700 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



tion that any Russian in God's world can make of his own language. 

 There is no word "breeders " in that letter. You can not find it in the 

 Russian dictionary, for that matter. They use the word " proplodt," 

 "to multiply/' "to propagate," and "to fructify," but they never use 

 the word ' ' breeders." I have never seen it anywhere in Russian. It is 

 our own language. They use the words "Holluschickie," or "bache- 

 lors," and " Holluschikovie " in this letter, which are "bachelors" and 

 "nothing but bachelors." You can not make anything else out of it. 

 We ourselves called them "bachelors" up there, in 1872, and it is the 

 common slang word and established there to-day. 



Mr. W atkins. Is it possible that in making that translation the 

 word "breeders" was used as meaning male breeders ? 



Mr. Elliott. It could not be used in that way, because Mr. Clark 

 in Ins testimony explained to the committee that "breeders" means 

 males and females. 



Mr. Watkins. What called my attention to that was the word you 

 used a while ago which you said meant to fructify. A female would 

 not be considered an animal to fructify. 



Mr. Elliott. Well, I was speaking of the extreme range of the dic- 

 tionary, that I never found the word "breeders" in it. I am not a 

 Russian scholar, and I will not say it is not in the dictionary; but, I 

 have never heard it, and I have never read it. The word they use in 

 this letter is " proplodt,' ' which means " to propagate," or " to multiply," 

 and it is correctly translated in the American case, because we have 

 got the correct translation of it here. Let me just read it to you. 

 Our Government cleared itself of that fraud, all right; and then Dr. 

 Jordan steps in, and mires himself clown again. The "false trans- 

 lation" which Foster withdrew in the name of our Government, 

 because he said he had been imposed upon, reads this way: 



Every year a greater number of young bachelor seals is being killed, while for propa- 

 gation there remained ouly the females, sekotch, and half sekotch. Consequently, 

 only the old breeding animal* remain, and if any of the young breeders are not killed 

 by the autumn they are sure to be killed in the following spring, etc. 



Now, you see the inference, the plain, absolute transposition of the 

 meaning of the Russian text. Yanovsky distinctly tells you that 

 "only the j^oung bachelors" are killed; in this falsified text you have 

 got to kill males and females to get "young breeders," and the self- 

 evident impropriety of that thing was so clear that Foster immedi- 

 ately apologized to the British counsel, withdrew it, and published this 

 spurious translation alongside of the "revised translation" which he 

 ordered in lieu of of it, and which I have correctly charged up to Dr. 

 Jordan. 



Mr. Watkins. That is 175 in parallel columns ? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes; it is "letter No. 6." I do not like John W. 

 Foster; but I think in this matter he was imposed upon, and he had 

 onlv one thing to do — to withdraw the "false translation" and 

 apologize for it. and he did it. The mystery of the thing is that Dr. 

 Jordan deliberately renews that imposition and deceit, and embodies 

 it in his own official report to the Secret arv of the Treasurv, February 

 24, 1898, or four years later. 



Mr. Watkins. My understanding is that Foster is not living. 



Mr. Elliott. Oh, yes; he is in town now, I think; John W. Foster 

 is alive, to-day. 



Mr. Watkixs. I was under the impression he died several years ago. 



