Peace replied, “Well, Dr. Potter might think so, but it’s not my opinion.” He moreover said that he was confident of his forgiveness and acceptance. Bad and base as he had been, he was yet able to look to his end with confidence and hope.
Peace had always had an objection to having his portrait taken, and it will be remembered how indignant he became at the Sheffield Police-court when he fancied that he was being sketched.
At Newgate, though, he had been compelled to submit to the unwelcome attentions of the prison photographer. This was before he was identified, and the portrait represents him with his lower jaw very much protruded.
A copy of the portrait falling into the hands of the London Stereoscopic Company, it had been multiplied in immense quantities and circulated all over the country.
This had, somehow or other, come to Peace’s knowledge, and he wrote a letter to the Governor of Newgate Prison, complaining that he should have allowed his portrait to have been so made use of.
The power which he possessed of protruding his lower jaw seemed to have been a comparatively recent accomplishment. About ten months previously he broke off a couple of teeth.
The jagged stumps bothered him a good deal, and it was whilst working his jaws about to reduce the stumps to something like a level surface that he discovered he could so protrude his under jaw as to almost completely alter the expression of his face.
Upon making this discovery he told his relatives that it would stand him in good stead if he ever got into trouble, as he should be able to deceive the police as to his identity.
That he was firmly convinced of this was evident from the fact from the time of his apprehension at Blackheath until he was identified in Newgate he protruded his jaw in the manner shown in the photograph.
As soon as he was identified and found that the game was up, he abandoned this mode of disguise, and his face assumed its normal expression.