100 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



mercial value beyond that of the fur they bear, and if the fur be not 

 applied to its present use, viz, the manufacture of garments for ladies' 

 wear, the value of the seal islands, as a source of revenue to the Gov- 

 ernment, is gone. For hatters' purposes the fur is not nearly as valu- 

 able as that of either rabbit or utri, and of these there is an unlimited 

 supply. So that, in reality, the continuance of this business depends 

 on the continuance of a fashion based on woman's fancy, and this not 

 a foundation to " capitalize on." 

 By Mr. Cummings : 



Q. What do you mean by dressed and dyed skins ; dressed and dyed 

 by you ? — A. No, sir. Seal skins are sold in London at public auction. 

 The salted skins once sold, the company's interest, directly and indi- 

 rectly, in those skins ceases. These sales are very regular, and there 

 are men from Eussia, Germany, France, from America, and from Eng- 

 land as buyers. They attend the auction sale and purchase tliese skins. 

 After they purchase them they are dressed and dyed and then made 

 into the garments which you see worn; but with that the company 

 has nothing to do. 



Q. In the foregoing paper you are giving the estimate of dressed 

 and dyed skins? — A. For the reason that 1 want to show you where 

 the Government interest comes in in this. 



By the Chairman : 



Q. To extend it a little further : the Government receives from the 

 Alaska Commercial Company $55,000 a year rent and $2.62^ for each 

 skin taken from the islands, making in the aggregate a little over 

 $300,000 per annum. There is no account of what the Government re- 

 ceives in the form of import duties when re-imported, and I hskve been 

 trying to get at that and his object in the foregoing paper is to reach the 

 question. — A. My object in the statement before submitted was to pre- 

 sent to the comm'ittee afull valuation of the rookery to the Government, 

 not from the lease alone but from other sources as well. 



By Mr. Jeffries : 



Q. If your trade were once lost it would be an expensive process to 

 get it back ? — A. It would be years of perfectly unremunerative labor 

 to get it back. Just look at what it was when the Government made 

 this first lease. If we had been called upon to pay the Government tax 

 and rental, we should have made a large loss. We sold those skins for 

 from 18 to 21 and 24 shillings, delivered in London, and the best furriers 

 of the time that were conversant with the trade said to me, both in 

 London and New York, " You have taken something there you can not 

 carry. Y^ou never can pay the rates to the Government that you have 

 undertaken to pay, and pay expenses." 



Q. As a fact dil you lose money ?— A. In the first years of the opera- 

 tion, the company lost 9 per cent. 

 By Mr. Cummings : 



Q. You say that if you were under the same contract with the Gov- 

 ernment that you are now, with even the number of skins you took in 

 18G8, according to the state of the market in London, you would have 

 lost money ?— A. Yes; what we pay to the Government, and to the 

 natives in absolute cash is $3.17 to the Government and 40 cents a skin 

 to the natives for killing. There is $3.57 in cash to say nothing of 

 other expenses. Then we had the expense of sending that venture up 

 there and paying the men upon it and transporting the skins to London. 



