Transcribed from the [1803] Vaughan Griffiths edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Public domain cover] A LETTER TO SIR RICHARD FORD, AND THE OTHER _POLICE MAGISTRATES_, UPON THE PREVALENCY OF GAMING, AND THE _INFAMOUS PRACTICES_ OF 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.