"Blackmail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficult to answer! But if you ask my candid opinion I should say nothing more nor less than to make you prisoner and blackmail ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. Yes, let them take him before the magistrate; it was not he that was afraid of justice. He would expose her, the false Catholic, the she-cat! A pretty convert! Another man would have preferred to blackmail her, he told himself with righteous indignation, especially in such straits of poverty. But he—the thought had scarcely crossed his mind. He had not even thought of her helping him, only of the joy of ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... do that," said Hartley with decision. "And as for your opinion of Heath—well, it strikes me as curious that a man of good character should be a mark for blackmail." ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... keep Joe away from you, I have somethin' on him. You'll never see him again. I'll save you from gossip an' blackmail, but you've ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... history. He was originally a witch-finder—about as low an occupation as exists amongst aboriginal savages. Then he got up in the world and became an Obi-man, which gives an opportunity to wealth via blackmail. Finally, he reached the highest honour in hellish service. He became a user of Voodoo, which seems to be a service of the utmost baseness and cruelty. I was told some of his deeds of cruelty, which are simply sickening. They made me long for an opportunity of helping to drive him back to hell. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... captivity to fortune, or to the future, or whatever you like to call it. He very much has. He's backed a bill that any day may fall due and find him without means to meet it; he's let himself in for blackmail, always over him a threat. But I'm talking about men above the struggle line. They don't, in their children, give hostages. It's the woman does that. Men don't give nor forfeit anything. It's the woman gives and forfeits. Why, when ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... appealed to the Acting Superintendent. "See! It's nothing less than blackmail. Is ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... of him in the European Magazine, Jan. 1786. BOSWELL. There we learn that he was in his time a grammar-school usher, actor, poet, the puffing partner in a quack medicine, and tutor to a youthful Earl. He was suspected of levying blackmail by threats of satiric publications, and he suffered from a disease which rendered him an object almost offensive to sight. He was born in 1738 or ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... confessed, that the United-States Government, in such dealings with Indian tribes as have been recited, does not act a very handsome part. To pay blackmail to insolent savages (for that is simply what it amounts to); to feed forty or fifty thousand people who make no pretence of doing any thing for themselves, and who appear to think that they are conferring a distinguishing honor upon the government by accepting its bounty; to allow ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... be married, hang me if she hadn't cleared out. No scene, no tears, no maledictions—just good, hard sense, Bingle, that's what it was. Not many of them would have been so decent about it. They usually make a bluff or something of the sort—money, you know, regular blackmail. But she didn't. She got out as quietly as a mouse, left no trace behind, no regrets, no complaints. Just a note saying she understood and wishing me luck. Rather ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... just before Aylmore's release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is an ex-convict. Result—Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him. Pooh!—the whole thing's clear as noontide, as I ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... course be continued, a very few years will see the venerable institution represented by only the Mahmal and its guard. The late Sa'id Pasha of Egypt once consigned the memorial litter per steam-frigate to Jeddah: the innovation saved Ghafr ("blackmail") to the Bedawin; but it was not approved ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... did it I'm not going to tell before the girl, but it was blackmail which you and Pinto engineered. He paid his last instalment—the four ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... I explained that I had quarrelled with you, and that I was now prepared to sell him the secrets of an expedition which you were fitting out with the object of re-establishing yourself on the throne. He wouldn't believe that there was any such expedition, and said it was blackmail, and threatened to give me to the police if I did not leave the island in twenty-four hours—he was exceedingly rude. So I showed him receipts for ammunition and rifles and Maxim guns, and copies of the oath ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... seems nothing to go on, sir," he remarked. "I did hear it said that some one was trying to blackmail him and Mr. Rosario ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Burke's speeches which he had brought with him, one of the jurors objected to the evidence in the eighty-seventh case. "We cannot be too cautious, gentlemen," he said, "in arriving at a decision in these delicate matters. The apprehension of blackmail in relation to females hangs over every ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... detail the provisions of the pernicious legislation the Labor Commissioner was cooking up in secret,—"that'd confiscate two years' profits from every near mill in town," said MacQueen. But the rest was news, and highly unwelcome news. To fight blackmail legislation against progressive business was comparatively simple; but a string of lies in the newspapers made a more insidious assault, injuring a man's credit, his standing as a conservative financier, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... They discussed it incessantly, speculating as to what the man's object could have been. Alfred said vulgar curiosity; but Beth suspected that there was more than that in the manoeuvre; and when Dicksie suggested acutely that Gard had intended to blackmail them, she and Alfred both ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... was no vulnerable point in his public armour. Of his private he was not so sure; Reynolds was in jail, for attempting, in company with one Clingman, to suborn a witness to commit perjury, and had appealed to him for aid. He had ignored him, determined to submit to no further blackmail, be the consequences what they might. But he was the last man to anticipate trouble, and on the whole he was in the best of humours as the Christmas holidays approached, with his boys home from their school on Staten Island, his little girl growing lovelier and more accomplished, and his wife always ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... believed to be the chief instigator. His character was indifferent, and he had money invested in Gregory's shop; and the business was in so bad a way that there was a temptation to seek for some large haul by way of blackmail. Mrs. Leigh Perrot was selected as the victim, people thought, because her husband was so extremely devoted to her that he would be sure to do anything to save her from the least vexation. If so, the conspirators were mistaken ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... muster. But instead of doing so, the gentleman, finding the coast clear, thought it better to make war on his own account, and has scoured the country, plundering, I believe, both friend and foe, under pretence of levying blackmail, sometimes as if by my authority, and sometimes (and be cursed to his consummate impudence) in his own great name! Upon my honour, if I live to see the cairn of Benmore again, I shall be tempted to hang that fellow! I recognize his hand particularly in the mode of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... a most desperate game," I hastened to assure him. "He's meeting difficulties. She must have her dupe's letters in her possession. Blackmail, I dare say. Best leave his lordship ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Sylvia. I could not bring myself to believe that she had wilfully forsaken her home and her husband. Upon her, I felt confident, some species of blackmail had been levied, and she had been forced away from me by ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... "Ethics of blackmail," commented Mr. Travers with unexpected sarcasm. It flashed through his wife's mind that perhaps she didn't know him so well as she had supposed. It was as if the polished and solemn crust of hard proprieties had cracked ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... been found. Earth needed a star-drive badly; a few more years, and the need would be desperate. And if a group of power-hungry men could control a star-drive and hold it for profit, they could blackmail an entire planet for centuries, and build an empire in space that could never ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... creature with a pock-marked face, iron-grey hair, an eyeglass and a strained tenor voice, who told me twice that he was a gentleman and several times that he would prefer not to do business than to do it in an ungentlemanly manner, and who was quite obviously ready and eager to blackmail either side in any scandal into which spite or weakness admitted his gesticulating fingers. He alluded vaguely to his staff, to his woman helpers, "some personally attached to me," to his remarkable underground knowledge ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... of this interview except the general impression in the family that Mrs. Catron had successfully resisted a vague attempt at blackmail from one of her husband's former dissolute companions. Yet it is only fair to say that Mrs. Catron snapped up, quite savagely, two male sympathizers on this subject, and cried a good deal for two days afterward, and once, in the hearing of her sister-in-law, to ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... crossed the borders at night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumner said: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, they do not seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like the African slave-traders whom we brand as tyrants, but they commit a succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are revived together ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... do, do come," said Nora, and the next moment they were all standing in a circle round Mother Rachel, who pocketed her blackmail eagerly, and repeated some gibberish over each little hand. Over Annie's palm she lingered for a brief moment, and looked with her penetrating eyes into the ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... prison, is worth more than a heavy sentence