Bloodhound & Criminals

Horowhenua Chronicle, 17 January 1913, Page 4

Bloodhound & Criminals

The bloodhound, which vanished from serious detective effort with the writing 0 f "Uncle Tom's Cabin," ii~ again coining into the foreground, writes the Loudon correspondent of the Sydney Sun. The English do tective force does not feel that it i.s passing a no-conlidenee motion In itself when it admits that there arc inanv crimes which it cannot clear up. I here .are no black trackers in Great Britain, but there are any number of bloodhounds, and tlio.v are being more and more used to run down criminals. 01'timets they fail. I hey follow the scent for one mile or two miles, or even three miles, and then tliov lose it unexpectedly and finally. Misdemeanants apparently in some instances have learned how to baffle even the bloodhound, but there are numbers of instances whore its sensitive nose has brought crime to justice. For two years W r estborne, a little village in south-east Hampshire, has been terrorised by an epidemic of in ceudiar.v fires. There have been a inanv as five in a week, and the miscieant always escaped. Large bodies of police, civilian patrols, and Boy Scouts were drafted in for night duty, ami still the torches flared merrily. Then somebody thought of i)'oodlioun<ls. A snug little cottage was fired. "While the scent was still hot bloodhounds were brought to tin; scene. In a few minutes they started off over the countryside to the house of ,a man who had been loudest in his exclamations o" surprise at the iniquity of the inceu diarists. FTe is now lodged in the county gaol. The fires have ceased abruptly.