Excerpt from A Strange Flaw The design of the author in writing this book is to uncover the machinery so frequent ly and effectively employed by skillful schem ers for despoiling the masses of his country men, and to show the methods by which gov ernmental agencies intended to promote and protect the people have been perverted to their injury. Many wrongs of the character here in depiqted have come within his personal knowledge and in his professional career many flaws as destitute of merit as the one here shown have wrought great havoc in the administration of justice. This book is not intended to caricature any person, nor to in flame the passions of one class against an other, nor to destroy confidence in our sys tem of government. On the contrary the writer expects by exposing abuses of power to stimulate a sentiment that will remedy de fects and prevent a recurrence of such abuses. A government must be sustained by the in telligence of its people. In publicity is pub lic safety. If the tale herein told shall amuse and win the sympathy of the reader, the author hopes it may also afford instruction which will be of a permanent value and in some way contribute to the glory of his coun try and the benefit of mankind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.