[The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 by Charles Lamb]@TWC D-Link bookThe Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 CHAPTER XIII 124/165
Here the personal feelings of the bail, which may be allowed to be somewhat poignant, are admitted to interfere; and, as wrath and revenge commonly strike in the dark, the colors are laid on with a grossness which I am convinced must often defeat its own purpose.
The fish that casts an inky cloud about him that his enemies may not find him, cannot more obscure himself by that device than the blackening representations of these angry advertisers must inevitably serve to cloak and screen the persons of those who have injured them from detection.
I have before me at this moment one of these bills, which runs thus:-- "FIFTY POUNDS REWARD. "Run away from his bail, John Tomkins, formerly resident in Princes Street, Soho, but lately of Clerkenwell.
Whoever shall apprehend, or cause to be apprehended and lodged in one of his Majesty's jails, the said John Tomkins, shall receive the above reward.
He is a thick-set, sturdy man, about five foot six inches high, halts in his left leg, with a stoop in his gait, with coarse red hair, nose short and cocked up, with little gray eyes, (one of them bears the effect of a blow which he has lately received,) with a pot-belly; speaks with a thick and disagreeable voice; goes shabbily drest; had on when he went away a greasy shag great-coat with rusty yellow buttons." Now, although it is not out of the compass of possibility that John Tomkins aforesaid may comprehend in his agreeable person all the above-mentioned aggregate of charms, yet, from my observation of the manner in which these advertisements are usually drawn up, though I have not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman, yet would I lay a wager, that an advertisement to the following effect would have a much better chance of apprehending and laying by the heels this John Tomkins than the above description, although penned by one who, from the good services which he appears to have done for him, has not improbably been blessed with some years of previous intercourse with the said John.
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