DECISIONS OF UNITED STATES COUETS. 113 



States, for tlie purpose of violating the provisions of said section 1956, 

 Eevised Statutes ; and I hereby proclaim, that all persons found to be, 

 or have been engaged in any violation of the laws of the United States, 

 in said waters, will be arrested and punished as above provided, and 

 that all vessels so employed, their tackle, apparel, furniture, and cargoes 

 will be seized and forfeited. 



In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the 

 seal of the United States to be affixed. 



Done at the City of Washington, this twenty-first day of March, one 

 thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, and of the Independence of 

 the United States the one hundred and thirteenth. 



[SEAL.] Benjamin Hakkison. 



By the President, 



James G. Blaine, 



Secretary of State, 



decisions of the united states courts. 

 United States vs. Gutormson and Norman. 



[Disrict court, Alaska,] 



Charge to the jury delivered in 1886 defining the rights and jurisdic- 

 tion of the United States to Bering Sea, and explaining the law in 

 relation to the destruction of fur-bearing animals. 



Dawson, J. 



Gentlemen of the Jury : You are called upon to determine or 

 rather to find the facts in a controversy of unusual importance. 



The information preferred and filed by the district attorney, based 

 upon the afiidavit of the commander of the United States revenue-cut- 

 ter Corwin, charges the defendants with having killed a certain number 

 of seals and other fur-bearing animals, and appropriating the skins of 

 such animals, in the waters of Alaska, contrary to the provisions of 

 section 1956 of the Revised Statutes. It is the duty of the court to in- 

 struct the jury as to the law applicable to the facts of this case as devel- 

 oped by the evidence, and it is your duty as jurors acting under the 

 solemn obligation of an oath, and as one of the instrumentalities desig- 

 nated by the law to aid in its enforcement, to obey, and in your delib- 

 erations observe the instructions given you by the court. 



For the purpose of aiding you in your deliberations, I will define to you 

 the western boundary line of Alaska as designated and set forth in the 

 treaty of March 30, 1867, between the Government of the United States, 

 on the one x)art, and by His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, 

 acting through his envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to 

 the United States, on the other. Article one of that treaty defines the 

 western boundary as follows : 



" The western limit within which the territories and dominion con- 

 veyed are contained passes through a point in Berings Straits on the 

 parallel of sixty-five degrees thirty minutes north latitude at its inter- 

 section by the meridian which passes midway between the islands of 

 Krusenstern and Ignalook, and proceeds due north without limitation 

 into the same frozen ocean. 



<' The same western limit, beginning at the same initial point, pro- 

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