INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 301 



The following history of what the lessees demanded and secured 

 on the seal islands June-August, 1891, shows the same greed which 

 was exhibited by the Russian lessees in 1819-20, when an honest 

 demand was made of them to stop their ruinous work. Like our 

 Mills and Elkins, they prevailed ; the herd was ruined and well-nigh 

 exterminated by 1834. (Hearing No. 10, pp. 662-663, Apr. 24, 1912, 

 H. Com. Exp. Dept. C. and L.) _ 



There is a written record officially made, of the fact that the lessees 

 actually continued to kill seals illegally, 4,782 of them — large, choice 

 seals, after they had been ordered not to do so by the Treasury 

 Department. (See Exhibit H., Rept. Agents H. Com. Exp. Dept, 

 Com., 1913.) 



And still more, if it had not been for that protest which the British 

 commissioners made July 29, as stated by said exhibit in that "pri- 

 vate" meeting, those lawless lessees and their official confederates 

 would have continued to kill "food" seals during the rest of the year. 



This exhibit declares that nothing stood between the lessees and 

 their uninterrupted seal killing during the modus vivendi, but that 

 quick action of the British commissioners; the prohibition of the 

 President, the specific "orders" of the Treasury Department, and 

 then repeated reiteration by Chief Special Agent Williams, that 

 nothing to exceed 7,500 "food" seal skins should be taken, was, to 

 them, a mere use of words to conceal their illegal work, not to stop it, 

 a,fulgur brutum, in short. 



They took 10,782 skins on St. Paul, when ordered, May 27, 1891, 

 not to exceed 6,000 during the entire season. 



They took 3,218 seal skins on St. George, when ordered not to 

 exceed 1,500 during the entire season. 



And they did all that up to and by August 11, 1891, with the 

 official orders prohibiting that killing posted June 13, 1891, on the 

 islands. 



Mr. J. Stanley-Brown who shares this malfeasance with Williams 

 (W. H.) in 1891, came up again June 9, 1892, as the United States 

 chief special agent, and on Friday, July 8 (1892), following turned 

 the entire control of the killing over to the lessees, and for that service 

 he was made the "superintendent" of the lessees' business on the 

 islands in June, 1894. (See Exhibit B, Rept. Agents H. Com. Exp., 

 Dept. Com., Aug. 30, 1913.) 



W. H. Williams, the agent who was put suddenly, April 5, 1891, in 

 Goff's place by Charles Foster, and who was so selected because Foster 

 had complete control over him, went up to St. Paul's Island, and 

 landed there June 10, 1891. He was also accompanied by Joseph 

 Stanley-Brown, who went as Charles Foster's "own man" to get the 

 facts. 



It will be noted in the foregoing statement that when Williams 

 after cooperating with Brown in this illegal killing of some 14,000 

 seals during the season of 1891, in violation of the international law 

 which fixed it at 7,500 for that year, it will be noted that he leaves 

 the islands on August 11, 1891, and returns to Washington. 



Does he ever return to the islands? No. Mr. Joseph Stanley- 

 Brown takes his place, and on Thursday, June 9, 1892, arrives on 

 St. Paul's Island as the chief special agent in charge. 



