The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-01-30
NOT ALWAYS V
Gistaken Notions Regarding the Charss-
teristics OF BIoodhoundS

eerikttcs OF BloodhoundA
It Is 4 mistake to suppose that blood
hounds used in this country in slavery
times to hunt runaway negroes and in
these days TO run down thieves and muir
derers are always savage beasts. On
the contrary, they are harmless and
when they catch up with the object of
their search will run to him to play or
lie down and take no further notice
unless he should start to run, when they
will follow. BIoodhounds always give
cry when on a hot scent or when the
man is in sight, but for most part
their hunt is as silent as a shadow.
Down in Carthage township in Han
cock county Uncle Dick" Mack once
kept a pack of bloodhounds, and he
used them for hunting deer. They were
full-blooded creatures, with the droop-
ing dewlaps, bloodshot eyes. and long
ears that hung close to the head. They
were powerfully built and looked a
age enough, but they were as harmless
as kittens.
The boys of the neighborhood used to
have great fun in what they called
''nigger hunts" They would usually
assemble at Uncle Dicks" farm on a
Saturday morning and one OF the feetest
lads would be chosen as the niger"
He would start out on q run of i've or
ten miles through the woods of Big
creek, and after he had been zone an
hour his handkerchief or some small
article of clothing he had left behind
would be given to the dogs to smell of
and they would be started on his trail.
Away they would go in full cry for
the first five minutes. their peculiar,
ringing voices carrying for miles in the
clear, frosty air of the autumn. the
boys following sometimes on horse
back and sometimes on foot. After the
first breakaway- the dogs would run
silently and swiftly. their noses close
to the ground. The niger" would
take every means to throw.the hounds
eff the track. He would climb small
saplings that would bend over with
his weight and then spring to the
ground as far away from the tree as
possible in order to break his tracks.
ilC "Oulu at III StItkLiIS, IuH dAOuS
dry logs. jump from one stump to an
other. and use all the articles known to
woodsmen to .haffe the hounds.
They never failed TO get him, how
ever. If he waded in a stream they
would ruin up and down its banks until
they had picked up the scent. If he
sprang from 4 sapling they would cir
Gle around the last point of contact of
his foot with the ground until they
found the trail, their long, mournful
cry indicating the direction the pur-
sued had taken.
As they came near the object of their
search their pace would grow faster
until the boys on foot would have hard
work to keep up. When they "treed"
the pursued they would greet him with
dignifed expressions of joy. If he had
climbed a tree, as he often did, the
dogs would throw themselves down at
its foot and wait for the boys to come
up. There was never an instance re-
ported where the dogs showed any dis
position to harm the runaway. The
use of the bloodhound is to run down
and locate a man, and the stories OF
negroes having been the helpless vic
of bloodhounds that tore them to
pieces are generally fiction.-Chicago
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