[Illustration: 4. CHARLES PEACE, SIDE FACE--THE NOTORIOUS ASSASSIN AND BURGLAR.]
The sense of self-preservation possessed by all animals, but not possessed in such a high degree, perhaps, by human beings as it is possessed by many of the lower animals, carries with it an instinctive recognition of approaching danger from some other animal. Nature does in many cases, perhaps in all, hold up to us certain danger-signals, and if we were to let our natural instinct guide us--as dogs and young children are instinctively guided--we might often avoid grave evils that come to us from the human beasts of prey: cunning fraud, no less than actual murder, is not allowed by Nature to walk through the world without tell-tale evidences of its approach that ought to warn us. But, as adults, we usually ignore the finer and more delicate suggestions of our natural instinct, and we are guided much too often by what we think is "reason," or by what we believe to be our "best interests"--and then we are more or less mauled, in our pocket or in our person, by one of the many human beasts of prey, when prompt obedience to our instinct would have saved us.
Look at these faces. There is not one of them which cannot easily be more or less closely matched as you walk about the streets of a big city, or even, but naturally with less frequency, as you notice faces in country districts. There is, of course, no typical murderer's face. But all of these faces are bad faces; they warn you off. In some instances (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8, for example) the danger-signal is so plain that not even the most casual observer can fail to see it; each of these faces speaks for itself. In other instances, the warning is not so plainly shown, especially as in these photographs you cannot see the colour of the eye and its exact expression; but in no instance does any one of these faces inspire you with sympathy, they all cause a feeling of aversion or of distrust; and we, if we are wise, should not put aside as fanciful that instinct in us which gives to us similar warnings in everyday life.
[Illustration: 5. J. B. RUSH, THE NORFOLK FARMER AND MURDERER OF MR. JERMY AND HIS SON.]
Look at No. 5. The points which constitute a danger-signal in this callous villain's face, occurring as they do in _one face_, are the massive lower jaw, the thick "blubber" mouth destitute of a shade of sensitiveness, backed up by the massive and long upper lip, the great width between the cheek-bones, the broad insensitive nostrils, the angry forceful shape and angle of the eyebrows, and last, but not of least importance, a pair of hard, cold, blue eyes without a spark of feeling in them. All these things, coming as they do in one face, fit in well with this cold-blooded and insensitive murderer, who, while in prison on his trial, wrote an order for his dinner: "Pig to-day, and plenty of plum sauce."