240 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 22, 1913 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. W. J. Gallagher, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
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* THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
A QUEER FUR SEAL REPORT. 
A REPORT on House Resolution No. 73, 
adopted May 12, 1911, was recently issued in 
Washington by the chairman of the Committee 
on Expenditures in the Department of Com¬ 
merce and Labor. The resolution calls on the 
Secretary of Commerce and Labor to furnish 
to the House copies of all letters, reports, docu¬ 
ments and instructions received from, or given 
to, those in charge of the fur seal islands from 
Jan. I, 1904, up to date. 
The majority report on this resolution, for 
which apparently the chairman, John H, Rother- 
mel, is responsible, is signed by four members 
of the committee, and is accompanied by a 
minority report, signed by the remaining three. 
Although the House resolution calls for infor¬ 
mation for 1904 and subsequent years, the ma¬ 
jority report goes back nearly fifty years and 
contains a bitter and wholly unjustified attack 
on H. H. D. Peirce, former third assistant Sec¬ 
retary of State, and Dr. Chas. H. Townsend, 
now director of the Aquarium. 
The evidence taken by the committee makes 
more than 1,000 pages. The last hearing was 
held in July, 1912, but the committee has never 
held a single meeting for the purpose of con¬ 
sidering that evidence, nor was the report made 
ever submitted to the committee. Carbon copies 
were distributed to the members of the com¬ 
mittee, after the chairman had filed the original. 
The report of the majority goes back to 
1867-68, and inveighs against the care of the 
seal islands down to 1910; declares that the lease 
of the North American Commercial Co. was ob¬ 
tained by fraud; that H. H. D. Peirce and Chas. 
H. Townsend combined with the president of 
the North American Commercial Co. to collect 
a fraudulent claim against the Russian Govern¬ 
ment. and that Peirce and Townsend prepared 
the case and presented it at the Hague in 1902; 
that C. H. Townsend and G. M. Bowers, fish 
commissioner, advised the Secretary of Com¬ 
merce and Labor to lease the seal islands again 
for twenty years from 1910. It recommends 
that the Attorney General and the State Depart¬ 
ment institute proceedings to collect various 
damages from the North American Commercial 
Co., and its one-time president, and to rectify 
the wrong alleged to have been done by Towns¬ 
end and Peirce against the Government of 
Russia, and finally urges that the services of 
the Treasury agents on the Pribilof Islands be 
dispensed with. 
The testimony taken before the committee 
supports few of the assertions made in the re¬ 
port, and does not justify its recommendations. 
Dr. C. H. Townsend was sent to the Hague 
simply as a witness to testify regarding pelagic 
sealing matters. Fie did not prepare any case; 
he did not represent any claimant. He was a 
simple witness summoned to appear and to give 
testimony. The author of the report, when he 
states that notwithstanding the depletion of the 
fur seal herd. Dr. Townsend and Mr. Bowers 
recommended to the Secretary of Commerce and 
Labor that the islands should be leased again, 
strives to convey an impression of wrong doing. 
Yet he knows very well that up to April 21, 
1910, the law made it mandatory on the Secre¬ 
tary of Commerce and Labor to release the 
islands on the expiration of the old lease; in 
other words, these officials were simply doing 
what the law directed. What their real judg¬ 
ment was is easily shown by the record. 
At a meeting held soon after their appoint¬ 
ment, the whole advisory board of the fur seal 
service, of whom Dr. Townsend was one, were 
agreed as to what should be done about the 
islands, and individually, and as a body, advised 
that the Government should not lease, but should 
itself assume entire control over them. It was 
not until after these recommendations had been 
made that Senator Dixon, of Montana, intro¬ 
duced resolutions suggesting that the then exist¬ 
ing lease should not be renewed. Later, when 
bills providing for the repeal of the law of 1870 
were under consideration, the Secretary of Com¬ 
merce and Labor appeared before the commit¬ 
tees of the House and Senate and urged the 
passage of Senator Dixon’s bill, which became 
a law April 21, 1910. 
The majority report abounds in loose and 
unproven statements. There is no evidence that 
yearlings and female seals have commonly been 
killed by agents of the Government. All there 
is to show this is the assertion of one man, who 
has not been to the islands for more than twenty 
years. 
The majority’s recommendation that Treas¬ 
ury agents be withdrawn from the islands is 
most foolish. On the islands are many scores 
of natives who depend for guidance—indeed for 
existence—wholly on the Treasury agents, and 
who without the supervision of these agents 
might do anything in the world, from killing 
seals to killing each other. The United States 
not onl}' has on these islands property worth 
many thousands of dollars, but what is much 
more important, has the responsibility of caring 
for a considerable number of human beings who 
are absolutely dependent on it, through the help 
and support of these Treasury agents. 
F'ollowing the report is a statement as to 
some matters presented to the committee. 
Certain vague and general charges made by 
Henry W. Elliott against the officials connected 
with the fur seal fisheries are quite unsupported 
by evidence. 
There is nothing except bare assertion to 
show that any yearling male seals have been 
killed in an unlawful way. Evidence to show 
that under-aged seals had been killed was at¬ 
tempted by introducing what purported to be 
London sales sheets of C. M. Lampson & Co., but 
a comparison of these supposed sales sheets with 
originals shows that the copies introduced at the 
hearing were not true copies, but had been al¬ 
tered. 
There is no evidence that large numbers of 
female seals have been killed on the islands. In 
the few cases where females have been killed, it 
has probably not been done intentionalljq but by 
accident. 
Efforts were made to show that the great 
decrease of the seal herd has been brought about 
by land killing rather than by pelagic sealing, 
but practically all the testimony available shows 
that 80 per cent, of the pelagic seal skins are 
those of female seals. This would mean that 
from 1890 to 1897, 500,000 females were secured. 
The evidence goes to show that for every six 
male seals killed on land, two males and nine 
females were killed in the water. Besides, all 
agree that of the seals mortally wounded in 
pelagic sealing, only a small proportion are re¬ 
covered. Some say that four out of five are 
lost, and the lowest estimates are that at least 
one-half of those killed are not recovered. It 
is, therefore, fair to say that the number of 
females killed at sea by the pelagic sealers, 
1890-1897, was more than 1,000,000 individuals, 
and each one of these was either about to pro¬ 
duce a pup, or left one to starve on the land. 
All who have looked into the matter and 
whose opinion is of value agree that the de¬ 
crease of the fur seal herd is due to the enor¬ 
mous destruction of female seals by pelagic seal¬ 
ing. 
The wholly baseless attack on Dr. Chas. H. 
Townsend, by Congressman Rothermel, is great¬ 
ly to be deplored. It cannot hurt Dr. Town¬ 
send, whose standing in the community is too 
firmly established to be shaken by such an attack, 
but is likely to react very seriously on the repu¬ 
tation of its author. 
Next week’s issue will be the sportsman’s 
show number. It will be chock full of fresh, 
crisp sportsman’s material, descriptive, interest¬ 
ing and instructive. Dillon Wallace, famous for 
his intimacy with Labrador, is a feature added 
since our last foreword. The issue will be pro¬ 
fusely illustrated. Get it. 
THE JANUARY RECORD. 
Here are the figures compiled by Printers’ 
Ink of the agate lines of advertising carried 
last month by the outdoor sportsmen’s publica¬ 
tions : 
Publication Jan., 1913 
1. Forest and Stream. 13,297 
2. Outing Magazine . ii,7SO 
3. Field and Stream. 6,944 
4. Outdoor Life . 7,168 
5. Outer’s Book . 6,048 
6. Outdoor World . 5,982 
