Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1889 — Suffering Seals. [ARTICLE]

Suffering Seals.

Seal fishing is one of the greatest industries of the Newfoundland coast, their skins bringing fabulous prices as articles of wearing apparel, while the oil is useful for many purposes. The dwellers of the frozen north make clothing, boats, tents and even cooking utensils from the skin of seals,; and use their oil and flesh for food. These animals are among the mosl interesting of the animals that have their homes in the waters. They have great soft brown eyes that gaze at you with the innocent, wondering look one sees in the eyes of a calf, and long before commerce found use for the seal their intelligence and docility gave them a place in the folk lore of the north. Scotland and the Scandinavian peoples gave birth to many charming legends, based on the belief that seals ofttimes transformed themselves into human shapes. They are gentle creatures, easily domesticated and becoming very much attached to their human friends; they are also very easily trained, learning all the tricks that dogs perform. ~ It- Is said that when distressed the seal not only gives voice to its sorrow in plaintive cries, but that great tears will roll from its eyes. The Newfoundland seal fisheries furnish over 700,000 skins to commerce annually, and Alaska about a third that number; and what is man’s return for this revenue of money? Seals are cruelly killed. Off the Newfoundland coast they are skinned before life is extinct, despite their cries and writhings. During the past spring over 500,000 of these poor creatures were captured and brought to Halifax and St. John, and all had been killed in a barbarously cruel manner. Such treatment merits the indignatian of the whole civilized world, and it is a pity that the age does not still believe the old legends that would clothe the seals with power to return in other forms and to wreak vengeance on their persecutors; and yet it seems that a man who could take the skin and fat from a living animal while its moans bespoke its anguish and its great eyes plead for pity would not listen to any spirit or living creature, or to the small voice within. —New Orleans Picayune.