FUE-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 31 



these little bright plugs of tobacco were 10 cents, according to my rec- 

 ollection. Calico was about 8 to 10 cents a yard, and. sugar was about 

 15 cents when we had it. Judge Glidden ordered it away at one time. 

 Canned goods I do not remember about, but I never heard any com- 

 plaint. 



Q. Was the Company regulation in regard to the 25 per cent, advance 

 on San Francisco wholesale prices adhered tof— A. That is what 1 

 understood. They have a regular scale of 25 per cent, over the whole- 

 sale San Francisco rate and the prices were tacked up in the store. I 

 used to go in the store myself whenever there was a trading day, which 

 was twice a week, but as I never charged my mind or made a memo- 

 randa, I ouly remember these things from seeing. 



Q. You spoke of the natives having these things from an agent ; was 

 it from the agent of the Company or the Government"? — A. They were 

 furnished by the Alaska Commercial Company. A part of thern were 

 furnished under the regulations of the lease and a part voluntarily. The 

 medical attendance, I believe, is voluntary; I do not know that there 

 is any regulation on the subject. They also have salt. Although the 

 lease requires the Company to furnish salt for the salting of meat, this 

 was an insignificant part of what they used, because they do not like 

 salt seal meat. But they do use it on the blubber, which they can take 

 off twenty thousand carcasses which they kill in St. George. It is the 

 women's duty to take it to the village on their backs. They get boxes 

 and pack tbis blubber down in layers with a layer of salt, and the salt 

 house is open and when they want salt they send or go down to the 

 salt house and go to shoveling it in and taking it away and there is no 

 account made, of that at all. They receive 20 tons of coal a year. 



Q. You mean on that island f — A. I mean on St. George. ' The com- 

 pany pays these men for bringing their own coal ashore and putting it 

 into the coal-house. Then I used to take the key and keep charge of 

 the coal till cold weather, when I weighed it out to them. The natives 

 are paid for bringing their own coal ashore the same as the company's 

 coal. When it is landed it is weighed, which I superintended for our 

 island. These men are paid for everything they do, for every bit of 

 laboring work they perform. The coal is not required under the lease ; 

 there were so many cords of wood required, and they substituted coal 

 for it. 



Q. Was that amount of coal equal to the amount of wood required ? — 

 A. I think it is equal to a good deal more. It was good steaming coal. 

 It is put at Fort Nanimo, Vancouver Island, into steamers or other ves- 

 sels, and there shipped to the islands. They use the same kind of coal, 

 the company, the steamer, and the natives. It all comes out of the 

 same pile. 



As for the counting of the skins, the system we used on the island 

 was, that I was always present at the killing when I was on the island, 

 and I was present when the skins were carried into the salt house, and 

 I had two natives couftt the skins by tens, alternating, one countiug one 

 .and then the other the next, and I tallied down ten. The chief stood 

 on the other side of the door of the salt-house, and he kept a tally with 

 me of the skins counted out, so they would know they got paid for all 

 the skins they took. 



Q. Do they get paid by that count? — A. Yes, sir. I entered the 

 result upon the books in the government house and the chief delivered 

 his account to the company's agent, and they took his count for it. The 

 chief and myself were always pretty correct, and if there was any dif- 

 ference we had another count, counting it out again, but there was 



