FIRST CONVICTION FROM BLOODHOUND EVIDENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THY " SPECTITOB."] SIR,—I think that the following may perhaps interest your readers: At the Northamptonshire Assizes the evidence of bloodhounds was accepted as conclusive: Shaw, one of Lord Lilford's gamekeepers, who will be well remembered by visitors to the trials of the English Setter Club each spring, was shot at by poachers early in the morning of December 22nd. My bloodhounds were telegraphed for, and at half-past nine o'clock the same evening, twenty hours after the affray, they were laid on the trail with ,definite result. At the trial, Mr. Simpson, who prosecuted for the Crown, said : " With reference to the service of the hounds, this was valuable for the reason that on the next morning, as soon as it was daylight, a search was made along the line of retreat (which had been'run by the hounds during the night) and the barrel of a gun was picked up opposite a stile in a field over which the bloodhounds had gone." The barrel of the gun was identified, and through it the poachers were arrested and each got twelve years' penal servitude. This is interesting as showing that the blood- hounds ran the true line in the dark with a very cold scent, and it is the first conviction obtained from bloodhound
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