COMMON INFORMERS.
LONDON:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED, BY VAUGHAN GRIFFITHS, NO. 1,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
A LETTER TO SIR RICHARD FORD, &c. &c.
GENTLEMEN,
I have taken the liberty to consume a few minutes of your valuable time, for the purpose of awakening your attention to an evil, that has lately encreased to an enormous magnitude; an evil rendered the more mischievous, inasmuch as it is sanctioned by Magisterial authority.
You, Gentlemen, are not to be taught by me, that the law itself has marked with peculiar abhorrence, every species of oppression and injustice, that is perpetrated under its influence; for, dreadful indeed must be the situation of the subjects of any country, who are told that their oppressions are authorised by the power of Magistracy.
The mischief I allude to is the alarming depredations committed by a gang of abandoned wretches, who, by a scene of fraud and perjury, have long been in the habits of obtaining your warrants, under the fallacious pretences of prosecuting the keepers of Gaming Houses, Lottery Offices, Dancing Schools, and other public nuisances; but who, in fact, obtain those instruments of legal authority, to give countenance and facility to the most outrageous extortions and robberies: for, instead of causing such warrants to be executed for the ends of public justice, they prostitute them to the accomplishment of private plunder, turning them into terrific engines, to alarm the objects of supposed delinquency into a compliance with the most exorbitant pecuniary demands. And thus the Magistrates, who on all occasions, are anxious to embrace every opportunity of suppressing a public nuisance, become the dupes of profligate necessity, and the innocent parricides of that peace, liberty, and property, which the Police of this country appoint them to preserve and protect.
It is not my present purpose to enter into any thing like a general comparison of the morals of the ninth, and the nineteenth century; or to expatiate on the distinction between those of this country, and such as pervade the inhabitants of other regions; for, I believe the strictest scrutiny would end in a conclusion that human nature is much the same, in whatever part of the world geography can lead us; I will, therefore, briefly pursue the avowed purpose of this address, which is both local and temporary, calculated to remedy a species of iniquity, which stalks with gigantic strides, to the very threshold of the most salutary Police that human wisdom is capable of establishing.
It is astonishing, and no less so is it lamentable, that the laws of the wisest legislator, in all ages and countries, never did, or ever will, wholly subdue the predominant passions inherent in human nature; hence the wisdom and ingenuity of the laws, both antient and modern, aided by the intrepidity and vigilance of the Magistrates, have sunk under every attempt, to conquer the two most destructive vices which afflict mankind;—it is almost needless to say, that I mean duelling and gaming; vices that have triumphed over, and bid defiance to, all human ordinances, from the earliest period of civilization, to the present moment.
But as I have selected the prevalency of gaming and its baneful effects, for the subject of your consideration, I shall not clog my animadversions with any extraneous observations.