BLOOD HOUNDS
.—Those so called, have always had a kind of fabulous property ascribed to them, of pursuing, and infallibly taking or seizing, robbers, murderers, or depredators, whenever they could be laid upon the footsteps (or scent) of the particular object they were intended to pursue; and of their possessing this property there can be no doubt, when the experience of ages, transmitted to us by our predecessors, (as well as our own observations,) have afforded the most indisputable proofs, that hounds may be taught or broke in to carry on any particular scent, when feelingly convinced they are to hunt no other. There requires no "ghost from the grave" to confirm a fact of so much notoriety: a mere sporting embryo would tell us, that "a pack who for some years hunted fallow deer in the possession of their last owner, are hunting hare in high style with the present; that the principal body of the celebrated pack who for some years past hunted fox with Lord Darlington in the north, are now probably destined to the pursuit of the red deer with Lord Derby in the south: and the whole art of changing hounds from one chase to another is the temporary trouble of breaking them afresh, and making them steady to the scent they are to pursue."
In respect to the received opinion of what were formerly called bloodhounds, the fact is simply this: the original stock partook, in nearly an equal degree, of the large, heavy, strong, boney old English stag-hound, and the deep-mouthed southern hound, of which mention is made under the head "Beagle." The hounds destined to one particular kind of business or pursuit, as bloodhounds, were never brought into the chase for a constancy with the pack for the promotion of sport, but were preserved and supported (as a constable or Bow-Street runner of the present day) for the purposes of pursuit and detection, whenever they could, with certainty, be laid on in good time upon the scent of footsteps of the object it was thought expedient to pursue. Deer stealing, for instance, was so very common a century since to what it is at present, that the GAME and PARK keepers in most parts of the kingdom were in a kind of eternal watching and nocturnal warfare: the hounds we are now describing were then constantly trained to the practice, and so closely adhered to the scent they were once laid on upon, that (even after a very long and tedious pursuit) detection was certain and inevitable: from this persevering instinct and infallibility, they acquired the appellation they have so long retained; and an offending criminal not a century since, was absolutely conceived to be positively taken, and half convicted, the very moment a blood-hound could be obtained.