386 ORAL ARGUMENT OP FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



sea, and 3 others not warned are shown by testimony to have entered 

 that side, establishing the fact that at least 31 out of 44 British vessels 

 did take seals on the American side in 1891, m spite of the modus. A 

 careful examination of the table and of the data in evidence has been 

 made, with the following approximate result. Catch in American 

 waters of Behring Sea 23,041; on the Asiatic side 5,847, being a total 

 for the Beliring Sea catch of 1891 of 28,888. I repeat, we will hand a 

 copy of this to our learned friends on the other side. 



1 will now come back to the question I was discussing, namely, the 

 nature, character, and etiect, the fatally destructive effect of pelagic 

 sealing; and it is hardly necessary to argue, but I shall to some brief 

 extent endeavour to prove that if 1 have shown enormous slaughter of 

 the seal and that of the most cruel, and mischievous and destructive 

 kind, it is unnecessary to produce much proof to account for the loss on 

 the islands. As it is in evidence, and as it is uncontradicted that all 

 the mothers go to the ishiuds, that all the young are born there, it is 

 manifest and requiies no proof to sliow that if 1 have proved a large 

 number of mothers to have been killed during a long consecutive num- 

 ber of years, the result is inevitable, and the birth-rate must have been 

 most seriously diminished on the land. The catches from 1871 to 1882 

 average over 13,000 for Canadian vessels alone, and this, of itself, with- 

 out further explanation or comment, is sufficient to account for the 

 decrease which was noticed on the Pribilof Islands in 1884 and 1885. 

 Of course, there was a decrease but it was not noticed until then. 

 Naturally they would only notice it when they came to picking out the 

 young males and then the sui)ply, or, as it is called, some times, the 

 crop, of three or four years before not coming up to the usual level, it 

 was observed that the supply of killable males was deficient. 



It is probable that American vessels took as nmny seals during those 

 years as did Canadian vessels. The figure of 13,000 takes no account 

 of the fact that a large number must have been — that a large number 

 were and are proved to have been gravid females, and that a certain 

 number in addition were lost. How large the number of those lost by 

 what we have called waste, that is by being wcmnded or killed and 

 going down to the bottom of the sea because of the specific gravity 

 being so much greater than that of water, of course is a matter of con- 

 jecture. Our proofs estimated this very high, as high as 50 or 00 per 

 . cent. The i)roofs on the other side 5, 6, 7 and 8, and even as high, I 

 believe, as 10, though it is in proof from their own witnesses, that what 

 is called the green hunter — and the green hunter is a chronic appurte- 

 nance to sealing on the sea, as I have shown, — misses 25 per cent at 

 least of those that he shoots or shoots at. 



Indeed with regard to pelagic sealing, there is one element about it 

 as to which we all agree and which ought to be fatal to its existence, 

 if it is intelligently considered, namely, that it cannot be properly 

 restricted because you cannot, by the very nature of things, discrimi- 

 nate. A man who would go into his cattle yard, killing right and left 

 males and females, the bulls and the cows, would probably have a 

 committee ajipointed for him to take charge of his estate, because he 

 was unfit to manage it himself. This is precisely the same, except that 

 it is almost as bad as though this cattle owner or farmer were to put 

 all his gravid females in one barn yard, and proceed to slaughter them 

 in preference to all the rest — that is the only difference that I can 

 see. It is indiscriminate, I say, and that requires no argument: it is 

 admitted. 



