Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-10-18
Helena, Montana, Thursday, October IS, 1883.
SEAL SKINS.
Cost of Lady's Sacque---The Seal
Island Fisheries.

Seal skins are dressed and dyed in Eng
land and when returned to this country
pay duty of 80 per cent. The cost OF seal
skin garments is not to be wondered at
when one counts the items. The raw and
unsightly skins in their salt are worth from
$40 to $50 each, according to quality. There
is to be added to this tax of 81 each to
the Government; charge of $6 or 50 for
the dyeing and dressing; duty OF ~
cents when they are returned to this coun-
try; and fair charge for all the transport
alton the skins undergo, and the insurance
on them for all of this time. This gives
dressed sealskin, ready for the furrler to
make up into garments, an average value
of from $40 to $50. 1t takes three skins to
make a sacque of medium size, and the fur
riers always charge well for the making
and lining. The sea otter, with which the
finest sacques are trimmed, is natural fur
that requires no dyeing, and needs only to
be dressed and plucked of its coarser hairs
before it is ready for use. The sea otter IS
the most expensive fur of its kind. and sim
ole skins are shown costing from 500 to
$780,
By the wise action of the Government in
reserving the seal islands and leasing them
to a responsible company, the seal fisheries
have become more and more valuable. The
seals are increasing in number yearly, and
more than the regular 100, 900 could be
killed each season without diminishing
them to any extent Alaska seal is now
the only sealskin in the market, since the
rookeries of the Antarctic Sea have been so
persistently hunted that the seals have be-
come extinct. The Shetland seals, found
on the islands Of that name Oft Cape Horn,
for a long time furnished the finest skins
in the market, and commanded almost
double the price Of the Alaska sealsklns.
Not being protected by any government,
the islands were free hunting grounds for
every ship that went round the Horn, u
and no skipper could resist venture at
such costly pelts. From the Island OF
South Georgia and the Island of Desolation
2.4OO,OOO sealskins were taken annually
from the time of their discovery, IN III,
until within the last twenty years, when
the seals gradually became extinct
A San Francisco furrier sent
schooner down to those Antarctic islands
few years ago, and sixty skins were all that
were obtained. All along the northwest
coast. from Vancouver's Island to Onalaska,
where the authority and monopoly OF the
Alaska Commercial Company begins, a
general warfare is waged on the fur seal by
Independent hunters and traders, but their
catch has seemingly no effect upon the
millions of seal that annually gather on the
Pribyloff shores, and the pelt grows coarser
and poorer the further south OF those
islands it is obtained. The seals skin is in
it's best condition during the summer
months, when the animals frequent the
Pribyloff rookeries, and by wise protection
the Government has an inexhaustible
source of wealth in these two small islands,
that have alreudy paid into the Treasury
in rent and taxes nearly the whole amount
that was paid to Russia for the immense
Territory of Alaska.