The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1886-02-13
SCIENCE z|PRoGREss
Negro Hounds.

The following facts certainly cannot come
undo Lie head Of progress. They come
under ,ci nee. 1t is a sort OF science that
Ne Ame- 9 n people have no reason to be
proud "a. bat that does not alter the DRY.
IL va frs told by a correspondent OF The
Allan n Institution.
Tn. q orgia rsnitentiarv superintendent
told he correspondent tina he could select
any CO, s., from the prisoners, send him Of
20 civci. b. wood, have him cross and criss-
eross III racks of squads Of other convicts,
and star, back to headquarters an hour
oat r. AMI on the trained hounds could 10
. yet upon his track and run him down in.
tAllib.y.
The correspondent could hardly believe 1t.
Tho ex er' enc was tried. to convince him.
The d z, claimed are not bloodhounds,
but ioxhoun Is OF the Redbone breed, trained
to LunL nen They are called 'ngger
dogs The peni.en, iary superintendent
kAid:
There may DO hundred convicts. clothed
precisely n ike and wearing pre- cisely The
same shoes. They may feed toge her on pre-
cisely the same iood, and ,leep in hunks that
touch each other, under precisely the same
cover And yet each one Of them has a
scent that marks him just as distinctly to
ny hounds from his fellows as his appear
Ance MAJ ks him under your deliberate study.
ale my s OPP in squad and change shoes
with convict and the dogs will still fol.
low HIM On the hardest ground his scent
will be plain to them though his shoe soles
are half an inch thick. When he runs
through the woods, where his clothes touch
the bushes, they will trail him, heads up, in
full cry, fifty yards, running parallel but
away from where he ran"
A gaunt convict long of leg and flank,
was selected for tho run He was told to
put Off quickly, circle in the woods, take
swift run over fields roads and through
every squad OF convicts he could find in his
way. This he did The hounds were then
loafing about the stockade yard as listiess
lot o. dogs as ever were >een.
~ have had dogs trail convict on horse
back four miles, and then take the track
where he jumped from the ho Sc said Mr.
Williams. BY this time the fving convict
was small speck on the broad fields, and in
nom, mt more had melted into the horizon
and was gone. as it, indeed, he had founi
that liberty for which his soul painted and
had gone as the strong-winged birds go
when they vanish in the ble ether
In an hour we mounted our horses. SD
denly Mr.. Williams, squaring himself in his
saddle, blew three quick, snort b lasts on the
cow S horn that hung at his side. AS it by
magic the hounds awake and charged at
his saal4e-eager, baying, frant c. "NlGSerF
lie said Sententously Like The wind they
were off nose to the ground, tails up, or
cling like beagleS. Larger he circles grew,
the hounds silent as speclerS, eyes and nose
eating the earth for its secret. They Will
pass over the tracks of Conlict squads, but
a
IL it is the wrong track we WI i'm 'ly sit
still. They will run 1t a hundred yards on
So and noting our silence will throw it of
and search again Whom they get tine rlgIt
track we will haloo and start alter the
hound tina, has it, The Others viii join him
and the race is opened" sa d VILLAINS
At ast a red houn careerIng like md
aero the cid, hats suddenly, tumb es over
himself faces about, no es tue ground eager
Iy, LII his head. "A-a-o-o-o- wa! d
Off like an arrow from ovsrlnG. That's
the ,raca, shouts William, and al er the
how ing hound we go. The other dogs JOIN
in peli me at first, then each hound, true
to the track, runs in full cry and a Il rafting
gait. Away off to the lett { pt james calls
attention to moving specG AGAINST h ky.
That Is the convict circling back 10 camp,
he SAID tn the dogs went, keen n, The
wind, memorable as fate following the track
Of the convict as true as hii own shadow
Acros, the tracks of hundreds of others
alon high roads, over fields through herds
Of cattle, by her convicts tn 1t smiled
grimiy as they passed. the hounds went,
holding he track of the fly ing cor, let where
it had been laid as lightly as thistle down
on the firm earth, but where it 1T IFS tell
tale scent ali the same. Nothing coul shake
them off-nothing check their furious rush,
led by some IN, angible miracle Of the air,
straight on single trail