Certain it is, that the mischiefs arising from the rapid increase, and from the vast extent of capital employed in these Systems of ruin and depravity, have become great and alarming beyond calculation; as will be evinced by developing the nature of the very dangerous Confederacy which systematically moves and directs this vast Machine of destruction--composed in general of men who have been reared and educated under the influence of every species of depravity which can debase the human character. Wherever Interest or resentment suggests to their minds a line of conduct calculated to gratify any base or illegal propensity; it is immediately indulged. Some are taken into this iniquitous Partnership for their dexterity in securing the dice; or in dealing cards at Faro.--Informers are apprehended and imprisoned upon writs, obtained, by perjury, to deter others from similar attacks. Witnesses are suborned--officers of justice are bribed, wherever it can be done, by large sums of money[34]--ruffians and bludgeon-men are employed to resist the Civil Power, where pecuniary gratuities fail--and houses are barricadoed and guarded by armed men: thereby offering defiance to the common exertions of the Laws, and opposing the regular authority of Magistrates. [Footnote 34: An Affidavit, made not very long since in one of the superior Courts of Justice, illustrates this observation in a very striking degree. It is in these words--"That it is almost impossible to convict persons keeping Gaming-Houses before the Magistrates, by reason of the enormous wealth generally applied to the corruption of unwilling evidence brought forward to support the charge--That on an information exhibited against one of the Partners of a Gaming-House, he got himself discharged by deterring some of the witnesses from appearing, and by the perjury of another partner who was examined as a witness, and for which he then stood indicted--That divers of these Gaming-Houses were kept by practising attornies, who, by threatening indictments for pretended Conspiracies, and other infamous means, have deterred persons from prosecuting them."] It is impossible to contemplate a Confederacy thus circumstanced, so powerful from its immense pecuniary resources, and so mischievous and oppressive from the depravity which directs these resources, without feeling an anxiety to see the strong arm of the Law still further and unremittingly exerted for the purpose of effectually destroying it.