Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-06

large scale it would hardly be undertaken,
yet it could be done, and If done must be
headed off,
III. Catch This Season.
sThe prices of the raw sealskins will nat.
urally be high this coming winter, for the
catch will not be much more than 90, 900
skins from all quarters, against total of
200, 900 skins taken into London during the
season of 1SS9-150, 900 skins in 1890 and
100, 900 skins last year. This year the open
water sealers will get about 40, 900 to $4,000
pelts; the catch on the Pribylov Islands is
limited to 1900 food skins, the Russian
catch will not go over %, 900 (against 81, 900
in 189O) and the Lobos Island catch of Uru-
quay will be about 10000.
SHOW, 10000 seal-skins will not make
up quite $4,000 sealskin sacques, and 25,-
600 sacques is not very large supply for
the fashionable wearers of fine furs in Ger
many France, Great Britain and America.
Although the only market for the sale of
the raw fur seal skin is the London sales, yet it
is fact that fully half OF all the fur seal gar
ments made are bought and worn by Amer
leans. These skins must go to London for
dressing-not but that we can dress them
Just as we'll as the English factories do, but
we cannot do it so cheaply. Over there
they have an apprenticeship system whereby
they secure good manual labor from boy
or man on these skins for six or seven years
at little or no cost in the way of wages In
this country nothing of the kind e1ists-the
smallest, greenest boy that enters factory
gets a wage of some sort from the very hour
that he begins to serve"
"What makes YOU think" said the re-
porter, that Russian gunboats will not
seize these sealers when they 60 over there
from our side, as you declare they will, this
summer"
eff you will cite single case of seizure
outside of the regular three-mile limit made
BY Russian vessel around the Kommandor
Islands in Bering sea- then will Withdraw
my statement. During the last five years
American and British sealing schooners
have been at work every season around the
Russian islands, often in full sight from the
stations ashore, and as long as they kept
outside three or four miles they have never
been molested. But several of the vessels
grew bolder than the law allowed, ran up
under the lee of the islands and sent their
crews onto the beaches, clubbing the seals
as they found them there. Upon these
men the Russians and the natives fired and
one or two of these vessels have been
captured, broken up and their cargoes con-
fiscated The Americans have been the
offenders out there qnite as often as the
Canadians. Still the fleet has never been
large one in the Russian waters, six or
seven craft only. The greater value of the
Alaska skins has drawn all the fire. thus
far, of the pelagic sealer. The schooner
seized by the Russians last summer was the
American vessel 81. Hamilton Lewis"
She was caught, red handed, raiding
rookery on Copper Island of the .Kom-
mandor group, and resisting capture, was
unceremoniously fired upon and broken by
Russian gunboat. There was no question
about her being within the pale of the inter-
national law when she was taken. In 1890
this same vessel sealed all summer around
these islands and defied the Russian cutter
to seize her. Her captain came into San
Francisco alter getting 2,700 seals in this
manner, and boasted of his work and de-
fance to the Russian cruiser in a public
interview"