ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 357 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — The President spoke of tlie coiitiueut, my 

 Lord. 



The President. — The continent is the nearest part. 



Lord Hannen. — No, I tliink you will find that is the nearest. [Indi- 

 cating,] 



Mr. OouDERT. — With regard to the question the learned President 

 asked, of course they vary. There are schools of cod fish, but they are 

 mostly south and west of the Pribilof Islands, as I understand. 



The President. — The pelagic sealing goes on, on the west of the 

 Islands quite as much as between the islands and the continent. 



Mr. CouDERT, — Yes. 



The President. — It goes on all round. 



Mr. Coudert. — I will call, a little later on, the attention of the Court 

 to a chart on that subject. I would prefer to wait until I reach that 

 point in the case. The nearest land is within 200 miles. 



Mr. Gram. — Are there not a great quantity fish near to the Pribi- 

 loff Islands? 



Mr. Coudert. — No, Sir; it may be that they have come there, but 

 there is a large number of seals, and tbey naturally would be driven off 

 or destroyed. But the evidence is clear, Mr. Arbitrator, that the great 

 destruction of the seals is effected at a remote distance from the land; 

 some of the witnesses on the other side so state, and, in fact, I have 

 read from their testimony, that nobody who knows anything about 

 sealing Avill pretend that they get seals within those short distances. 

 But I feel justified in calling the attention of the Court most specially 

 to what I have read, because it is a ibuudation upon which much of 

 this case rests — the habits of the mother seal; and there is no doubt 

 (and if there were any doubt we should soon remove it by the testi- 

 mony tlmt I shall read) that a great part of the destruction comes from 

 the killing of the nursing mother. I, perhaps, do not attach as much 

 importance to this feature as some persons might, because I think the 

 great and the radical crime is to kill females at all. The female that is 

 killed under pretence or with the justification tliat it is not in that con- 

 dition to day,if itis young and healthy will be in that condition to-mor- 

 row. It is the possibility — the more than ijossibility — the certainty that 

 you introduce death by wholesale. True it is more appalling to our 

 sense of humanity, it is something that all the legislation of every coun- 

 try here represented reprobates and condemns, that a female in that con- 

 dition should be killed, and therefore this consideration emphasizes the 

 point. It aggravates the offence, and it arouses the indignation more 

 clearly when it is shown that these animals, nursing their offspring, 

 are killed at that time. But the crime is to kill them at any stage ; and 

 where our system is preeminently good, and wherein it has been pre- 

 eminently successful, is that this has been the distinctive mark of it — 

 that under no circumstances would the killing of a female be allowed. 

 Because that rule was adopted by Russia, and because that rule was 

 kept up by America, you are here to-day. If it had not been for this 

 there would have been no seals to trouble you, or to occupy your atten- 

 tion. May I ask the Arbitrators to note — 1 shall not call special atten- 

 tion to it now — that in the first volume of our Appendix there are some 

 valuable, and interesting charts, which speak for themselves, and which 

 give information about which there can be no dispute. In volume I of 

 the Appendix to the case of the United States, there are several charts 

 between pages 542 and 543. 



These are the charts showing where these vessels were seized by our 

 cruisers and made to produce their log books. 



