The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 29, 1903, Page 14

11 | AGED NEGRO [ THE STRANGE OCCUPATION OF AN WHO RAISES | FIERCE DOGS TO HELP | THE DETECTIVES b start, your e terrible when bloodhounds sed to drag back into the P the unhappy colored wonis the man who s brake s Angeles, who egro o t Ads ) € . se.f T kind mast s bloodhoun Wns s e f € strains of ? . as a thief catcher. Of wonde: " llect, sbrewd and well edu- « cate 1 resoiute character and tireless ; Be w pre-eminently suc- g and soon attracted detective agen- the Canadian e detective work in the United n 1 he commenced the 8 he cross ihounds to run down 4 border ruffians come f1. educating nis ar branch that Allan kerton, the world-wide detective, was ed by Beit's abilities. He sought an’s services and found himn f the most active workers on I ved a marvel in the detective n the moonshiners of Virginia Tennessee buffied the revenue of- shortly after the close of the Civil dogs were dis- ally by Allan Pinkerton to up evidenc He wouud u lantation style, mingle arkies and work with them in sed no suspicion and information which beer denied a more preten Once upon the trail of an of- er of the law, Beit and his blood- ught the unfortunate be- stice. as owned over 1000 blood- — hounds during his long career. Some “of these dogs he has sold at appareatly fabulous prices. Only last year he suld elghteen thoroughbred Cuban bloodhounds to the owner of a great plantation :n South America “No, money wouldn’t buy her,” says the negro, ¥ ng to Beauty, a superb English bloodhound, at his side. Beauty sieeps with Belt in his humble cabin near the kenr It is Beauty who for three ed Dunham, the famous Caii- slayer of a family of ¢ losing the trail when at last he recreant had taken to water acrofs xican line rde life this strange old colored man ved with bloodhounds and now he them more intelligence than in embers of the human race. The he Pinkerton detective force ted by Belt. On e clder Pinkerton sent Belt where he secured some of the nd. Upon ed and sel jhounds on the isi f the eldcr Pinkerton, who al- rred to Beit as his “black son,” Kkable vld negro severed his con- ct with that detective agency. But there was leit to him the pick of the Pinkertor 1 it is these and their progeny that now posses The old tra »w - belongs to an accredited Lilinois tive age Teaching the young bloodhounds to tol- low a man’s track is an art that requires f patience and a »ugh sym 1 the individual element in each elt begins to train hounds at hs of age. At three weeks oid s weaned the pup from Its mother for me,” says the Pt loodhound must be n trail Some of B very powerful and sa ould rend a man to pieces in a f not restrained by their owners whistle. English bloodhounds are ‘more te than the Cuban varlety. In order th a | and more terribie jogs are ] with the Rus- The cros 1s produced s and will not i to earth t ate to rush n quarry. accomplished signal results jown Comstock and Johnson, m#plicated in the recent Roscoe ch a Southern Pa- c tra and robbed be- twee and Fernando. John- s fe sentence. When Comstock tened to kill Belt for his re in the old negro warned him to you don’t leavk I'll let the dogs Comstock left. He ran down Brady, the man who stole $30,00 from Wells-Fargo. Brady is now in prison at Sacramento. Perhaps the most striking instance of the wonderful trailing power of Belt's dogs is found in the case of a laundry man who fell over a cliff in the moun- tains some time ago. Erickson was em- by the Troy laundry of Los An- He became insane while on a Bun- ay picnic in the mountains back of Pas- adena. Belt was summoned Tuegday aft- ernoon and in two hours had succceded In finding the body of the man beneath a cliff over which he hal stumbied, The cleverest work waa done by a seven- months-old Engilsh bioodhound pup, “Finette,” who, although the trall was over forty-elght hours old, and despite the fact that the weather was hot and dry, ly picked ip out from the multitudi- nous scents of the searchers and found the body seven miles away In less than an hour, “You ecan fool me sometiimes, but you never can fool thoss hounds,” and Belt telis how, on one occasion, the dogs ro- fused 1o leave & barn from which an ex- hibitton run was to be made, Bure enough the rufner was found concealed in & bayloft. He had never left the barn. John Beit, the sleuth, has trained his hounds as mo one else could have traired e — them. The most Intractable brute be- comes doclle to his management. Train robbers, murderers, border rufflans, des- peradces and criminals escaped from jai do well to fear this remarkable old ne- gro. The “bloodhounds have won a great siring of blue ribbons at San Francisco, Gaklard, Los Angeles