Connecticut western news., 1889-02-20
PRISON DOGS.
Fierce Bloodhounds Trained to
 Track Escaping Convicts.


 Canine Detectives Who Unerr-
 ingIy Pursue a Fugitive.
 Crossing the yard of the Little Rock (Ark.) prison, says correspondent, one comes in full view of Jim Stewart, co,ored trusty, who has charge of the pcnitentiary pack. Here are five blood hounds-white Nellie and four dark colored dogs-that outrival any letters or any walls in the matter of restraining convicts from running away. Out at the camp at Palarm, tho other Sunday, a convict 'jumped' and managed to get a clear two hours start before his absence was noted. He swan the creek, and, by diligent running, had covered nine miles or more in two hours Two men followed him-.he guard of the "gang' to which he belonged and the dog man and four dogs. He was tracked, over taken and brought back. Next day he was wearing heavy iron "spur," some thing that will prevent any display of agility as long as it is worn. But with the ''spur" on the convict could not chop wood. The spur was removed, and the convict told, while the bowling of the hounds interrupted the words, that he "could take another run if he wanted to-"
 "You let man swing an axe every day, eating pound and half of bread and meat at meal, and turn him loose, and it takes pretty good horse to keep up with him. With an hours start he will be gone eight or nine miles before you can catch him."
 The man who said that was fully alive to the value of his dogs his bloodhounds, or ''man- -trailers," as some folks might call them.
 And now the dogs are to go through their usual daily run, for bloodhounds, like pointers and settlers, need to be con st 'ntly kept in practice. At 1.-The Walls ' and at each one of the camps the dogs are given daily run, longer or shorter, harder or easier, as circumstances dictate. In the present instance trusty is started out from in front of the hospital build ing. He darts off round the corn crib, goes down along the garden fence, jumps the ditch on the other side and makes sundry devious windings in the immense field called garden, going around three sides and coming back to the hay barn, climbs up post and stands in a position of safety. Meanwhile Jim Stewart, a 1.-the young fellow, wearing a slouched hat, whose band is fantastically adorned with metal buttons, is holding four dogs in leash with one hand and keeping Nellie back with the other. At the proper moment Nellie is loosed and the leash slipped from the other four, and as Stewart winds his horn away go the dogs, Nellie in the lead. Nellie has seen the fugitive go down by the corn crib, and follows, apparently by sight. Almost before you know it the whole pack are punched at the fence, and in an instant Nellie is up and over a plank and tearing down the garden. Her nose is first down, then up, and never held par ticularly close to the ground. A few feet from the fence she strikes the scent, fol lows it through the turnip patch, turns back where it doubles, and keeps on till she comes swinging down underneath the south wall, and then noses closely along till she is on the homo trail. Within five minutes from the time that the trusty has climbed into his perch of safety Nellie has him treed and is bark ing at him with all her might. The other dogs got little confused in the turnip patch, but rallied admirably, going back on the back track, til! the live trail was struck, and soon coming in to the hay barn. It is all interesting g enough to look at, but the way the hounds bay as they give cry isn't any way reassuring to the man who is being chased. Few of the dogs are given to biting, though some of them will bite anybody when they get excited on the run; but it isn't the dogs teeth that the fugitive convict dreads; it is the nose that can follow man through almost any tangle of underbrush or wood.
 For second run the dogs follow or the trail of the trusty around the work shop, the cellhouse, behind the wagon shop and across the yard. The scent doesn't lie so we'll on the hard macadam of the yard, and is, moreover, confused with that of other trails; but the dogs keep at it and soon come up to where tt,e trusty is safely cnsconced in the barn. Ths run is decle:ed success.
 A Plausible Theory.
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