26 SEPTEMBER 1846, Page 15

POLICE PORTRAITURE.

CHARLES LAMB notes the tendency in the human mind to as- cribe personal ugliness where we owe a grudge. Your runaway apprentice is always an ill-looking dog : if he was too sharp for his master—too quick with replies to awkwardly-expressed re- bukes,—the description in the Hue and Cry gives him a squint; if he has taken money from the till, he is sure to have a hitch in his gait. This disposition is as old as the hills. When Priam missed his noble Hector, and the other sons could not reproduce the dead to comfort the old man, he called them a "down-looking" " set. When " the Irish Moses " took offence at the excellent letters written by the Times Commissioner, he trumped up a tale how the writer was called " Ugly Foster " ; the ill-favour being en- tirely the creation of Mr. O'ConnelPs " own ugly mouth." Vigorous efforts are made to set the Spaniards against the Mont- pensier alliance, and to that end reports are set afloat that the young Prince is blind of one eye. Because Don Francisco de Assiz is to marry Queen Isabella on the same day that the In- fanta Louisa marries the French Prince, the dislike of the Anti- Gallicans extends to the unfortunate Don Francisco ; and it is sud- denly discovered that he is everything which he ought not to be. An English newspaper reporter in Madrid differs in opinion with the Spanish Ministers on the subject of the Montpensier marriage • and, according to the rule, when he recounts their en- trance into the Cortes to announce the marriage, they figure in the description as a most ill-favoured and sneaking set of rascals.

Still more dainty examples of the rule are furnished by two other Spanish personages. General Cabrera eludes the French police, and gets out of the country ; whereupon, unable to do more, the authorities fire after him this description-

" Born at Tortosa (Catalonia); age thirty-eight years; height one metre sixty- three centimetres [about five feet four inches and a half English]; black hair and eyebrows; ordinary forehead; greyish brown eyes; middle-sized nose; month rather large; black beard and rather thin; round chin; oval face; dark com- plexion. His eyebrows are busby and come close to each other; has a small scar on the forehead over the left eye; legs slightly bent; never looks a person in the face when addressing him" The more galling the offence, the worse the black-and-white sketch of the fugitive. The Count of Montemolin dines with the Prefect of the Cher, and escapes from surveillance on the following day: the Prefect pursues him with a description which is masterly in its graphic power— "Age twenty-eight years; height one metre sixty-five centimetres; black hair and eyebrows; narrow and rotund forehead; brown eyes; large and long nose, a little bent on one side; middle-sized month; black beard, worn en collier; round chin; oval face;. and dark complexion. The upper lip and the teeth slightly project, which is more visible when talking; speaks French with facility, but with a strong foreign accent; the knees turned in, which is more particularly ap- parent when walking; holds himself very erect; a turn in the left eye-ball, show- sng at times the whole of the white; wears his hat inclined to the right side, and over the eyes."

In brief, according to this Police Holbein, Don Carlos Luis is short, ungainly, ugly, crook-nosed, shark-toothed, wall-eyed, knock-kneed, and "snobbish." Such is the gentleman who asks the Spanish people to rise in his favour, and to win for him Queen Isabella, her hand and throne I