OliAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 193 



the fact that the animal was polygamous, and that it was only by the 

 exercise of care, and by attending to natural laws, that they could 

 preserve this valuable race. They then began to contine their drafts to 

 young males; and finally established a system under which the draft 

 was wholly limited to young males; and that system was fully and 

 perfectly established somewhere about 1S46. 



The President. That system was not yet fully established under 

 the Kussian Ukase of 1799? 



Mr. Carter, IS'o; it was not. 



The President. Nor even during the greater part of the second 

 Ukase of 1821 ? 



Mr. Carter. No; not perfectly, it was not. 



The President. But it was established in the Russian time before 

 the American possession ? 



Mr. Carter. Oh, fully established for twenty years before the Ameri- 

 cans took possession. The Russians at first, upon the establishment of 

 this system, confined their drafts of young males to various numbers, 

 ranging from thirty to forty thousand, or thereabouts. Those were 

 their annual drafts. 



The President, And females were never slaughtered then before 

 pelagic sealing was observed? 



Mr. Carter. Oh no; not after this system was fully established by 

 Russia — not after that. 



The President. What became of the females ? 



Mr. Carter. They lived their natural lives and died, subject to such 

 attacks as their natural enemies made upon them. 



The President. They were never taken for their skins'? 



Mr. Carter. They were never taken. Of course a female might be 

 taken without damage if she had completed her iDeriod of reproductive 

 usefulness and became barren ; but that is a fact that cannot be ascer- 

 tained; so they were never taken. The drafts were confined, as I have 

 said, to something like thirty to forty thousand young males. Under 

 that system, taking no larger number than that, the numbers of the 

 herd greatly increased and toward the close of the Russian occupation, 

 the size of the drafts were increased much over thirty or forty thousand, 

 sometimes going as high as fifty to seventy-five thousand. 



Senator Morgan. Were those drafts from the herd always regulated 

 by the Russian Government before the United States got ijossession 

 of it"? 



Mr. Carter. They were regulated by the company which had con- 

 trol of the islands. That company fixed upon a number which would 

 be taken each year, and directed the slaughter to be confined to that 

 number. 



Senator Morgan. That was by authority? 



Mr. Carter. By the authority of the couipany ; not by the authority 

 of the Russian Government, so far as I am aware. 



Senator Morgan. Still it operated as a rule of action, a law. 



Mr. Carter. A perfect rule of action to those on the Islands. 

 Toward the close of the Russian occupation, as I have said, larger 

 drafts were made, from 50 to 75 thousand ; and yet, notwithstanding 

 those drafts at the time the islands passed into the possession of the 

 United States in 1867, the herds were probably larger than they had 

 been before during a knowledge of them by man; so that it is easily 

 inferable from this that a larger draft even than a number varying from 

 from 50 to 75 thousand annually might be taken. 

 B S, PT XII 13 



