Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/83

Rh it showed the cloven foot, and the attempt to fleece this young gentleman stood as much exposed as if the parties had been at confession.

Will ye not learn, incautious youth! from this real and veritable narration, that no pains or expence are spared to intrap you in the toils of the destroyer? That men combine their purses and talents to defraud you of your patrimony; no time, place, distance, or combination, beingan obstacle to the pursuit of their object. Did we not hear, with agony, the disclosures of an equally villanous attempt, at Brighton in Autumn, 1817, of one O'M—ra, (a nine years resident there,) who dispatched his leg to London at a great expence to bring back a well-fledged pigeon to be plucked under his own eye? But the scheme failed through accident.

Although we have given instances from highlife, yet the same practices come all the way, by gradations, down to the meanest man that ever had a pound to lose. A party—respectable let us suppose for a moment—meet at a house, respectable enough for your ideas of propriety, to play a fair game at cards. "No high betting!" No. But then, into such a party, however upright may be the leading persons, some one or more black sheep is likely to show his front. A