The common law has defined the offence of cheating--to be _a deceitful practice in defrauding, or endeavouring to defraud, another of his own right, by means of some artful device, contrary to the plain rules of common honesty_. The Statute of the 33d of Henry the Eighth, _cap._ 1. entered into a more specific explanation of what might constitute such an offence, and fixed the mode of punishment; by declaring, "_that if any persons shall falsely or deceitfully obtain, or get into his hands or possession, any money, goods, &c. of any other person_, by colour or means of any false privy token, or counterfeit letter, _&c.--he shall, on conviction, be punished by imprisonment, the pillory, or whipping--saving to the party aggrieved the same power of recovering the property as he might have had at Common Law, &c._" From this remote period, until the 30th of George the Second, the Legislature does not appear to have seen the necessity of enacting any new Law, applicable to this species of offence. In the progress however of Society and Commerce, joined to the consequent influx of riches, producing luxury and extravagance, a larger field opened for cheats and sharpers of every description; insomuch, that the evil became so great, and the existing Laws were found so insufficient, as to render it necessary to provide a legislative remedy. In applying this remedy, it seems that the great increase of a new species of cheating, practised by persons known in modern times by the name of _Swindlers_, had suggested the propriety of defining the offence, in a more applicable and specific manner, and of rendering the punishment more severe. By the act of 30 Geo. II. _cap._ 24. it is declared, "_that all persons obtaining money, goods, wares, or merchandise_, by false pretences, _shall be deemed offenders against the Law and the public peace; and the Court, before whom any such offender shall be tried, shall on conviction, order them to be put in the pillory, or publicly whipped, or transported for seven years_." Thus stand the Laws at present with regard to Swindlers.[30] They ought certainly to embrace a wider field, so as to reach those artifices by which sharpers and persons of depraved minds, obtain money from the ignorant and unwary, by assuming false characters, taking genteel lodgings, and cheating innocent tradesmen, who lose large sums annually by such depredations.