Page:Houdini - The Right Way to Do Wrong An Expose of Successful Criminals.djvu/9

 PREFACE O would the deed were good I For now the Devi]^ that told me I did weHi Says tha^t thia deed ta chronicled in li^W 1 HERE is an under world — a world of cheat and crime — a world whose highest good is successful evasion of the laws of the land. You who live your life in placid respecta- bility know but little of the real life of the denizens of this world. The daily records of the police courts, the startling disclosures of fraud and swindle in newspaper stories are about all the public know of this world of crime. Of the real thoughts and feelings of the criminal, of the terrible fascination which binds him to his nefarious career, of the thousands — yea, tens of thousands — of undiscovered crimes and unpunished criminals, you know but little. The object of this book is twofold: First, to safeguard the public against the practises of the criminal classes by exposing their various tricks and explaining the adroit methods by which they seek to defraud. *« Knowledge is power " is an old saying. I might paraphrase it in this case by saying knowledge is safety. I wish to put the public on its guard, so that honest folks may be able to detect and. protect themselves from the dishonest, who labor under the false impression that it is easier to live dishonestly than to thrive by honest means. In the second place, I trust this book will afford entertain- ing, as well as instructive reading, and that the facts and experiences, the exposes and explanations here set forth