628 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



now whether his charge was intended to cover the killing of anything 

 except yearling females? 



Mr. Elliott. I understand it to cover yearling females. 



The Chairman. I have a decided impression about that. 



Mr. McGuire. It is straight now. I did not understand him to say 

 here that they were yearlings, but I just wanted to satisfy myself as 

 to whether they were yearlings. 



Mr. Lembkey. The only evidence, as I state, to support this charge 

 was the relation in previous testimony of a visit of a senatorial com- 

 mittee to the islands 11 years ago on which occasion a small killing 

 of seals was made out of season as a demonstration for the committee's 

 information. During this killing a female seal was struck acci- 

 dentally by the clubbers and killed. It was shown by the evidence 

 that this killing was made after the regular killing season had closed, 

 and at a time when the families on the breeding rookeries had broken 

 up and the sexes mingled together on the bachelors' hauling grounds, 

 and when it was impossible to gather up a band of young seals for 

 killing without having among them a number of females having the 

 same size and general appearance as the males. 



The fact is also put in evidence that the native clubbers had 

 stringent orders to avoid, by every possible means in their power, the 

 killing of these females; that the killing of this one was an accident 

 and one which occurred probably several times during every season. 

 Outside of this one instance which, though regrettable, was acci- 

 dental, no evidence of any character was brought to substantiate the 

 charge that many thousands of these female seals were killed annu- 

 ally, either purposely or accidentally, and that the skins of these 

 females formed a large percentage of the catch. It might have been 

 thought that although this charge was true Mr. Elliott had not been 

 able to visit the islands since 1890 and had not, for that reason, an 

 opportunity to examine the catches or to view the killings of the 

 lessee, and was not, therefore, able to produce evidence of this killing 

 of females which he might have obtained had he been present on the 

 islands. 



I desire to recall the fact that Mr. Elliott visited these islands last 

 summer without previous notice to those there, inspected and exam- 

 ined the sealskins at will, and questioned privately the native work- 

 men in regard to this and other charges. Had the practice of killing 

 females been general as alleged, it would have been known by all of 

 these native men and the fact could not have been suppressed, for it is 

 not to the interests of these native people to have females destroyed 

 as they well know that by destroying the females the future increase 

 of the herd itself is destroyed from which they obtain their living and 

 in which they feel a proprietary interest. However, in extended 

 examinations of these people last summer through interpreters by Mr. 

 Elliott, without exception they all testified that never at any time 

 had it been the practice to kill female seals; that they had received 

 explicit instructions from the agents not to kill them; that when a 

 female occasionally appeared in the drives she was allowed to escape; 

 that if one was clubbed by accident the fact was reported to the 

 Government agents who gave orders for renewed caution, and that 

 these agents carefully inspected the killings by themselves examining 

 the carcases to ascertain whether cows had been killed but not 

 reported to them. This testimony appears in the Elliott-Gallagher 

 report to the committee, pages 116, 117, and 120 of hearing No. 1. 



