"Bloodhounds were formerly used in certain districts lying between England and Scotland, that were much infested by robbers and murderers; and a tax was laid on the inhabitants for keeping and maintaining a certain number of these animals. But as the arm of justice is now extended over every part of the country, and as there are now no secret recesses where villany can be concealed, their services in this respect are become no longer necessary.
"Some few of these dogs, however, are yet kept in the northern parts of the kingdom, and in the lodges of the royal forests, where they are used in pursuit of deer that have been previously wounded. They are also sometimes employed in discovering deer-stealers, whom they infallibly trace by the blood that issues from the wounds of their victims.
"A very extraordinary instance of this occurred in the New Forest, in the year 1810, and was related to me by the Right Hon. G. H. Rose. A person, in getting over a stile into a field near the Forest, remarked that there was blood upon it. Immediately afterwards he recollected that some deer had been killed, and several sheep stolen in the neighbourhood; and that this might possibly be the blood of one that had been killed in the preceding night. The man went to the nearest lodge to give information; but the keeper being from home, he was under the necessity of going to Rhinefield Lodge, which was at a considerable distance. Toomer, the under-keeper, went with him to the place, accompanied by a bloodhound. The dog, when brought to the spot, was laid on the scent; and after following for about a mile the track which the depredator had taken, he came at last to a heap of furze fagots belonging to the family of a cottager. The woman of the house attempted to drive the dog away, but was prevented; and on the fagots being removed a hole was discovered in the ground, which contained the body of a sheep that had recently been killed, and also a considerable quantity of salted meat. The circumstance which renders this account the more remarkable is, that the dog was not brought to the scent until more than sixteen hours had elapsed after the man had carried away the sheep."
An old writer—the author of "The History of the Buccaneers"—though full of prejudice against the Indians, thus describes some of the atrocities practised by the Spaniards:—
"The Spaniards having possessed themselves of these isles (South America), found them peopled with Indians, a barbarous people, sensual and brutish, hating all labour, and only inclined to killing and making war against their neighbours; not out of ambition, but only because they agreed not with themselves in some common terms of language; and perceiving that the dominion of the Spaniards laid great restrictions upon their lazy and brutish customs, they conceived an irreconcileable hatred against them, but especially because they saw them take possession of their kingdoms and dominions. Hereupon they made against them all the resistance they could, everywhere opposing their designs to the utmost; and the Spaniards, finding themselves cruelly hated by the Indians, and nowhere secure from their treacheries, resolved to extirpate and ruin them, since they could neither tame them by civility nor conquer them by the sword. But the Indians, it being their custom to make the woods their chief places of defence, at present made these their refuge whenever they fled from the Spaniards: hereupon those first conquerors of the New World made use of dogs to range and search the intricate thickets of woods and forests for those their implacable and unconquerable enemies; thus they forced them to leave their old refuge and submit to the sword, seeing no milder usage would do it: hereupon they killed some of them, and quartering their bodies, placed them in the highways, that others might take warning from such a punishment. But this severity proved of ill consequence, for instead of frightening them, and reducing them to civility, they conceived such horror of the Spaniards, that they resolved to detest and fly their sight for ever; hence the greatest part died in caves and subterraneous places of woods and mountains, in which places I myself have often seen great numbers of human bones."
It has been already stated, that in the West Indies bloodhounds were employed to hunt the runaway blacks. I had one of these Cuban bloodhounds given to me a few years ago, and finding him somewhat more ferocious than I liked, I made a present of him to a keeper in the neighbourhood. He was put into a kennel with other dogs, and soon killed some of them. Keepers, however, in going their rounds at night, are frequently accompanied by bloodhounds, and poachers are said to have a great dread of them.
