The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-11-26
NOT THE POACHE AND SEA OUTLAWS THEY ARE REPRESENTED TO Be a.

patches tell of the return of the last of
the pelagic sealing fleet, to the home
port, and overworked editors of tele-
graph head the item Seal Poachers
Return" and let it go at that
To such ill-informed editors and to a
considerable portion of the public The
term pelagic has cometo be synonymous
with poaching, although the very term
itself should serve to show how mani
testify impossible it is to be a pelagic
sealer and poacher a the same time.
The adjective pelagic is defined as fol-
lows by the Standard dictionary: "Of,
or pertaining to or inhabiting the sea
far from land; oceanic: specifically in
habiting the surface of mid-ocean.''
Thus it is that a pelagic sealer is one
who plies his craft far out at sea. often
hundreds of miles from land Drawing
the dangers of the elements and daily
taking his life in his hands. If he is
a poacher upon whose premises is he
poaching?
But it has been urged that the pelagic
sealers seek to take seal within the pro-
hibited zone in Boring sea, and thus
they poach. This claim is absurd to
anyone conversant with the facts In
the last Is years there have been but
two attempts to raid the United States
seal rookeries in the sea, while for the
last 10 years about 95 pelagic sealing
schooners have been engaged in the
business Of gathering sealskins on the
/ Pacific coast.
: In the public mind both in this coun-
try and England there exists and has
existed much misconception of the
merits of the controversy. A great deal
has been done on both sides of the
water to deal with it as a bit of inter-
national politics. Jingoes have raved
and frothed about it in England and
the United States. and everywhere has
gone abroad the impression that the
pelagic hunters, a practically unrepre-
scented class, commanding no press and
having no prominent champion, are
lawless sort of folk. half smuggler and
half pirate. Such an impression is
widest from the truth.
The pelagic sealers, as the writer
knows from being among them. from
being shoremate with them and from
personal experience in the waters they
sail. are a hardy, honest. upright and
heroically brave class of seaman Their
bold and adventurous life, the many
instances of self-sacrifice amongst
them, their sea tragedies-the result of
the game of chance they play with
death, would furnish material for
mastery novel by a Kipling or an epic
poem by a Tennyson. 1.-THE romance
has gone out of the sea-" say the critics,
with the decline of the whaling trade
and the advent of steam, stories of sea
adventure are impossible" Let these
critics and such as they go to Victoria,
B. c., the headquarters of the pelagic
sealing fleet, join a schooner and spend
season in the north Pacific. What
they see and hear and what they learn
will be a revelation to them. What Kip
ling has done with the cod fisheries of
the great banks in his Captains Cour-
ageous'' remains to be done with the
seal hunting grounds of the Pacific.
And it is a better field TO work in. Here
is field unknown to the world, field
with no literature. though it teens with
wild, romantic stories Of human ad-
venture, field that has no literature,
is untitled by poet historian or novel
list and is rich in resources lying ready
to the hand.
How the pelagic seal hunter came in
to existence is an old story, more than
a century old. 1t dates back to the
time when the imperial Catherine of
Russia was dreaming of an empire
that would include much of Europe, all
OF ASA and great colony in North
America. One of her exploring parties
sent out from New Archangel (Sitka),
while drifting about in the terrible fogs
OF Boring sea, heard the barking of
seals, followed the sound and discov-
cred two islands that lie near the south
eastern rim of Boring sea. These lit
orally sWarmed with seals, caring the
rich, soft, thick fur so highly coveted.
The islands We're the rookeries where
the seal went in summer to breed and
are the famous rookeries of to-day.
Subsequently. under the reign of the
less imperial Paul VIII, these islands
were leased to the Russo-American fur
company, with all of Russian America.
anu pIOVeu d DOLldHZd To IQe leSSe2S.
When the United States purchased
Alaska for s7.20O,o00, in 1867, the rock
cries were included in the purchase.
Since then this government has leased
the monopoly of sealing on the rock
cries to a private corporation, limiting
the number of seals to be killed annu-
ally and maintaining an agent of the
treasury department there to see that
the company does not exceed the num-
her.
All the expense of keeping up a fleet
of war vessels and revenue cutters in
those waters, and all the International
disturbances that have ensued, have
been the result of this nations effort
to protect the corporation in its mo-
nopoly.
Not long after the seal rookeries
u-ara l,v 1roc