DEAR SAM,--I’m just come home from Hampstead, and so, while the matter’s fresh in my mind, I sit down to write you a few lines. You have heard of the awful murder, of course. Well, I don’t know: murder’s a shocking thing, to be sure; nobody can say it isn’t; and yet, after what I’ve seen to-day--Sunday, mind--it does almost seem to me as if people took a sort of pleasure in it. Bless you! if you’d only seen the hundreds and hundreds of folks figged out in their very best to enjoy a sight of the place where a man had been butchered, you’d have thought Haverstock Field--stained and cursed as it is with blood--a second Vauxhall at the least. I’m sure I’ve seen people going to Greenwich Fair with not half the pleasure in their faces. However, I’ll tell you all about it. I was called off the stand about eight this morning by a gentleman and lady, dressed, as I thought, for church. They’re a little early, thought I, but that’s their business. “Take us to Hampstead,” said the gentleman; “and mind, as near to the murder as possible.” “Do, my good man,” said the lady. Bless you! to have looked at her you’d have thought she’d have fainted at the sound of murder. “Do, my good man,” said she; “and make haste, for I wouldn’t be too late for anything. Take care of these,” said she to the gentleman, giving him a basket, “and mind you don’t break it.” Well, it’s my business to drive a cab; so I said nothing, but started for Hampstead. Bless you! before I’d got half up Tottenham Court Road, it was no easy driving, I can tell you. The road swarmed! Up and down the New Road, through Camden Town, and right to Haverstock Hill--I never saw anything like it, except perhaps on the day they run for the Derby. Everybody seemed turned out to enjoy themselves--determined to have a holiday and no mistake.