After twenty years of heroic warfare and scores of hair breadth
escapes, in which he suffered wounds and bruises by the hundreds, and
baffled death so often that his criminal enemies declare "he leads a
charmed life." Mr. Wooldridge, while still "in the harness," has given
this volume to the public with the belief that he is sending forth a
book with a mission of good to the world.
No man in all our country is so feared by evil doers of all classes
as the author of this revelation of the ways and wiles of wicked men
and women, who graft and swindle, rob and corrupt their fellows in
defiance of law and justice.
"The Incorruptible Sherlock Holmes of America" is the title by which
Mr. Wooldridge is favorably known. Hundreds of times large and
tempting bribes have been offered him by wealthy criminals; thousands
of dollars at a time might have been his for a "wink" at a nefarious
practice, or for the loosing of his hold upon a rich criminal's
wrist. But like Cæsar's wife, he stands "above suspicion." He is
still a poor man, but deeply and earnestly studying the science of
criminology, laboring and lecturing for the cure of crime by wise laws
and scientific means--declaring himself to be the enemy of crime, but
the friend of the criminal, whose disease of crime he believes can be
cured, and that it is his mission to help the world suppress crime and
find out the way for its elimination.
With an aim so lofty, and a motive so pure, the good people of every
religion, all trades, all professions and all classes are in hearty
sympathy, and the circulation of this book will not only serve to
warn the people against the snares and pitfalls of the Devil and the
Grafter (into which thousands of new victims fall and one hundred and
sixty millions of dollars of the people's money are lost every year),
but it will tend to make Grafting impossible and turn the Grafters
into honest, legitimate channels and good citizenship.
This Book should be in the Hands of Every Minister, every doctor,
every student, every teacher, farmer, business man, mechanic and
laborer, every wife and widow--statistics show that ninety widows out
of every hundred are swindled out of what their husbands leave them.
It should be in the reach of all, male and female, for there is not a
postoffice in all the land where the mail, every time it comes, does
not bring the alluring literature of the Grafter to swindle or tempt
the unwary.