The Gambler, or The Policeman’s Story

by Charles Burdett

Preface 

It has been the author’s privilege in all the books which he has heretofore given to the public, to found all the principal incidents therein narrated, upon actual occurrences. In the present volume, he has presented a narrative, not alone founded on fact, but entirely and essentially true, imparted to him by an officer connected with the Police Department, the mention of whose name, would, if the author were at liberty to use it, carry a weight of conviction which a simple declaration of the author might fail to convey.  

The author is not insensible to the fact, that by this acknowledgement, he has deprived himself of much of the credit which might, perhaps, be accorded to him had he permitted the work to go forth without the announcement. But he is cheerfully willing to forego that credit, under the conviction that much more of good may be effected by the perusal of a narrative of actual occurrences, than by a work of a character purely imaginative.   

Few persons are perhaps fully sensible of the terrible tenacity with which the passion of gambling grows upon, and clings to those who have permitted themselves to be enticed to the gambling table. The narrative herewith presented, is intended, and the author would hope, is calculated to show forth the power of this soul-destroying habit, and the inevitable consequences which it entails upon its unfortunate victims, who, lured on from step to step by the ignis fatuus of hope advance gradually but surely, until they find themselves on the edge of that precipice from which it is almost impossible to recede.  

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