Have you ever observed and studied the expressions on the faces of the people who congregate before the "Murder" proclamations pasted up in Scotland Yard, and on the dead walls of the poor neighbourhoods in England? Have you ever endeavoured, by a mental process, to discover the characters of some of these gaping men and women who read the bills and linger before them with a horrible fascination? Appropriate, indeed, that such announcements of mysterious murders should be pasted on _dead_ walls! Come with me, and mingle for a few moments with this little group, gathered before a Government proclamation in Parliament-street, offering a reward for the discovery of a murderer. Here is a respectable-looking workman, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, running his eyes swiftly down the bill, and taking in its purport with rapid comprehension. He knows already about the murder, as indeed all London does, having read the particulars in the newspapers. "They've offered a reward at last," he thinks, with a scornful smile: "they ought to have done it a month ago. Too late, now. This is another added to the list. How many undiscovered murders have been committed in the last twelve months? Temple of intellect, Scotland Yard!" As he walks away to his work, he looks with a kind of contempt at the policeman sauntering lazily along. Here is a young woman, without a bonnet, reading the bill very slowly; she can read quicker if she likes, but as the words pass before her eyes, she thinks of her own life and the drunken brute of a man she is living with. She would leave him to-day, this very moment, but she is afraid. "Do!" the brute has frequently exclaimed, when she has threatened to run away from him; "and say your prayers! As sure as you stand there I'll kill yer, my beauty! I don't mind being 'ung for yer!" And in proof of his fondness for her, he gives her, for the hundredth time, a taste of his power by striking her to the earth. "Git up!" he cries, "and never cheek me agin, or it'll be worse for yer." "I wonder," the young woman is now thinking as she reads the particulars of the murder, "whether there'll ever be a bill like that out about _me_; for Jack's a cunning one!" Here is an errand boy reading the bill, with his eyes growing larger and larger. Murders will be committed in his dreams to-night. But before night comes an irresistible fascination will draw him to the neighbourhood in which the murder was committed, and he will feast his eyes upon the house. Here is an old woman spelling out the words, wagging her head the while. It is as good as a play to her. She lives in Pye Street, Westminster, and is familiar with crime in its every aspect. She is drunk--she has not been sober a day for thirty years. Well, she was born in a thief's den, and her mother died in a delirium of drink. Here is a thief, who has lived more than half his life in prison, reading the bill critically, with a professional eye.