Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1898-06-16
THE KILLING OF SEALS.
Wonderful Vitality and Desperate
Courage Shown by the Old
Dog Hood.

Now, l had great opportunities OF
watching the young seals. Ballso snow
white fluff, these innocent-looking ba-
bies lie basking in their icy cradles,
equally happy in sunshine or falling
snow, sometimes for hours on their
backs, tapping their flippers impotent-
ly like fans, unable from sheer fat
to get over again. In the coolest, storm
lest season they grow fastest and fat
test, so marvelously does nature pro-
vide for their necessities. Nor does
she do less for the old seals. So thin that
they sink at once if shot in the water
in summer, as winter approaches they
fatten and fattcn up, till now they en-
Joy this terribly cold weather as we
would a bath in summer. They dive in
off the ice, paddle to and fro in the
water, throw themselves on their backs
and float, putting out their chests and
throwing showers of water over their
upturned noses with forefippers. Side
stroke and break stroke, diving and
sounding, they sport about, till one al
most feels tempted to follow and share
their rapturous pleasures.
The killing of the young seals has
been frequently described as brutal
and brutalizing, and the seal hunters
depicted as savages. But, to my mind,
the work is not nearly so brutalizing
as the ordinary killing of sheep, pigs
or oxen.
Here the animal is too young to feel
fear, and evinces no sign of it; no an
imal is wounded and left to die in vain.
The crying" of voting seals is not from
fear, but hunger. One often hears
them cry all night for their dams,
while they never give tongue st mans
approach.
1t is only in killing the old dog hood
seals that one feels the savagery of
killing anything, for the hoods marvel
Gus vitality is only equaled by his
pluck. I watched four men fight an
old dog hood one day on small pan.
Reared up on his launches, with his
hood blown up, he awaited the attack.
The first blow, struck at his hood,
might as well have struck a stone wall,
while catching the second gaff-end clev-
erly in his teeth, he shook its long
handle to such good purpose that ne
cleared The pan of his enemies in an in
slant. Though he could at any moment
have slipped off into the water, he
would not do so, and soon lucky blow
under the jaw stretched him out. y
perfect shower of blows on the head
seemed to finish him off, and, a heavy
strap being placed around him, he was
hauled to the bulwarks by the steam
winch.
Just as he got there his immense
weight broke it down, and he disap-
peared, we thought for good. But in
a minute or so he suddenly appeared
again, and, refreshed by the cold wa
ter he climbed out on the very same
pan, where the hunters were ungallant
enough 10 return and dispatch him
with their long knives. Nor does the
hunter by any means have it all his
own way. So agile and powerful IRE
these beasts that they will jump clear
out of the water into a pan six to ten
feet high without touching the edge,
when in no other way they could climb
onto it, and many a man has been bad
ly mauled and bitten and dragged into
the water In endeavorng to capture the
valiant old fellows.-pittsburgh Dis
patch.