522 
of Belgium are especially notable. Those 
of the town of Ghent, indeed, are famous 
throughout the world, and specimens exhi- 
biting particular skill in the detection and 
tracking of evil-doers have been exported to 
countries so far away as China and Japan. 
The most intelligent of the Ghent police 
dogs have usually been of Collie type. They 
are systematically schooled in the pursuit 
of their man whom they will follow over 
high walls, through intricate alleys, across 
THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 
have been saved, and the riverside has been 
rendered more safe for respectable pedestrians 
in the hours of darkness. The dogs, which 
are mostly of Retriever, cross-bred New- 
foundland and Leonberg type, are kept in 
special quarters in the police station on the 
Quai de la Tournelle, and are told off for 
duty in the daytime as well as at night. 
Travellers on the Continent may often 
notice the dogs kept at the various octrot 
cabins on the frontiers. These are used to 
DOGS OF THE RIVER BRIGADE, PARIS 
country, and even into water until they 
catch him, seize him, and hold him. They 
perform regular service, and are sent on 
their beat with policemen from ten o’clock 
at night until dawn. 
With a number of Belgian Collies intro- 
duced to form the nucleus of a working team 
many of the American cities have lately 
acquired the services of dogs as an assistance 
to the police, not only in the tracking of 
criminals but also in the work of finding lost 
children and missing property, and in giving 
the alarm on the outbreak of a fire. 
In much the same way the chiess plongecrs, 
or swimming dogs, attached to the river 
police, on the banks of the Seine in Paris, 
are trained. In addition to tracking down 
malefactors infesting the river banks, these 
dogs are taught to rescue persons who have 
accidentally fallen or intentionally thrown 
themselves into the water from bridge or 
quay. Since the inauguration of these useful 
teams in 1900, a considerable number of lives 
assist in the detection and pursuit of 
smugglers, at which work they are remark- 
ably clever; but there is an even more 
active and cunning class of dog employed by 
the contrabandists themselves, who train 
them to evade the vigilant doxanier and his 
canine assistants, and to carry consignments 
of illicit goods across the frontiers at night 
and in stormy weather, the loads of silk, 
lace, tobacco, spirits, or other taxable com- 
modities being packed in small compass 
about their bodies and covered with a false 
coat. The method of training these smug- 
gling dogs is that of implanting in their 
minds a rooted fear of all men in uniform, 
and they are taught to make their journey 
by unfrequented paths ; consequently they 
steer clear of the uniformed guards at the 
frontier stations, and make their way to 
their destination by secret routes which are 
frequently changed. The police dogs are 
seldom a match for these cunning four-footed 
contrabandists. 
