The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-24
LAPS AFTER SEALS.
Russia's Rookeres Are Now Free to
 the Pirates.

Tokio Correspondent Kansas City Times. 1 It is an i'll wind that blows no one good
 luck, and this year will be a harvest 1 time for seal poachers. The Russian
 gunboat. Mandjur, which patrolled the
 coast of the Russian seal Islands last summer and seized twelve Japanese seal ing schooners, is safely tied up at Shang- hai, disarmed, dismantled, a dismembered hulk only. The Korietz. that made a cruise or two looking for pelagic sealers is a heap of twisted iron at the bottom or Chemulpo harbor, and the seal poacher is happy. Now may he raid the rooker- ies on Cooper and Robin islands and loot the store houses, if he will, shoot the umid sea otters, whose pelts are worth , 1000 gold dollars each and often more, and rejoice and make big money while the Russians are otherwise engaged.
 The rich mine, the great store house of l adventure and exciting deeds wrapped up l in the seal poacher's calling, has at last 1 been a little opened up. Years ago seal
 hunting and seal poaching was great 1 business, and a little fleet of tall masted | schooners used to make Hakodate and
 Yokohama their home ports. They would 1 clear away ostensibly to trade in copra 1 in the south sea islands and end up in northern waters. where the seals swim and the fog lies low all summer.
 It was a joy and spice of life for these sealing schooner crews to raid the rock cries on the well guarded Russian islands If the attempt succeeded they could sail away from the sealing grounds with a full catch. If the Russians discovered them, schooner and all were confiscated and destroyed. and the adventurers were sent off to work in the salt mines or to do other hard government work in Siberia.
 There must be a shlpload of documents somewhere in the state department at Washington relating to the claims of na- tive born and naturalzed American citi- zens for damages from the Russian gov ernment. The state department never pushes these claims, since the most of the claimants had only received their just dues and fully deserved all that had been done to them.
 One skipper cherished and nursed his grudge after he had experienced a sea- son of Russian mines and prisons and had made his escape. He reappeared in Yokohama with new schooner, loaded it with champagne and delicatessen stores and sailed boldly away to the Russian station in the Commandorski is lands He asked only for water to make some repairs. and. as thorough search revealed no sealing apparatus, no weap- ons or nets. they let the agreeable rover rest awhile, watching him closely, how ever.
 One night-the shippers birthday. per haps-there was a feast on board and champagne flowed like water in honor of all the Russian officers. who were guests. While this went on afloat the schooner's s crew were ashore, treating the rest of the inhabitants of the seal island to fiery drinks, and when vodka and whiskey and other mixed fluids had done their work the crew forced the doors of the store houses and carried the neat bundles of salfed skins to their waiting boats and slowed them away in the schooner's hold Then the sleeping visitors were rowed ashore and laid comfortably on the sands, and the pirate ship sailed away with the greatest catch of all known seasons. The slxipper retired from sealing and took to tanner pursuits on shore in the open ports, as he. could well afford to do after that haul.
 He is known still to the older residents ais the pirate king. and one often won- ders if the local races and stock market and the dinner coat every night in an electric lighted club can make up for the cool. salt smell of the sea. the believing seals in the fog and the sound of, the gunboat on patrol steaming around in the mist in search of the poaching sealer.