With them and all they had, 'twas lightly come and lightly go; andwhen we left them my master said to me: "This is thy first lesson,but to-night we shall be at Hamburgh. Come with me to the 'rotboss'there, and I'll show thee all our folk and their lays, andespecially 'the loseners,' 'the dutzers,' 'the schleppers.'" ..."Enow!" cried I, stopping him, "art as gleesome as the evil onea-counting of his imps. I'll jot down in my tablet all thesecaitiffs and their accursed names; for knowledge is knowledge. Butgo among them alive or dead, that I will not with my good will."
—THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH.
The narratives composing this book are literally true stories of crime.In a majority of the cases the author conducted the prosecutionshimself, and therefore may claim to have a personal knowledge of thatwhereof he speaks. While no confidence has been abused, no essentialfacts have been omitted, distorted, or colored, and the accountsthemselves, being all matters of public record, may be easily verified.
The scenes recorded here are not literature but history, and thecharacters who figure in them are not puppets of the imagination, butmen and women who lived and schemed, laughed, sinned and suffered, andpaid the price when the time came, most of them, without flinching. Afew of those who read these pages may profit perhaps by their example;others may gain somewhat in their knowledge of life and human nature;but all will agree that there are books in the running brooks, even ifthe streams be turbid, and sermons in stones, though these be the heartsof men. If in some instances the narratives savor in treatment more offiction than of fact, the writer must plead guilty to having fallenunder the spell of the romance of his subject, and he proffers theexcuse that, whereas such tales have lost nothing in accuracy, they mayhave gained in the truth of their final impression.
ARTHUR TRAIN.
CRIMINAL COURTS BUILDING,
NEW YORK CITY,
April 20, 1908.
Envelope on the back of which Parker's forged order was written
Parker's order on Roge BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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