The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-11

- vessels were often beset by ice, crushed
 and rendered useless, the crews having
 to abandon them for refuge with con-
 sorts or journey hundreds of miles over
 foes through the wilderness to some
 post of the Hudson's Bay company.
 Years ago the George Henry was nip
 ped and her thirty-four men were pick
 ed up in open boats off Labrador by
 another ship. Then the William Tnomp-
 son was crushed, and her crew made
 their way to land over the foes. The Pavilion was forced ashore by the ice
 and wrecked, and ten of her men were
 drowned. The Francis Allyn was burn ed, and two men perlshed. Several
 ships have been lost with all hands
 One year three parted their moorings in winter quarters and were driven on the rocks, several men losing their lives. A fourth vessel escaped and had to carry home over enc hundred men. who were forced to subsist on seal and whale meat durinf their long stay in the north, and were reduced to short commons on the long journey back to
 New Bedford. Of losses of individuals through the overturnfng of boats, col lision with icefloes and the minor mis- adventures incident to such business,
 there is a long and grewsome catalogue.
 as disastrous almost as the record of polar exploration.
 Thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes have ever been the portion of the whalemen, and it is in this aspect that the enterprise has been best
 known to the world In 1885 the Isa-
 bella was crushed some forty miles
 from land, and her crew travelled over the ice to shore, where they subsisted on the few articles cf food they were able to save until the Lawrence anoth-
 CT of the fleet, came by and rescued them. But this caused so much delay
 that she was caught by the ice ard
 frozen fast. not escaping until the next summer, and, as it was hard to capture
 seals where she was, the two crews
 spent terrible winter, the men being reduced almost to skeletons frcm vslnt
 of food when she got to St. Johns the
 next August.
 In the northwest waters. where the
 Frisco whalers fish, equally thrilling and tragic incidents occur, twelve ships having been crushed one fall and their crews being driven to seek shelter on
 an inhospitable seaboard, where they suffered such miseries that a score of
 the men suecumbed,
 With prices as they are now, the pur- suit should be so profitable in the flu ture despite these dangers, that its in-
 creased prosecution would not be sur- prising, especially as adjuncts are be- ing devised which will enable the whole of the carcass to be converted into oil
 and guano, instead of being abandoned, as heretofore. Accordingly the attempt lof Canada to close her waters to the
 American whalemen, and to legislate them out of this industry, is made dou-
 bly, significant. She takes the position that these alien whalers have been poaching in her waters all these years
 and gathering in all the great natural
 wealth thereof without paying her the least tribute for this; but, on the con trary, trading with the natives of the adjoining territory in defiance of her flaw, and demoralizing them by intro
 ducing the white mans vices to an un- spoiled, childlilxe and aboriginal pee pie.
 How the dispatch of revenue cruisers and the enacting of new whaling stat- utes are to protect these wards of the
 naticn," as Canadian writers and speak
 CTS term them, is not clear. The out
 come will doubtless be that the Amer
 ican whalers will be forced out of the
 waters they have frequented so long unless some compromise is effected in their behalf. The only beneficiaries, as matters look at present, by such pol
 icy, would be the Scotch and English whalers, who, as fellow subjects of the British empire, will have full rghts to chase the cetaceans in Canadian wa ters, and will be aided therein by the
 absence of their American rivals. The latter would then be restricted to the offshore waters, without any landing basis, condition most detrimental to them. Moreover, the Newfoundlanders
 are now establishing coastwise whaling
 along the Labrador, with fast steamers
 and shore factories, and Canadians are
 talking of establishing the same indus
 try in northwest waters.-New York
 Tribune