[Illustration: 6. MRS. DYER, THE READING BABY FARMER AND WHOLESALE MURDERER OF INFANTS.]
[Illustration: 7. JAMES LEE, OF ROMFORD, WHO SHOT CHIEF-INSPECTOR SIMMONDS, OF THE ESSEX POLICE.]
In No. 7, there are, amongst other bad signs, a coarse and cruel mouth, great prominence of cheek-bones, and again those terrible hard blue eyes, as cold as flint.
[Illustration: 9. AND ALBERT MILSOM, THE MUSWELL HILL MURDERERS.]
No. 8 speaks for itself, and you see in No. 9 an abnormal animal development of the lower jaw, very great width between the cheek-bones, and the eyes are a cold, treacherous, hard blue.
No. 10 was a French peasant, who, with his wife (see No. 18), lived by decoying young women, under the pretence of getting them situations, into a wood near Lyons. When the victims came, Dumollard and his wife killed them by garrotting, and after taking all valuables, these wretches put the bodies of the young women into a new-made grave, previously prepared. This man's face is a dreadful face, and the brow reminds one of a gorilla. Look at the two faces (Nos. 10 and 18), and imagine the degree of denseness of perception of approaching danger that must have been present in the poor victims who would negotiate with such wretches as these Dumollards.
[Illustration: 10. DUMOLLARD, WHO, WITH HIS WIFE, MURDERED NEARLY TWENTY YOUNG WOMEN.]
The danger-signal is shown plainly enough in No. 11. This wretch poisoned a large number of persons for the sake of petty gains with the unconcern of a farm girl who wrings the necks of poultry. She had thick-looking, dark brown eyes, muddy and hard.
[Illustration: 11. MARY ANN COTTON, THE POISONER.]
No. 12 is a shocking bad face. The lower jaw runs back a long way and is then very pronounced--always a sign of animality, although in men of intellect and feeling this same quality may often be innocuous, and even useful as supplying energy; the mouth, especially when seen full-face, is very coarse, and the lips thick and heavy; the nostrils are very wide at their base, the ears are noticeably bad, and the eyes are light blue and as hard as a flint.
By the way, and in order to avoid a possible misconception on the part of my readers who may think I am bringing an indictment against blue eyes generally, I ought to expressly state that this is not the case. Many of the kindest and best people living have blue eyes, but their eyes are not the same sort of blue eyes that nearly all deliberate murderers have (of the twenty-two persons here included, fourteen have blue eyes, six brown, and two have hazel eyes): the blue eyes I refer to must have been noticed by everyone, and must have inspired aversion, or at any rate a lack of sympathy, for, of all eyes, the hard, cold, blue eye is perhaps the least human or humane. Some of the finest soldiers and men of practical affairs have blue eyes, which, without being in any way unpleasant, are yet those of men who, rightly enough, never let an undue sensitiveness interfere with their actions. These men may be honourable and excellent men, but they are essentially practical, and are guided by their head rather than by their heart, and they are often of immense service to the nation. Lord Kitchener has splendidly resolute blue eyes of this sort, but they are entirely different from the sinister blue eyes that are in nearly all the faces now shown. The one sort inspires you with confidence, the other with aversion.