4 FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



the lessee company, in collusion with the Government agents on the 

 islands, took about 8,000 seals in violation thereof, during the first 

 season of its prohibition, i. e., June and July, 1S96. (See pp. 207- 

 208, hearing No. 1.) 



That there were no other regulations issued until May 1, 1904. 

 Then the Carlisle regulations were, in effect, reissued, as the ''Hitch- 

 cock rules," whereby the killing of any male seals under 2 years of 

 age was prohibited, on the well-established fact that the sex between 

 the male and the female yearling seals can not be told apart, as they 

 haul out upon the islands, without physical examination. 



That no further regulations were issued until May 9, 1906. No 

 changes were made then as to the ages or the prohibition of killing 

 yearling seals, but a change in the minimum weight of skin to be 

 taken from "six pounds" in the Carlisle and from "five and one- 

 half" pounds in the Hitchcock regulations to "five pounds" was 

 made. It is quite apparent, to the committee that the object of both 

 the Carlisle and Hitchcock regulations as to weight of skins was to 

 prevent the killing of young or yearling seals. These rules were made 

 with the assumption that those skin weights would be properly made 

 when the pelts were taken from the bodies of the seals. 



VI. The committee further finds that in 1896 and thereafter the 

 leasing company, in conjunction and connivance with the Govern- 

 ment agents on the islands, killed yearling seals and added sufficient 

 blubber in skinning the animals so as to bring the skin weights within 

 the regulations. By lowering the weight of the skins it made the 

 fraud and deception easier, because it took less blubber on the small 

 skin to bring them within the regulations. In this connection it may 

 be well to note that Mr. Frank H. Hitchcock, who, as chief clerk of 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor, appeared before the Ways 

 and Means Committee on March 9, 1904, and said that he had been 

 sent to represent the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and to make 

 the following proposal to the committee (Fifty-eighth Congress, 

 second session, on House joint resolution 124, appears the following 

 hearing, Ways and Means, p. 35): 



Mr. Hitchcock. First of all we propose to limit still further the ages at which seals 

 can be taken . We will prohibit altogether the killing of seals under 2 years of age. 

 Killing will thus be restricted to seals between 2 and 4 years old. 



Mr. Williams of Mississippi. You propose to forbid the killing of seals under 2 

 years old? 



Mr. Hitchcock. Yes. 



Mr. Williams of Mississippi. At 2 years of age that is the very time you can tell 

 the difference between the bull and the cow. In other words, if you kill nothing 

 under 2 years old there should be no reasonable excuse for a mistake in that respect. 



Mr. Hitchcock. You are quite right; that's the point. The great objection to 

 the killing of these small seals, and, I take it, the only objection, is the difficulty of 

 distinguishing the males from the females. 



On July 28, 1910, Secretary Charles Nagel received from the Bu- 

 reau of Fisheries a marked copy of the above hearing, and sends that 

 notice of this reception to the House Committee on Expenditures in 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor, June 24, 1911. (See p. 

 987, Appendix A, II. Doc. 9.3, 62d Cong., 1st sess.) 



Secretary Charles Nagel had full knowledge of the fact that on 

 March 9 -10, 1904, the Department of Commerce and Labor pledged 

 itself to the Ways and Means Committee not to allow T any seals 

 killed on the Pribilof Islands "under 2 years of age," and this pledge 