by way of fine, which can be met by further oppression of his slaves. Besides, the heavier the sentence threatened, if there be an alternative fine, the more potent implement it furnishes for blackmail in the hands of corrupt police officials. Penalties by means of fines invariably tend to degenerate into a monthly squeeze to the police, in payment for toleration, and thus tend to make the police official a defender of social vice, rather ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... Hall permanently in one way—by making the government of a city as human, as kindly, as jolly as Tammany Hall. I am aware of the contract-grafts, the franchise-steals, the dirty streets, the bribing and the blackmail, the vice-and-crime partnerships, the Big Business alliances of Tammany Hall. And yet it seems to me that Tammany has a better perception of human need, and comes nearer to being what a government should be, than any scheme yet proposed by a group of "uptown good government" enthusiasts. ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... here in peace. I've not come to blackmail you into loving me, Cecily. Yes, you shall be left in peace to move the furniture about." Glancing toward the table, he saw Mr Gainsborough's birthday gift. He took it up, looked at it for a moment, and then replaced it. His manner was involuntarily expressive. Even if she ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... other, he tried the key in the lock. The door opened. He saw nothing but papers. They must be very valuable to have been put away in a safe, and the key to which to be of so much importance. Perhaps a thought of blackmail occurred to him as a useful possibility in helping him in his designs on Mademoiselle Stangerson. He quickly made a parcel of the papers and took it to the lavatory in the vestibule. Between the time of his first examination of the pavilion ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... by a populous nightgowned world, sent, like herself, supperless for its sins to the purgatory of early bedtime. Split came stealing in from the other room, bringing Frank along that she might not cry and betray her elder sister's movements—a successful sort of blackmail the youngest Madigan often practised. And later, Kate, looking most conventional and full-dressed in this nightgowned society, brought succor for the starving. They munched chocolate and camped comfortably, three on each bed, while Sissy told her adventures. When she came to the description ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... one accepts the creed of morals, but his methods were not so praise-worthy. After a year of two of starvation struggles to get on with the legitimate, he packed up his scruples and laid them away—temporarily, he said. He resorted to sharp practice, knavery, and all the forms of legal blackmail; it was not long before his bank account began to swell. His business thrived. He was so clever that not one of his shady proceedings reacted. It is safe to venture that ninety-nine per cent, of the people who were bilked through his manipulations ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Pope; he has placed himself above law, and substituted his own will for justice. With his pen, as Cellini with his dagger, he assassinates; his cynicism serves him for a coat of armour. And so abject is society, so natural has tyranny become, that he extorts blackmail from monarchs, makes princes tremble, and receives smooth answers to his insults from Buonarroti. These three men, Machiavelli, Cellini, and Aretino, each in his own line, and with the proper differences that pertain to philosophic genius, artistic skill, and ribald ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... said. "The machine isn't going to be put on the market at all. It is to be used simply as a threat to make other people pay what I should call blackmail." ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... put it up to our lawyers. Maybe they'll call it conspiracy, maybe blackmail. They'll make it whatever carries a ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness. And at last, after a lot of thinking, as I walked about in the dusk, it struck me that Crone might be for taking a hand in the game of which I had heard, but had never seen played—blackmail. ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... that Shakespear was at a social disadvantage through his lack of middle-class training. They are rowdy, ill-mannered, abusive, mischievous, fond of quoting obscene schoolboy anecdotes, adepts in that sort of blackmail which consists in mercilessly libelling and insulting every writer whose opinions are sufficiently heterodox to make it almost impossible for him to risk perhaps five years of a slender income by an appeal to a prejudiced orthodox jury; and they see nothing in all this cruel blackguardism but ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... them, gave up their trade, and, withdrawing to a marshy district between two arms of the Euphrates, made up their minds to live by robbery. A band of needy youths soon gathered about them, and they became the terror of the entire neighborhood. They exacted a blackmail from the peaceable population of shepherds and others who lived near them, made occasional plundering raids to a distance, and required an acknowledgment (bakhshish) from travellers. Their doings having become notorious, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... in which the boy spoke was cold and bitter. Yet, instead of terrifying the storekeeper, it caused him to laugh as he exclaimed: "You can't blackmail me, you ungrateful young wretch! Get out of here, before I call the police! I steal your money, indeed! Insanity seems to run in the ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... object of your visit is blackmail?" he said. "You will fail in this, as you will also fail in your effort to force Mr. Gorham's hand. You have been misinformed—I have bought ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... your Grace," I replied; "only you have twisted the words. There has been foul play enough. I have come to tell you," I cried, boiling with anger, "I have come to tell you there has been foul play enough with a weakling that cannot protect himself, and to put an end to your blackmail." