rookeries before they learned by experience to treat them. It 
is desirable to protect and perpetuate the fur-bearing seal, and 
one of two plans should be adopted: One is to confine the kill¬ 
ing to the natives, permitting none others but the authorized 
agents of the government to land on the islands; and permit 
traders to visit them to purchase only after the skins have been 
prepared and the seals have left for the south. This course 
would necessitate the stationing of an agent on each of those 
islands to guard the interests of the government, and prevent 
the demoralization of the natives from such unscrupulous tra¬ 
ders as would not hesitate to furnish them with liquor for the 
purpose of cheating them.” — Report of Sec. of War , 1869-70, 
part 1 ,p. 118. 
The value of fur seal skins depends much on age and con¬ 
dition. In London the young pups, (under six months), realize 
about 7s. 6d.; those over that age sell for 20s.; they average 
nearly 12s. 6d. sterling. Basing our figures on the judgment of 
Gen. Thomas, which are affirmed by other authorities, we arrive 
at the conclusion that the seal fur rookeries on St. Paul and 
St. George are richly worth $20,000,000. Those valuable nurs¬ 
eries of commerce were purchased of Russia and paid for by the 
people’s money out of the Federal treasury, and thus have be¬ 
come the common property of the nation. Those of our people 
engaged in commercial pursuits on the coast of Alaska, were 
willing to preserve those seal rookeries to the government in the 
terms of the Indian Intercourse Law, and every fisherman would 
have gladly supported this just policy. The Chamber of Com¬ 
merce of San Francisco — the watchful guardian of our Pacific 
intercourse, concurred in this policy and represented the facts 
to our national Congress at Washington; yet, in the face of all 
our appeals, the “assembled wisdom” of our country have 
bartered away those islands for a mere mess of pottage; Con¬ 
gress has leased the seal rookeries of St. Paul and St. George 
for a term of twenty years, to a monopoly of merchants, receiv¬ 
ing in compensation an annual sum much less than it costs our 
government to protect those islands to the “favored few.” 
This law, passed in the spring of 1870, is as follows: 
AN ACT TO PREYENT THE EXTERMINATION OE EUR-BEARING 
ANIMALS IN ALASKA. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled , That it shall he unlawful to kill 
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