INVESTIGATION" OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 207 



Mr. McGtjiee. The point you are developing now is, as I understand it, that the 

 yearlings at that time were on the islands at this certain season of the year mentioned 

 by you? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes; admittedly. 



Mr. McGuiee. The claim by certain persons now is that seals of this age and type 

 are not at that season found on the islands. Is that what you are developing now? 



Mr. Elliott. I am claiming that that is an untruthful and improper report to make; 

 that they are not there means that they have been killed and certified falsely into 

 the books of the Government as 2-year-olds. Do not make any mistake about that. 



As above quoted from Dr. Jordan's studied, elaborated, and final 

 report of February 24, 1898, he gives as proof of the fact that he 

 knew them — he knew the yearling seals as a class, and knew them well. 



So knowing them, he could not have failed to witness the killing 

 of yearlings in 1896-1897, thousands and thousands of them, in open, 

 flagrant violation of the "Carlisle Kules" of May 14, 1896, which 

 were duly posted on the Pribilof Islands, June 17, 1896. 



That he knew the significance and the evil effect of killing year- 

 lings in 1898 he also gives us full proof of in his final report of 

 February 24, 1898. In criticizing the close and improper killing 

 by the lessees during the season of 1889 he says, on page 103: 



Finally it was necessary successively to lower the grade of killable skins until, in 

 18S9, to get the quota of 100,000 nearly the entire bachelor herd down to and including 

 most of the yearlings was taken. In 1890 the collapse came, when only 21,000 skins 

 could be secured. 



With this full knowledge possessed by Dr. Jordan of what a year- 

 ling seal was, and what it signified to kill down to that lowest grade, 

 he actually falsifies the record of killing 30,000 seals in 1896, as 

 done under his eyes. In his report of the killing on the Pribilof 

 Islands during June and July, 1896, he denies that any yearling 

 seals were killed, and repeats that untruth for the season's work of 

 1897, on the same grounds, in the following statements, to wit: 



In 1896, 30,000 killable males were taken, 22,000 of these to the best of our informa- 

 tion, being 3-year-olds. 



Think for a moment of this studied untruth — the same London 

 sales records which gave Dr. Jordan his warrant for truthfully stating 

 the fact that yearlings were taken in 1889, as above cited — these 

 sales records of this 1896 catch of 30,000 declare the fact that not 

 quite 7,500 3-year-olds were taken, and, moreover, they tell him that 

 some 8,000 or 9,000 yearlings were also taken. 



In 1897 the lessees took 20,890 skins — all that they could get — 

 and Jordan again stands over that work on the islands. Again he 

 falsifies the record of this killing as follows : 



The quota of the year is made up practically of 3-year-old bachelors; some 2-year- 

 olds are killed and some 4-year-olds, but the majority of those taken are 3-year-olds. 



Not quite 7,000 of that 20,890 skins taken in 1897 were 3-year- 

 olds. More than 8,000 yearlings were again taken in its total, and 

 all of those little 30-34 inch yearling skins actually "loaded" with 

 blubber in 1896 and 1897, so that they weighed as much as 3-year- 

 old skins or 2-year-old skins. This fraud of "loading" those little 

 skins was to cover the Carlisle limit of a minimum taken "not less 

 than 6 pounds weight." 



This loading of those small skins in 1896-97, when Dr. Jordan 

 was on the islands (and continued ever since), and so done then, 

 first, to evade the Carlisle rules of May 14, 1896, could not have 



