ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 315 



(lestrnetion lias grown from evolution. Tlie original genu or proto- 

 plasm was the Indian sealer with a linngry belly and a spear as his only 

 capital, using the one to fill the other through the medium of the seal. 

 That was the protoplasm. Then came evolution. Even the ordinary 

 musket would hardly be available for that purpose. You must bear iu 

 mind that these seas are agitated, that the seal, the sleeping mother, 

 even when she sleeps, confiding at that period of her life in the humanity 

 of man, because the instinct of the mother tells her so to confide, may 

 escape a musket because of this motion; and when the i)elagic sealer 

 has missed, he has to go through the old-fashioned process which the 

 older members of the Court are familiar with of loading through the 

 muzzle, and missing fire half the time. 



But all that has disappeared with the improvement in fire-arms. 

 First came the rifie, which carried an enormous distance, and with a 

 deadly ball. That was better, and that was used. Then came the 

 breech-loading shot-gun, with the buckshot scattering, of course, enor- 

 mously, wounding and maiming very often, but very often hitting; 

 and in many cases the seal is caught. So that the breach-loading shot- 

 gun is now, I think I nniy say, the only method that is used by the 

 pelagic sealer. That is the last iu evolution. 



The President. — Do the shot guns that are used now reach so far 

 as the rifle? 



Mr. CouDERT. — They do not reach quite so far as the rifle. Of 

 course the rifle, with the ball, will reach, theoretically, much farther 

 than the shotgun; but for practical purposes the shotgun will reach 

 just as far as the rifle. That is to say, if you try to shoot a seal at the 

 extreme distance to which a rifle would carry, that would be a very poor 

 advantage indeed; unless you were a very fine marksman, you would 

 miss the seal. In order to kill the seal, you have to come within a cer- 

 tain distance; and these ])elagic sealers will come as near to the seal as 

 it is possible to come without frightening it away. For that purpose 

 the shotgun answers much better than the rifle. 



Senator Morgan.— I will suggest to you just there, Mr.Coudert that 

 it would be entirely useless to shoot a seal at the distance of 100 yards 

 because it would sink before you could get to it. It would be lost 

 before you could get to it. 



Mr. CouDERT. — Yes sir; that is one of the ways in which nature 

 punishes the pelagic sealer. It is insufficient; but that is one of the 

 methods. When the animal is killed he revenges himself by sinking 

 like a shot. That is the only revenge that he has in his iiower. 



So you will see that what you should interdict is shooting them with 

 shot guns. If the process had been reversed, and if the champions of 

 pelagic sealing had interdicted the shot gun and permitted the net, we 

 would care very little whether or not other meaiis were taken away 

 from these men and other opportunities to destroy the animals. You 

 will find that the fatal instrument is the shotgun. You will find how 

 deadly it is and yet how often the seals are lost. This is one of the 

 points to which I shall have to call the attention of the Tribunal, 

 namely the enormous waste not only by virtually killing three animals 

 when they kill one, but even of losing that one, which frequently hap- 

 pens; and I will show you that it must continue to happen because 

 skill does not grow in the business. In every other business constant 

 practice engenders skill; but the trades unions protect the unskillful 

 man against unjust discrimination in favor of the sharp-shooter. It is 

 interdicted by the rules to take more than a certain proportion of skill- 

 ful men; and when a man by dint of shooting, wounding and driving 



