244 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



of the seals, have throughout been in practice actually 

 under the control of the agents of the Company. The 

 subjoined extracts have special bearing on the last-men- 

 tioned subject: 



MR. H. W. ELLIOTT, 1872-74. 



Mr. H. W. Elliott says: 



H. R., 50th The natives and the Company are jointly interested in getting the 

 Cong., 2d<1 Sess., very best skins, and getting them as qnickly as possible. 

 ^^F^a^ ^°" ^^^^' ^^ *^® morning of a killing day the Company's agent gets up at the 

 P' ' break of day and goes out with his party. 



And says, further: 



H. "W. Elliott, When the sealing season opens the men get together, and the chief 

 in H. K., 4 4th goes to the Company's agent on a certain morning and asks if he is 

 Cong. 1st Sess., j.g;,(^y iq ~q ^q -work. The Company's agent says: "Yes; in your 

 So " 'JiidS^ieiitgoahead." 



And again says: 



J, .^ The habit of the Company is to inform the chiefs or foremen of the 



natives, every morning during the working season, of their desire for 

 a certain number and certain kind of skins. These men go to the 

 natives, and arouse them from their slumbers. 



CAPTAIN BRYANT, 1876. 



Captain Charles Bryant, who was on the Pribyloff 

 Islands as a Special Agent, from 1870 to 1877, before the 

 Congressional Committee in 1876, in answer to the 

 question — 



H. K., 44 th Who has the direction of the natives in their work, the agent of the 



Cons:., 1st Sess., Company? 

 Koport No. 623, ^ "' 



p- 96. said : 



No; their chiefs. In killing the seals the agent of the Company 

 directs the chief, saying to him that he wants him to go ahead 



286 and kill seals as fast as he can When the seals 



are on the ground the agent of the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany stands by the herd while they are being killed, and, after the 

 chiefs have selected such seals as they consider prime they ask the 

 agent of the Company if there are any more in that lot which he 

 wants. If he chooses any of the others, they kill them. 



MR. J. MOULTON, 1877-85. 



Mr. Jacob Moulton, Special Treasury Agent at the Seal 

 Islands from 1877 to 1885, reports that — 



H. R., 5 th the agents of the Company have the killing in charge. The killing 

 Cong., 2nd Se.ia., jy done by the natives, and the agents have charge necessarily. 

 No. 3883, p. 251. j j c o ./ 



MR. TAYLOR, 1881. 



Mr. W. B. Taylor was a Special Agent of the Treasury 

 Department on St. George Island in 1881, and says of the 

 natives : 



Ibid., p. 52. These people are absolutely in their [the Company's] charge, that 



is, in regard to their care and comfort. 



