340 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



say til at tliey have found certain skins which touch each other — which 

 approach each other — perhaps some of the poorer sliiiis resembling bet- 

 ter skins of the other; but I find no where in the Case — (and if I am 

 wrong-, when the time comes my friends may contradict me; I certainly 

 mean to state the fact as I understand it) — tliat any witness is willing 

 to place himself upon the fact, on his oath and on his honor, that he 

 has found, in an Alaskan consignment, a skin which he would declare 

 to be a Copper skin. The furthest he has ever gone is to say there are 

 some which touch each other so closely that he would not like to state 

 the difference with any certainty. 



We have the testimony of Mr. Revillon. Mr. Eevillon has been 

 examined, and I read from Mr. Revillon's evidence on page 230 of the 

 same volume. 



The President. — Is that the same deposition which is in your 

 Appendix? He has also been examined by Mr. Vignaud. 



Mr. CoiTDERT. — Tins is the cross-examination. After we submitted to 

 our friends on the other side our depositions, they availed themselves 

 of the right to cross examine. This is volume "2 of the Bering Sea 

 Arbitration Appendix to the Counter Case. I do not want to comment 

 upon the fact, but I think I am entitled to suggest to the learned Tri- 

 bunal that this difference that they now sj)eak of for the first time can- 

 not have struck them as being very material since they did not mention 

 it in depositions intended, of course, to enlighten the Court and to 

 state the truth. They stated em])hatically that they were able to dis- 

 tinguish the skins, that they could distinguish at all times an Alaska 

 from a Copper skin, and tuce versa; and, of course, they were in good 

 faith when they made the statement, and it was only subsequently 

 that, under cross examination, they were reminded that there might be 

 instances in which the two skins were, in general appearance, brought 

 so closely upon each other, that they might hesitate upon a distinction. 



So that it is fair to say that these gentlemen did not and could not 

 in good faith attach much importance to that, or they would have 

 called the attention of the United States in their depositions to the cir- 

 cumstance. 



I desire also in connection with this to draw the inference, which I 

 think I am right in drawing from the fact, that many of these gentle- 

 men, if not all, are easily and readily accessible, living in London and 

 ready no doubt at the request of any of my learned friends to state all 

 that they know, and yet none of these have been cross-examined. 

 When 1 say none of those, 1 mean none of those appearing here, 

 because I do not know if they were cross examined or not, or whether 

 their cross examination was not sulficieutly satisfactory to justify the 

 Counsel on the other side in inserting the result among their papers. 

 So tliat we have a number of witnesses actually proffered by us for 

 cross-examination; we have the cross examination only of a part, and 

 that part merely goes to the extent of saying, which may very well be 

 true without in the slightest degree impairing the ])Osition of the 

 United States, that in some cases these animals belonging, as they do, 

 to tlie same general family of the brute creation, bear such a resem- 

 blance to each other that taking a iiarticnlar skin, on the verge of an 

 extreme line it will resemble the skin of another branch of the same 

 family on another line. But I find that no one of these gentlemen is 

 willing to testify on his oath that he found a Copper skin in an Alaska 

 consignment. 



Senator Morgan. — Mr. Coudert, when you speak of Alaska con- 

 signments, do you mean that those are consignments made from the 

 Pribilof Islands? 



