, 1886-01-16
sgAl-aunrrne OFF LABRADOR.
The Work Of Destruction-cries of the
Young seaIs-PeIts and on.

The Work Of DeHtruction-Cries Of the
Young seafs-PoIts and OIL.
The sealer steamer sails around,
always on the lookout for the whelping
grounds. When the word is given all is
excitement. The vessel is laid to and
he men eagerly bound upon the ice to
oegin their work of destruction. Young
men who are now for the first time
plying the gaffs are almost overcome
with the baby lamentations Of the young
-white-coats, which sound wonderfully
like the sobbings of a child in pain.
Compassion is soon laid aside and the
workTof destruction begins. A blow ON
the nose from the gaff stuns or kills the
young seal. Instantly the sculping
knife is at work. The skin, with the
fat adhering, is removed with amazing
rapidity from the carcass, which il
left on the ice still q~uivering with life,
while the fat and skin alone are carried
off. With five or six pelts the hunter
goes back to the vessel, leaping from
pan TO pan il the ice is broken, and
many a cold bath awaits the jumper
who is too eager to be careful.
Fancy 200 or 800 men on a field of ice,
carrying on their murderous work, with
persons smeared with blood, evidence OF
the wholesale slaughter; the ice stained
with gore and covered with the skinless
carcasses of the slain; the shivering
seals low means filling the air like the
sobbings of infants in distress; the muir
derers every moment shifting fresh vic
tins or dragging the greasy prizes to the
vessels side. Then what a picture the
vessel presents as the pelts are being
piled on deck to cool before being placed
below. One after another the hunter
arrive with their loads and snatch n
hasty moment to drink a bowl of tea and
eat a bit Of biscuit. The poor mother
seals, now cubless, are seen popping
their heads up in the small lakes and
holes among the ice, anxiously but vainly
looking for their young.
The fortunes of the sealers are various.
Sometimes they are caught in the ice
and borne up and down on the ocean
for weeks, and finally return to port
without a seal. At other times a vessel
falls into a perfect Ell Dorado. She fills
as fast as the seals can be killed, and re-
turns in two or three weeks laden to the
gunwale, and the successful "silers" are
the heroes of the hour. When seals are
taken in large quantities, the hold of the
vessel is first filed. Then the men will
ingly surrender. their berths, which are
packed full of the pelts. Every nook
and corner is crammed with the precious
fat, and the sealers sleep where they
an, in barrels on deck, on a layer of
seals, or in the coal bunkers. They do
this the more readily since their pay is
in proportion to the catch.
The fat is tried down into oil, which is
used in making soap, for lubricating
machines, and in lighthouses and mines.
The skins sell for about 81 apiece, and
are converted into boots, shoes and har-
ness. The industry gives employment
every spring to twenty-five steamers
from Newfoundland, built expressly for
the purpose, besides about 200 sailing
vessels, the crews of this heet making a
navy of over 10, men. Each steamer
carries from 1850 to 300 men in its crew.
AS soon as they return they begin their
summer work Of cod fishing.
This work has been going on for
nearly 100 years, each year yielding
ing from so, 900 to over 500, 900 seals,
and yet with all their destruction there
seems to be no signs in diminution in
numbers, though I fear If the steamers
persist in making two and three voy-
ages it will endin sudden determination,
for it seems like killing the goose that
lays the golden egg since on the sec
ond and third voyage it is not the young
they take, but the fuil-grown males and
females Ralph S. Tarr in New York
| Sun.