, a gale of wind howling through the rigging, and a thick 

 fog shrouding all in its wet gloom. 1 believe, therefore, from my own full 

 experience in this important matter, that it is a physical impossibility, at 

 many seasons of shipment, to tally accurately every pelt as it enters the 

 vessel's hold, when loaded off the islands here. The Treasury agent 

 who comes within 100 to 150 skins, more or less, of the true 100,000, or in 

 that ratio to the whole catch, as it may be, is doing all that he possibly 

 can under the circumstances. Naturally, the custom-house tally is con- 

 sidered the most accurate, by reason of the great physical advantages 

 attendant, and upon its certification the company pays the tax levied 

 by law. 



Useless slaughter of the pttps. — The observer will also notice 

 that during the last season, viz, July 20, 1880, to July 20, 1881, as shad- 

 owed in the foregoing table, more than 7,000 seals were killed for food, 

 the skins of which were simply wasted — never used and of that aggre- 

 gate we find nearly 0,000, or about nine-tenths of the entire loss, to be 

 "pups." At this point, and in this connection, I desire to enter my 

 protest against the useless and wholly uncalled-for slaughter of these 

 pups, which is annually permitted and inadvertently ordered, with the 

 best of si)irit, by the Secretary of the Treasury. It is a shiftless leg- 

 acy of the old Eussian company, which the present admirable conduct 

 of business on the Pribilof Islands really renders superfluous and 

 wasteful. It is simply catering to a gastronomic weakness of the Aleuts 

 that should not be considered, inasmuch as the supply and the flesh of 

 the 2 and 3 year old males is fully good enough; and most of the skins 

 taken from such animals late in October and thereon to the end of the 

 year will be accepted as prime by the company and counted in the 

 regular annual quota for exportation. I have in this matter, how- 

 ever, been quite as much at fault as the Secretary himself; more so, 

 because I have not hitherto directed attention to it. It escaped my 

 mind in 1874, and I have not had occasion to recall it until the present 

 writing. 



The season of 1881 a very creditable one. — The exhibit given 

 above of the work performed in the height of the sealing season, June 

 and July, is a better one, even, than any one which has passed prior 

 to it under my supervision. In other words, the number of cut or 