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... efforts to reach an honorable understanding which recognized in equitable measure our rights and our liberties, we resumed liberty of action? The truth is that Austria and Germany believed until the last days that they had to deal with an Italy weak, blustering, but not acting, capable of trying blackmail, but not enforcing by arms her good right, with an Italy which could be paralyzed by spending a few millions, and which by dealings which she could not avow was placing herself between the country and the Government. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... make him try the ordeal with ginger boluses and sack and give him (instead of the ginger) two dogballs compounded with aloes, whereby it appeareth that he himself hath had the pig and they make him pay blackmail, and he would not have them tell his ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... respect: nobody of any common sense thought of spoiling such exquisite blague by taking it seriously. Its motive was universally understood in Ireland. The orators of the movement never for a moment dreamed of levying war on Mr Gladstone, but they were determined to levy blackmail. They saw that they could bluff English opinion into granting all manner of extravagant compensation for the extinction of their privileges and their ascendancy, if only the Orange drum was beaten loudly enough. ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... Mercury, which sheet the said Jefferson Davis Rand had once cost the loss of an expensive libel-suit and exposed in certain journalistic malpractices verging upon blackmail, promptly burst into print with an indignant editorial entitled Trial by Pistol. The terms: "legalized slaughter," and "flagrant whitewash," were used, and mention was made of "the well known preference ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... ranch. Sorenson had appeared at the house about ten o'clock that morning desiring to see the girl. They had talked together on the veranda, where the visitor stated he had effected a settlement and obtained an acknowledgment from Martinez, who was trying to blackmail him and others; that a certain paper had been prepared by the lawyer for use in the disreputable business; that the man had said he had asked Janet to secure it from an old chair in his office; and he wished to learn if she ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... brought up in the gutter, what advantages had she had? Her mother died in childbirth and her father, a professional gambler, abandoned the little girl to the tender mercies of an indifferent neighbor. When she was about eight years old her father was arrested. He refused to pay police blackmail, was indicted, railroaded to prison and died soon after in convict stripes. There was no provision for Annie's maintenance, so at the age of nine she found herself toiling in a factory, a helpless victim of the brutalizing ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... compromising question, he omitted to return the packet; the sender was to be under his thumb, bound to his service by the terrifying recollection of the question he had written down. You know the sort of things that wealthy and powerful personages would be likely to ask. This blackmail brought ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... perpetrated upon me and mine, and must refer you for disgraceful details to my agent, Mr. Peleg Peterson of Whitefield, —— Co., ——. Hoping that you will not add to the injury you have already inflicted, by further complicity in this audacious scheme of fraud and blackmail, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... blackmail," said Robin thoughtfully, "but I am wondering how much we shall glean from this precious letter when we do see it. I am glad you asked Jeekes to ring me up, though. He should be able to tell us something about these mysterious letters on the blue paper that used to ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... model of respectability—sacrosanct, almost. His idea of worldly happiness consisted in knowing that he was a solid, trustworthy business man, of undoubted years and discretion, whom no human being could blackmail. Now, as he fled from the odor of respectability he yearned to wallow in deviltry, to permit his soul, so long cramped in virtue, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... European guests, and forbade any fortification of the Factories, except such as was necessary to protect them against possible incursions of the Marathas, who at that time made periodical attacks on Muhammadans and Hindus alike to enforce the payment of the chauth,[2] or blackmail, which they levied upon all the countries within their reach. In Southern India the English and French had been constantly at war whenever there was war in Europe, but in Bengal the strength of the Government, the terror of the Marathas, and the general weakness of the Europeans had contrived ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... a dummy director and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine advertisements, called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I dared him to print in his paper the truth about patent medicines.