and Eastern dug shows. In training the young bloodhounds John Belt takes advantage of the puppy’s al most insatiable appetite to arouse the first recognition of the trailing instinct. A gunnysack filled ‘'with liver and smeared with blood is heavily stamped upon the eorth nd then dragged a distance of, say. forty feet. The puppy Is enihused witn the supremest canine anticipation at the smell of the liver, but findaing no food he naturally follows the odorous trall to the end of the forty feet, where he is rewarded with a tidbit. This constitutes the first lesscn. The next time the sack is dragged twice the distance and finally to several hundred feet, when the sack Is rulled about corners and hidden so that the little detective must solve the puzzle with his nose. This constitutes the first step. The lessons are given twice a week and usually at the beginning of the third or fourth week the puppy is ready to leave the kindergarten and go into the primary grades. At this stage of the training the sack Is not dragged continu- ously over the eerth, but touches the ground at intervals widening as profl- clency Increases from six, ten, twenty to fitty and a hundred feet. The young bloodhound has gradually become used to take the trail of the man who drags the sack. Finally the sack of liver only touches the earth at the start and then it is abandoned altogether. “At what age do you begin to train the pupples?” Mr Belt was asked. “At what age? Sho’ Why, them babies, there,” pointing to a pair of two- menths-old pupples. “They'll take the trall of those ducks and follow ‘em through the willows to the pond. “THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT” The New Book That Shows the Vampire-like Effect of the ? Allurements of Washington Soc al Life Upon the Morals and the Ambition of Those Who Are Caught in the Maelstrom. NextSunday You Will Get the Third Ins*allment of This Romance cf Love and Politics, by Brand Whitlock, With the FREE:-- SUNDAY CALL --FREE THE SUNDAY - CALL« “Want to see em?"’ And sure enough the puppies, looking absurdly aged from their thoroughbred wrinkles and ‘‘earage,” take the duck trall accurately. After the bloodhound puppy has become ordinarily capable in man tracking and has worked with the older dogs in the pack, he is put on a fresh track a mile or $o lorg, where the tralled man has run briskly and so has perspi 2d and thrown oft a strong scent. At the end of this trafl a horse has been tied which the os- tensible fugitive mounts and rides away. The dog, finding no outlet for the trail, and discovering nb new scent, learns to pursue the man oa horseback. The man will then dismount, tie the horse and run along again. In this way the bloodhound recognizes that the man is to be sought under all circumstances. A bloodhound is only broken to city wor< wheu he has . proved himself indefatigable upon tne trail desired, however coid and however puzzling its intricacles. “gpilling blood upon the track will not RUSSIAT BOAR HOUND PUE, WEIGHT 1O POVPDS. ACE [f TIONTHS. put a good dog out; nor will cayenne pep- per. Water is the only thing that stops them,” says Belt. “Even when a man has taken to water the scent may lie for hours In the alr, it may cling to ‘he bushes about the river Bank, and an In- telligent bloodhound will call upon intel- lect to supplement instinct. Belt considers the Cuban bloodhound by far the most serviceable animal for hot and dry weather. Where the alkali is two or three inches thick and where the hot sun lashes the quivering earth, his Cuban bloodhounds will follow a trall that would be impossible to any other variety. Belt once followed a cattle thief across the Colorado desert when the trail was sixty hours old at the start. He caught his man. English bloodhounds the old negro regards as the most useful dogs for a cold countfy. A young dog should be run upon nothing but a man trall. Otherwise its nose will be “broken.” I2 the hound is put upon the trail in ths woods at random it will become frantiz in pursuit of prey and will abandon fts quarry for each fresher scent. At six or seven months old a good bloodhound will often prove his mettle; with proper training “blood will always tell.” The individual element in each dog must always be reckoned with. A care- ful trainer of bloodhounds will keep them perfectly under his control. Belt never whips his dogs. “I win their con- fidence,” he says, “and a sharp word will be more of a reproof than were 1 to knock them in the head.” * Any dog almost can be taught to follow & man’s trail, but a good bloodhound will fellow a trall with ease which any or- dinary hunting dog would be at a loss (o discover OODIOL ARE TRAINED ) A\ A o TN, BELT A EESTLELSS IS BLOODHOUND .