from the PREFACE: The vice of gambling is peculiarly destructive. It spares neither age nor sex. It visits the domestic hearth with a pestilence more quiet and stealthy, but not less deadly, than intemperance. It is at once the vice of the gentleman, and the passion of the blackguard. With deep shame we are forced to admit that the halls of legislation have not been free from its influence, nor the judicial bench unstained by its pollution. It is against this vice, which is now spreading like a subtle poison through all grades of society, that the present work is directed. The author is not a mere theorist. He speaks from experience -- dark and bitter experience. The things he has seen he tells; the words he has heard he speaks again. Some of these scenes curdle the blood in the veins, even when remembered; some of these words, whenever whispered, recall incidents of singular atrocity, and thrill the bosom with horror. The author professes to speak nothing but the plain truth. He does not aspire to an elegant style of writing, adorned with the ornaments of the orator and the scholar; but to one quality may lay claim, without being thought a vain or immodest man. He speaks with an earnest sincerity. Whatever he says comes from his heart, and is spoken with all the sympathy of his soul. This work differs from all the previous works of the author. Indeed, it is unlike any thing ever published in this country. It is not a mere exposure of gambling, nor yet an attack on the character of particular gamblers. It is a revelation of a wide-spread organization -- pledged to gambling, theft, and villany of all kinds. There are at the present time existing, in our Union, certain organizations, pledged to the performance of good works, which merit the hearty approbation of every honest man. These are called secret societies, although their proceedings, and the names of the officers, with minute particulars, are published in a thousand shapes. Prominent among these beneficial orders stand the Odd Fellows and the Sons of Temperance. But the order, whose history is related in the following pages, differs from all these. Its proceedings, the names of its members or its officers, and even its very existence as a body, have hitherto been secret, and sealed from the whole world. Besides, it is pledged to accomplish all kinds of robbery, aye, and even worse deeds. It has, in more than one deplorable instance, concealed its dark deeds with murder. This order is not confined in its operations to the dark places of life. It numbers among its members the professional man, the "respectable citizen," the prominent and wealthy of various towns throughout the Union; nay, it has sometimes invaded the house of God, and secured the services of those who are ostensibly his ministers. There is not a line of fiction in these pages. The solemn truth is told, in all its strange and horrible interest. To the public, to the candid of all classes, to the friends of reform, to the honest citizen, and to the sincere Christian, the author makes his appeal. Let not his voice of warning be unheeded. Let all be up and doing, so that the monster may be exterminated from the face of the earth, and the youth of the present age be saved from destruction.