LOSS TO GREAT BRITAIN. 583 



A considerable number of the persons employed in this business, as 

 deponent is informed, are not skilled in any other kind of business, and 

 should the fur-seal industry cease, deponent believes that these persons 

 would be obliged to master some other trade or means of livelihood. 



That deponent has made no examination of the books of his firm for 

 the purpose of seeing precisely the number of 



skins annually dressed and dyed by his said firm Walter K Martin < 



and its predecessor, but it is the fact that his said 

 firm in one year dressed 150,000 fur-seal skins, and of that tfumber 

 dyed 130,000, and it is also the fact that until within the hist two years 

 his firm dressed upwards of 110,000 or 120,000 skins in each year, and 

 dyed upwards of 100,000 skins so dressed. 



The firm of C. W. Martin & Sons has employed until the last two 

 years 500 persons, and employ at the present 



moment about 400 persons, most of whom are res E ' Marit "' p ' 



skilled laborers, receiving - on an average at least ' 

 30 shillings a week, aud most of whom have families dependent upon 

 tliem for their support. Deponent estimates that the total number 

 of persons employed directly or indirectly in the business of dress- 

 ing, dyeing, handling, and cutting fur-seal skins up to within the last 

 two years in the city of London was about 2,000. 



The principal dressers and dyers of the city of London at the pres- 

 ent time are G. W. Martin & Co. and George Rice, 

 and skins are also dressed and dyed by other per- Henry Poland, p. 571. 

 sons. The fur-seal business has attained very con- 

 siderable dimensions in the city of London, large amounts of capital 

 being invested therein, and probably in and about the city of London 

 there are employed in the fur-seal skin business as many as 3,000 per- 

 sons, most of whom are skilled hands, some of whom receive as high as 

 £3 or £4 a week, and many if not most of whom have families depend- 

 ent upon them for support. 



That the business of handling and dealing in fur-seal skins has be- 

 come, in the city of London, an established and 

 important industry. That deponent himself, for Geo. Rice, p. 574. 

 instance, employ at the present time froru 400 to 



500 laborers, who are mostly engaged in one way or another upon fur- 

 seal skins, many of whom are skilled workmen receiving good wages, 

 and many of them having families dependent upon them for their sup- 

 port. Deponent estimates the total number of people engaged in the 

 business of handling, dyeing, dressing, and treating fur-seal skins 

 up to the time the skins pass into the hands of the furriers at about 

 2,000. In addition to the numbers so employed, a much larger number 

 of furriers, employes, and the employes of the retail merchants are con- 

 cerned directly or indirectly in handling or manufacturing the fur-seal 

 skin or fur-seal skin garments. 



Deponent further says that a large amount of capital is in one way or 

 another invested in the city of London in the business above enumerated. 



That the fur-seal skin business had become an important industry in 

 the city of London, in which a large amount of 

 capital was invested and a large number of work- W. C. B. Stamp, p. 576. 

 men employed, amounting, including the dressers, 

 dyers, handlers, and persons employed in the manufactories of the 



