Lynchburg Star

The following is the mode of rearing blood hounds in Saint Domingo, and the manner of exercising them by the Chasseurs.

The moment the blood-hounds are taken from the dam they are chained in kennels, with iron bars in front like the dens used by show-men for confining wild beasts where they are sparingly fed on the blood and entrails of animals. As they grow up, their keepers frequently expose in the front of their cage a figure resembling a negro, a male or female, and of the same colour and dress, the body of which contains the blood and entrails of beasts, which being occasionally suffered to gush out, the figure attracts the attention of the dogs as the source of their food. They are then gradually reduced in their meals, till they are almost famished, while the image is still more frequently exposed to their view; and when they struggle with redoubled ferocity against their confinement to come at their prey, the image is brought nearer at intervals, till at last it is abandoned to their hunger, and being of wicker work, is in an instant torn to pieces, and thus they arrive at a copious meal. While they gorge themselves with this, the keeper and his colleagues caress and encourage them. By this means, the white people at once ingratiate themselves with the dogs, and teach them to regard a negro as their proper prey. As soon as the young dogs are thus well initiated, they are taken out to be exercised on living objects and are trained with great care, till they arrive at the necessary nicety, and exactness in the pursuit of the poor wretches they are doomed to destroy.

The common use of these dogs in the Spanish islands, was in chase of runaway negroes in the mountains. When once they get scent of the object, they speedily run him down, and devour him unless he can evade the pursuit by climbing trees, in this case they remain at the foot of the tree yelling in the most hideous manner till their keepers arrive. If the victim was to be preserved for a public exhibition of a cruel punishment, the dogs were then muzzled, and the prisoner loaded with chains. On his neck is placed a collar with spikes inward, and hooks outward, the latter for the purpose of entangling him in the bushes if he attempted to escape. If the unhappy wretch proceeded faster than his guard, it was construed into an attempt to run from them, and he was given up to the dogs, who instantly devoured him. Not seldom, on a journey of considerable length, these causes were feigned by the keepers to relieve them of their prisoners; and the inhuman monster who perpetrated the act, received the reward of ten dollars from the colony, on making oath of his having destroyed his fellow-creature. The keepers in general acquire an absolute command over these dogs; but while the French army used them in their late war against St. Domingo, while they had possession of the Cape, the dogs frequently broke loose in that neighbourhood, and children were devoured in the public way; and sometimes they surprised a barn-full family of labourers (who had submitted and furnished the French themselves with necessaries) at their simple meal, tore the babe from the breast of its mother, and involve the whole party in one common and cruel death, and returned, when gorged, with their horrid jaws drenched with human blood! Even the defenceless huts of the negroes have been broke open by these dreadful animals, and the sleeping inhabitants have shared a like miserable fate!