338 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



ritory — the maritime jurisdiction — of tlie other, in tlie iirst place it is 

 absolutely immaterial if that be so. In the second place it is abso- 

 lutely denied; and if it is material, your Honors will have to weigh 

 the testimony upon the point. If the inference is intended to be carried 

 to the mind of the Court that there is any intermixture of blood, then 

 I say there is not a scintilla of evidence but all the evidence is the 

 other way, while theirs is of the loosest kind. Some of their witnesses 

 say that they have found seals all over, occasionally, more or less. 



The expression of those who say that they have seen seals all over, 

 is, '■'■ more or less," every day, they have seen seals. 



In two or three instances, the latitudes are given, and then we can 

 show to your Honors that although some distance at sea, that would 

 be precisely on the lines of migration north or south. Dolosus versatur 

 in ffeneralibus, might apply. It is easy for a man to say, "I saw them 

 and the great Ocean was so thick that navigation was impeded". 

 Anybody could say that; but I would like to know, very much, Mr. 

 Captain of the sealing vessel, in what latitude you saw those? Is 

 your Log-book here? Produce your Log-book; and when you tell me 

 it was in a certain latitude, I have something to work upon, and I may 

 be able to satisfy the Court that that is just the place where you ought 

 to find seals. You find the Alaska seals going north, or Alaska seals 

 going south. You naturally would, at certain seasons find them there. 

 But, as the learned President said, I am speculating — I do not know 

 exactly what will be claimed, and perhaps it would be just as well on 

 that point to hear what our distinguished friends have to say. I think, 

 however, this is the answer, — and I desire to make it as satisfactory 

 as I can even at the expense of repetition — that even if the sea were 

 narrower, and it should be supposed that these animals while intending 

 to go home from the south did, on their extreme lines, touch each other 

 and individual seals came in contact, and that is called intermingling, 

 it does not in the slightest degree change the case — no more than the 

 fact that my Jersey cow goes over my fence among your Guernsey cows 

 and then comes back makes the slightest difference to my rights of 

 property, or affects the habits of the animal, or the distinctive char- 

 acteristics of each. 



It is just to say (and it is in the line of the suggestion of the learned 

 Arbitrator), that' we have something which approaches a judicial pro- 

 ceeding on the part of our friends on the other side — that is, that they 

 have resorted to something like cross-examination. How precious that 

 is to those conversant with the system of Great Britain, which we have 

 adopted, I need not say, to the English Judges and Jurists. We con- 

 sider it most essential to the administration of justice, and it is essen- 

 tial probably because it has been habitual, and justice has been con- 

 ducted from time immemorial in that way; and my friends on the other 

 side very naturally, and very properly, (finding that we have taken 

 gentlemen of high character belonging to their own nation, presumably 

 disposed to help them), undertook to cross-examine the witnesses that 

 we had cited. 



ISTow, in the first place, let me say, when we take such men as Bev- 

 ington, Poland, and the rest of them, and nobody could charge them 

 with being bribed or unduly influenced by the United States— when these 

 gentlemen spontaneously made their depositions for us — these London 

 furriers — the most eminent men in the business — when they say they 

 can at once tell the difference between a Pribylof skin or an Alaska 

 skin, (which is the same thing), and a Commander Island skin — if that 

 is true, they put their foot at once upon all question with regard to 



