452 TESTIMONY 



From my experience in dealing- with the people interested in sealing, 



and from my own personal observation, I know the 



seals are decreasing very fast in Bering Sea, and it is 



a common remark among seamen who ship on sealing vessels that they 



do not care abont going, for there is nothing- in it, and 



seSmcr"'^*'*^^^"®^^ °^ oiily those will ship that are hard up and can get 



nothing else to do. It is very important that the seals 



Protection neces- be jirotccted in the waters of the l^orth Pacific and 



^^^' Bering Sea fi-om being killed by hunters, or they will 



be so near exterminated in a short time that it will pay no one to hunt 



them. 



James Laflin. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this Ifith day of April, A* D. 1892. 

 [l. s.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary Fiihlic. 



Deposition of Isaac Liehcs, furrier. 



PELAGIC sealing AND GENERAL SEAL-SKIN INDUSTRY. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss: 

 Isaac Liebes, having been duly sw^orn, deposes and says: I reside in 



San Francisco, Cal. I am, and have been for the last 

 xperience. twenty-three years, by occupation a fur merchant, dui'- 



ing which time I have handled more raw fur-seal skins than any other 

 individual in the United States or Canada, and more than any firm or 

 corporation except the lessees of the sealeries of the Pribilof and (Jom- 

 mander islands. I claim to be thoroughly acquainted with all kinds ot 

 seal skins, and from all the different localities, and can readily dis- 

 tinguish one from the other. I am also thoroughly familiar with the 

 mode of capturing the seals, both on land and in the water, and in 

 handling, packing, and shipping the skins. My business as a manu- 

 facturer of furs has also made me equally familiar with the dressed 

 and dyed seal skins. The greater part of the raw seal skins which 

 have passed through my hands were from seals captured at sea, and it 

 is with this feature of seal hunting- that I am more especially familiar. 

 I speak from personal observation and experience in describing the 

 marine sealing fieet, and the business of marine seal hunting. 



The sealing fleet is comprised almost exclusively of small schooners, 



carrying from five to thirty men, some of the crew 

 and^outtit o^f!'*^*' ^^^^ being exclusively white men and some of them mixed, 



white men and Indians. They are fitted with the nec- 

 essary boats, guns, spears, gaffs, water butts, and other implements 

 required for seal killing and to enable the hunters to remain away from 

 the vessel in their boats for several consecutive hours. The vessels 

 leave port, the most of them going out either from Victoria or San 

 c.„r„„ „ „„„»f 1 . Francisco in the early spring, and commence their sea- 



SealiDg on coast be- , ^ n ^^ ^-,t , • ^ •-, ,-• i 



gins iu April or early sou's work off Cape Flattery m April or the early j)art 

 part of May. of May. They then follow the scals upoii their north- 



Time of entering ward passagc towards Bering Sea and finally, in June 

 eriug Sea. ^^ early in July, into those waters, killing every animal 



I)ossible as they go. They formerly commenced their voyages still 



