Coming again to this country, we find the Bloodhound used from time to time in pursuit of poachers and criminals, and in many instances the game recovered and the man arrested.
There is no doubt that the police in country districts, and at our convict prisons, could use Bloodhounds to advantage; but public sentiment is decidedly against the idea, and although one of His Majesty's prisons has been offered a working hound for nothing, the authorities have refused to consider the question or give the hound a trial.
Half a century ago the Bloodhound was so little esteemed in this country that the breed was confined to the kennels of a very few owners; but the institution of dog shows induced these owners to bring their hounds into public exhibition, when it was seen that, like the Mastiff, the Bloodhound claimed the advantage of having many venerable ancestral trees to branch from. At the first Birmingham show, in 1860, Lord Bagot brought out a team from a strain which had been in his lordship's family for two centuries, and at the same exhibition there was entered probably one of the best Bloodhounds ever seen, in Mr. T. A. Jenning's Druid. Known now as "Old" Druid, this dog was got by Lord Faversham's Raglan out of Baron Rothschild's historic bitch Fury, and his blood goes down in collateral veins through Mr. L. G. Morrel's Margrave, Prince Albert Solm's Druid, and Mr. Edwin Brough's Napier into the pedigrees of many of the celebrated hounds of the present day.
Another famous Druid—grandsire of Colonel Cowen's hound of the name—was owned by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. This typical dog was unsurpassed in his time, and his talent in following a line of scent was astonishing. His only blemish was one of character; for, although usually as good-tempered as most of the breed are, he was easily aroused to uncontrollable fits of savage anger.
Queen Victoria at various times was the possessor of one or more fine specimens of the Bloodhound, procured for her by Sir Edwin Landseer, and a capital hound from the Home Park Kennels at Windsor was exhibited at the London Show in 1869, the judge on the occasion being the Rev. Thomas Pearce, afterwards known as "Idstone." Landseer was especially fond of painting the majestic Bloodhound, and he usually selected good models for his studies. The model for the hound in his well-known picture, "Dignity and Impudence," was Grafton, who was a collateral relative of Captain J. W. Clayton's celebrated Luath XI.
Four superlative Bloodhounds of the past stand out in unmistakable eminence as the founders of recognised strains. They are Mr. Jenning's Old Druid, Colonel Cowen's Druid, Mr. Reynold Ray's Roswell, and Captain Clayton's Luath XI.; and the owner of a Bloodhound which can be traced back in direct line of descent to any one of these four patriarchs may pride himself upon possessing a dog of unimpeachable pedigree.
Among breeders within recent years Mr. Edwin Brough, of Scarborough, is to be regarded as the most experienced and successful. No record of the breed would be complete without some acknowledgment of the great services he has rendered to it. Bloodhounds of the correct type would to-day have been very few and far between if it had not been for his enthusiasm and patient breeding. Mr. Brough bred and produced many hounds, which all bore the stamp of his ideal, and there is no doubt that for all-round quality his kennel stands first in the history of the Bloodhound. His most successful cross was, perhaps, Beckford and Bianca, and one has only to mention such hounds as Burgundy, Babbo, Benedicta, and Bardolph to recall the finest team of Bloodhounds that has ever been benched.
Mrs. G. A. Oliphant, of Shrewton, Wilts, whose kennels include Chatley Blazer and Chatley Beaufort, has of late years been a keen supporter of the breed. Mrs. Oliphant, who is the president of the ladies' branch of the Kennel Club, is a great believer in hounds being workers first and show hounds second, and her large kennels have produced many hounds of a robust type and of good size and quality. There is no doubt that as far as hunting is concerned at the present moment this kennel stands easily first. But admirable Bloodhounds have also given distinction to the kennels of Mr. S. H. Mangin, Dr. Sidney Turner, Mr. Mark Beaufoy, Mr. F. W. Cousens, Mr. A. O. Mudie, Lord Decies, Mr. Hood Wright, Mr. A. Croxton Smith, Dr. C. C. Garfit, Dr. Semmence, and Mrs. C. Ashton Cross, to mention only a few owners and breeders who have given attention to this noble race of dog.
The description of a perfect type of dog, as defined by the
Association of Bloodhound breeders, is as follows:—
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