582 LOSS IF HERD DESTROYED. 



Deponent says that the number of persons who are employed in the 



handling, dressing, dyeing, cutting, and manu- 



Alfred Fraser, p. 558. facturing of sealskins in the city of London is 



about 2,000, many of whom are skilled laborers, 



earning as high as £3 or £1 a week. Deponent estimates the amount 



paid in the city of London for wages in the preparation of fur-seal skins 



for a manufacturer's uses, and excluding the wages of manufacturers' 



employes, prior to the beginning of the pelagic sealing in 1885, at about 



£100,000 per annum. 



A large capital, the amount of which, however, it would be difficult 

 to estimate, is invested in the business of selling 



Arthur Sirschel, p. 563. raw fur-seal skins. Two firms own large ware- 

 houses, and one of them expensive cold-storage 

 vaults, portions of which are used exclusively for the purpose of storing 

 fur-seal skins. 



About seven firms are engaged in the dressing and dyeing of seal- 

 skins, of which a very much large;- amount is done in London than in 

 any other city ii i the world. Tn this branch of the fur-seal industry 

 there are invested about £80,000 in permanent plant, which would 

 become entirely useless if the seal-skin industry were to come to an 

 end. 



About 12,000 dressed and dyed Alaska fur-seal skins, which may be 

 valued at £5 a skin, arc annually manufactured into garments in Lon- 

 don, and a very much larger proportion of Copper and Northwest coast 

 skins are so consumed. 



The seal-skin industry furnishes occupation to workingmen in Lon- 

 don as follows: To about 600 dressers and dyers; to about 1,400 cut- 

 ters, nailers, sewers, and other laborers engaged in manufacturing seal- 

 skin articles. Many of those employed as above are skilled laborers, 

 who, in any other employment, would be but ordinary laborers. Some 

 of them have been engaged in this industry from childhood. In the 

 foregoing no account is taken of the numerous clerks, salesmen, and 

 porters, of whom large numbers owe their means of support to the 

 trade in fur-seal skins. 



I believe that in round numbers the capital invested in this industry 

 in London amounts to £1,000,000, and that when a full Alaska catch 

 came to market the weekly amount expended in wages in connection 

 with all the catches was about £2,500 or £3,000 a week. 



That the business at the present time has attained the rank of an im- 

 portant industry, in which there is embarked in 

 JSir G. C. Lampson, p. £j ie c j{-y f r J()lu p m a large amount of capital and 



upon which there is dependent a large number of 

 workmen and employes. The amount of capital from time to time in- 

 vested in the business is correctly stated, deponent believes, by Mr. 

 Teichmann, at as much as £1,000,000, and until within a year or two 

 the numbers of persons depending upon the industry for their support 

 has likewise been correctly stated by Mr. Teichmann, approximately 

 at 2,000 persons, receiving on an average a weekly wage of 30 shillings, 

 and most of them having families dependent upon their labors for their 

 support. 



During the last two years the diminution and irregularity of the sup- 

 ply of fur and seal skins has caused some decrease 



t-pp"" G ' C ' Lam P son > P- in the amount of persons engaged in the industry, 

 but deponent is not able to state exactly to what 



extent such decrease has taken place. 



