332 TESTIMONY 



is not stopped on the it^lands iu Bering Sea and tlie 

 10 ec ion. North Pacific Ocean the seal must become extermi- 



nated. 



J. Johnson. 



1892. 

 A. W. Lavender, 

 United States Treasury Agent. 



Deposition of Francis Robert King-HaU, journalist. 

 pelagic sealing. 



District of Columbia, 



Citg of Washington, ss : 

 Francis Eobert King-Hall, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 



a subject of Her Britannic Majesty, late of the Eleventh 

 iLxpenence. Hussars, a SOU of Sir William King-Hall, K. C. B., 



admiral in the British navy. I am 35 years of age, a journalist by 

 profession, residing in New York City. In 1891, as a correspondent 

 of the New York Herald, I was detailed to investigate into the meth- 

 ods of pelagic sealing. I proceeded to Victoria, arriving about the 



25th of June, and i)rocured passage on board the seal- 



""' ^^^ ■ ing schooner Otto, 85 tons burden, Lunenburg, Nova 



Scotia. Her managing owner was Walter Borns, of Victoria, British 



Columbia, and her captain was John Riley, a British subject, who had 



had several years experience in pelagic sealing, having entered Bering 



Sea as long ago as 1883, as mate of the schooner Favor- 

 °'^''"' *■ ite. On July 2nd we left Victoria, the crew consisting 



of the captain, mate, 4 hands before the mast, a cook, and a Patago- 

 niau boy, it being the intention of the captain to pick up Indian hunt- 

 ers on our way out. The Otto had no difficulty in get- 

 theOHo"."''''^''^^'^"^ tin'gher clearance papers for hunting in Bering Sea, 



although the Queen's order in council had been i^ro- 

 mulgated, and Lieut. Hadley, of H. M. S. Pheasant, informed me, when 

 I met him in Bering Sea, that he had, by orders of Commander Tur- 

 ner, requested Collector Milne, of the port of Victoria, to warn the Otto 

 and not to give her clearance papervS for hunting iu Bering Sea. 



We had much difficulty in getting Indian hunters, putting in at sev- 

 eral villages along the Vancouver coast. Most of the hunters were 

 absent, having been employed previous to our arrival. At the village 

 of Hesquiat I met Father Brabant, a Belgian priest, who had lived for 



twenty-seven years among the Indians of the west 

 iag?c"eaiii!r' "^ ^*" ^0^^*' Through him I obtained the Indian view of the 



present condition of the Alaskan seal herd. I found 



that by the use of the spear very few seals were lost, and that the In- 



TT,^ nf <irpar.„= „.n diaus of Vaucouver had at one time a law among them- 



hibited by Indians selvcs prohibiting the use of guns m taking seals. He 



among themselves. ^^^^ ^^j^^ ^^^ ^^.^^^ j^lg ^^.^ kuOWlcdgC that the UcllUCk- 



elset Indians had a few years ago caught off the coast 1,600 seals in a 

 season, and that now they could catch hardly any; that the white men's 

 guns were not only destroying the seals but driving them further from 

 the coast. At every village (and we stopped at over nine on Vancou- 

 ver Island) I interrogated the Indians to the best of my ability, and 

 Decrease ^^^^ ^^ agreed there were very few seals now compared 



with the great numbers which were found formerly, 

 and that this decrease began five or six seasons ago. We finally picked 



