ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 433 



not suppressed until 1876, was a chief factor to the immediate death of 

 infants ; for, when they were at the breast, the mothers would drink 

 quass to intoxication, and the stomachs oi^ the newly born Aleuts or 

 Creoles could not stand the infliction which they received, even second- 

 hand. Had it not been for this wretched spectacle so often presented 

 to my eyes in 1872-73, 1 should hardly have taken the active steps which 

 I did to put the nuisance down, for it involved me, at first, in a bitter 

 personal controversy which, although I knew at the outset it was 

 inevitable, still weighed nothing in the scales against the evil itself.^ 



A few febrile disorders are oecurring, yet they yield readily to good 

 treatment, but they have this peculiarity : when they are ill, slightly or 

 seriously, no matter which, they maintain or affect a stolid resignation, 

 and are patient to positive apathy. This is not due to deficiency of 

 nervous organization, because those among them, who exhibit examples 

 of intense livehness and nervous activity, behave just as stolidly when 

 ill, as their more lymphatic townsmen do. Boys and girls, men and 

 women, all alike, are patient and resigned when ailing and under treat- 

 ment. But, it is a bad feature, after all, inasmuch as it is well-nigh 

 impossible to rally a very sick man who himself has no hope, and who 

 seems to mutely deprecate every effort to save his life. 



' This evil of habitual and gross intoxication under Russian rule was not character- 

 istic of these islands alone ; it was universal throughout Alaska. Sir George Simpson, 

 speaking of the subject when in Sitka. April, 1842, says: ''Some reformation cer- 

 tainly was wanted in this respect ; for of all the drunken, as well as of all the dirty 

 places that I had visited, New Archangel (Sitka) was the worst. On the holidays, 

 in particular, of which, Sundays included, there are 165 in the year, men, women, 

 and even children were to be seen staggering about in all directions." (Simpson: 

 Journey Around the World, 1841-42, p. 88.) 



H. Doc. 92, pt. 3 28 



