Question

In this excerpt from The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell, what does the author mean by the sentence “The West Riding men are sleuth-hounds in pursuit of money”?

The West Riding men are sleuth-hounds in pursuit of money. Miss Brontë related to my husband a curious instance illustrative of this eager desire for riches. A man that she knew, who was a small manufacturer, had engaged in many local speculations, which had always turned out well, and thereby rendered him a person of some wealth.
The author personifies sleuth-hounds by comparing them to men of the West Riding area.