Page:London spy, or, The frauds of London described (3).pdf/15

 preserve your peace and property. Be not fond of making new acquaintances with persons whose characters you are strangers to, however genteel in appearance and behaviour; for many a Sharper lurks under the disguise of our modern line gentlemen, as daily experience fatally shews.

Of all the vices, frauds, and cheats, related and exhibited, there is not one that has been more successful, and of old standing, than that of swindling; which, like the plague, still rages thro' these kingdoms with devastation, to the great wrong and injury of multitudes, both in town and in country. To expose their pernicious practices, and the bad effects produced thereby, may in some measure stop the progress of this growing evil and tend to crush the hydra before it has power to do further mischief: I shall therefore be as exact as possible in relating one or two of the most glaring and flagrant deceptions practised on the unwary, in order to give the reader an insight into the nefarious and audacious proceedings of Swindlers, that they may be