ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 367 



And tlie evidence will sliow that the utmost care and the greatest 

 precautions are taken to prevent that disturbance. 

 Then on the next page : 



The number of seals allowed to be killed annually by the lessees was, from 1871 to 

 1889 inclusive, 100,000. 



That is under the first lease. 



But tills number is variable, and entirely within the control of the Treasury 

 Department of the United States. 



This has already appeared from the argument of Mr. Carter. The 

 Government of the United States will not even fix this as an amount 

 which may be killed but reserves to itself the right, Math an intelligent 

 supervision, to determine if the 100,000 shall be reduced or not. 



Senator Morgan. — 100,000 is the maximum limit, I understand. 



Mr. CouDERT. — Yes, no more than 100,000, but the Secretary of the 

 Treasury may reduce it as much as he thinks fit. 



In 1889 Charles J. Goff, then the Goverument agent on the islands, reported to the 

 Department that he considered it necessary to reduce the quota of skins to be taken 

 in 1890. The Goverument at once reduced the number to 60,000 and ordered the 

 killing of seals to cease on July 20th. 



My friend, Mr. Williams, reminds me as a matter of fact that they 

 only killed 20,000. And now we must be taught by our enemies, and 

 I will read from the British Commissioners' Eeport, page 114, section 

 600, with the permission of the court. 



Theoretically, and apart from this (luestion of number and other matters inciden- 

 tal to the actual working of the methods employed, these were exceediugly proper 

 and well conceived to insure a large continual annual output of skins from the 

 breeding islands, always under the supposition that the lessees of these islands 

 could have no competitors in the North Pacific. 



1 will ask, at this point, to have the Arbitrators stop and look at the 

 statement. An admirably devised system, one that would have pre- 

 served the seal and insured an out-put constant, unfailing, and regular 

 if we had taken into account pelagic sealing. 



It.was assumed that equal or proximately equal numbers of males and females 

 were born, that these were subject to ecjual losses by death or accident, and that in 

 consequence of the polygamous habits of the fur-seals, a large number of males of 

 any given merchantable age might be slaughtered each year without seriously, or 

 at all interfering with the advantageous proportion of males remaining for breeding 

 purposes. 



I think we will all agree that that was a fair and intelligible assump- 

 tion. 



'Now the next paragraph I will read — 661. 



The existence of the breeding rookeries as distinct from the hauling-grounds of 

 the young males, or holluschickie, was supposed to admit, and did in former years 

 to a great extent admit, of these young males being killed without disturbing the 

 breeding animals. The young seals thus "hauling" apart from the actual breeding 

 grounds were surrounded by natives and driven att' to some convenient place, where 

 males of suitable size were clubbed to death, and from which the rejected animals 

 were allowed to return to the sea. 



The method is one blow on the head; the animals are very easily 

 despatched. The bones of the skull are very thin and it is a painless 

 prom]>t and efiQcient method of putting them to death. The sports- 

 manlike instincts — the atavistic instincts of the British Commissioners 

 rebel against this. Oh ! they say, it is very brutal and it is not half so 

 sportsmanlike as going round with a rifle and a breech loader and a 

 gaft' and giving the animal a chance to escape. Well it is precisely 

 what should not happen. You do not want the animal to escape, 



