46 FUR-8EAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



Q. A mere question of inaccuracy ? — A. That is all. If auy skins are 

 left over they have to stay in the salt houses until the next year, and 

 they are counted in the next year's quota. When this quota has been 

 taken out of the salt house and put into the lighters which take them 

 to the vessel — there is no harbor there and vessels anchor about a mile 

 or so out and they are taken out in lighters — they are received into the 

 vessel after passing through an automatic counter ; the Gov^ernment has 

 nothing to do with that. The company have an automatic counter to 

 satisfy themselves as to the accuracy of the count. After the vessel 

 has been loaded at one of the islands or the other, or in fact both, the 

 vessels proceed to Oonalaska to coal up there, taking three or four days, 

 and then proceed to San Francisco. Then there are two agents of the 

 Treasury Department who are detailed from the custom-house there to 

 count these skius as they come out of the vessel, and on that count the 

 tax is paid. There is always a discrepancy between the seal-island count 

 and the San Francisco count, but it is slight, not amouuting to much 

 one way or the other. It has always been so and will always be so. It 

 is impossible for one man or two men to make two counts exactly alike 

 in 100,000 skins as they go in or out of a vessel. Sometimes in the un- 

 loading one man throws one bundle and another another from the ves- 

 sel, and you would be liable to get them mixed and in that way these 

 little inaccuracies occur. This, in brief, is about the sum total of the 

 drive, the killing, salting, shipment, and counting of the fur-seal skins 

 on these two islands. 



Now, if you desire to know anything further I will be glad to answer 

 you. 



Q. What measures are adopted to prevent unnecessary waste and 

 destruction of seal life 1 — A. Well, sir, the Government agents have, 

 as I previously stated, entire control of the rookeries, and they visit 

 them almost daily. It is their duty to look after that, for the reason 

 that the natives are continually going around over the island. We do 

 not permit any shooting on the island during the time the seal are there. 

 We do not permit a native to go near the rookeries during' the breeding 

 season, and in fact we do not permit them to be molested in any way by 

 any one ; we do not do it ourselves. In that way the seals are entirely 

 unmolested during the breeding season. I suppose you want to know 

 something about the people and their condition. 



Q. I will come to that directly. Let it be the next question — the 

 character, habits, and condition of the native inhabitants of the seal 

 islands, past and present, and the relations existing between them and 

 the Alaska Commercial Company. Just give us a general account of 

 that. — A. These islands, when they were taken by our Government, 

 were in what might be termed a deplorable condition, that is, the peo- 

 ple on the islands. They lived in dug-outs or sod-houses, half under 

 ground and half above, without any conveniences or comforts whatever. 

 They were taken out of these some years after that and put in comfort- 

 able cottages, so that all the people live as comfortably as any other 

 laboring people anywhere, and I consider the people, as laboring peo- 

 ple, are better housed and have more comforts than any other laboring 

 people either there or anywhere else. The company provide them with 

 salt and they get all the seal meat they want for meat during the sum- 

 mer. They have a physician on the island to take care of them without 

 any charge whatever. They have schools, half Russian and half En- 

 glish, and school-houses built by the company. Thej' have a church on 

 each island. They attend their church worship very regularly, and in 

 fact their religious duties very often interfere with the sealing, and that 



