114 MANAGEMENT. 



Season United nevertheless, always insisting that all such 



States consider 



the charge. charges of fraudulent practices are irrelevant to 



the present issue, and are introduced by the 

 Commissioners for the purposes of distracting the 

 attention of the Arbitrators from the true issue 

 and of throwing a general discredit upon the ad- 

 ministration of the seal rookeries by the United 

 States. 

 Frand, as aiieg- The charges referred to are presented in the 



ed in the Report. ° A 



Report in the following words : " Statements have 

 been made to the effect that during the lease of 

 the Alaska Commercial Company frauds were 

 perpetrated in regard to the number of skins 

 taken on the Islands and counted for taxation. 

 No direct evidence of this seems to have been 

 produced, but as the official counting of the skins 

 both on the Islands and in San Francisco was 

 done in bundles, each of which was supposed to 

 consist of two skins, it is obvious that, but for 

 observed difference of size and weight, three or 

 even four skins might have been bundled and 

 corded together and counted as two." (Sec. 670.) 

 And, again, the Report states that there were 

 "several instances of the same individual, now in 

 the capacity of an employ e" of the Company and 

 again as a supervising officer of the Government" 

 (Sec. 52), and the latter assertion is connected 