* This man, talking soberly and earnestly about the ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... England. The method of nominating candidates for Parliament in England removes the temptation to "influence" primaries and bribe delegations. In the absence of State legislatures, railway and other corporations are not exposed to the same system of blackmail. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... McGuffey for two. You'd have the bulge on me forever after. You could blackmail me until I dassen't ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... shall not blackmail you any more than is necessary, for this would be a pity; you pay much heavy ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... over, sir. They say I insult them by thinking they would ever do such a thing. That was when I went and asked 'em for my money. Last thing was, when I told 'em it was their doing, and they set me at it, they said I were trying to blackmail 'em— that they never thought I meant such a thing, and that if I warn't off they'd hand me ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... taking medicine for a time, had communicated the infection to others. This witness further stated that some chemists charged consultation fees in addition to charges for drugs applied, and in certain cases charges for drugs were made which were little short of blackmail. ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... traders in their journeys across the great western wilds, and of pushing the outposts into the very heart of the singular wilderness we have laid open, so as to maintain some degree of sway over the country, and to put an end to the kind of "blackmail," levied on all occasions by the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... you know, you can't bluff him forever. You're sure to slip up sooner or later. And, anyway, I'm not at all sure that it isn't actionable—blackmail, you know." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... civilized life is interwoven with blackmail: even some of the noblest people do favours for other people who are depended upon not to tell somebody something that the noblest people have done. Blackmail is born into us all, and our nurses teach us more blackmail by threatening to tell our parents if we ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to the difference in the methods of computing time by the two countries. Since our war with England prevented the sending of any force to the Mediterranean at that time, the consul complied and the blackmail was handed to ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... caution invaded him. It would be well not to implicate himself too far with his wife's companion. She was a far shrewder woman than was common; there was such a thing as blackmail. He studied her privately. Damn it, what a pen he had been caught in! Her manner, too, changed immediately, as though she had ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... demanded Shirley, as he placed the record in the grip. "Don't you see the wisdom of knowing who may systematically blackmail you after secrecy is obtained. This is a matter of the future, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... let out without trial. His servant met me and brought me to his house. He gave me money and told me to leave the country. If I didn't, I would be arrested again for trying to shoot Havel, and for blackmail. They could all swear me off my feet and into prison—what was I to do! I took the money and went. But I came back to have my revenge. I could cut their hearts ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... will yet drive the descendants of those very conquerors from the soil of Mexico. Look at Sonora and Chihuahua, half-depopulated! Look at New Mexico; its citizens living by suffrance: living, as it were, to till the land and feed the flocks for the support of their own enemies, who levy their blackmail by the year! But, come; the sun tells ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... as to the letter. Why was she so persistent about seeing it? Did she want to get it into her hands and then keep it, as Harold An Wolf had done? Was it possible that she suspected he would use it to coerce her; she would call it 'blackmail,' he supposed. This being the very thing he had intended to do, and had done, he grew very indignant at the very thought of being accused of it. It was, he felt, a very awkward thing that he had lost possession of the letter. He might need it if Stephen got nasty. Then Harold might give ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... misgovernment in city, state or nation, according as their personal interests lay. They used the editorial page and, to even better advantage, the news-columns, in revenging themselves for too heavy levies of blackmail upon their corrupt interests or in ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... Scotland; a rank which he modestly accepted by writing in 1838 to a friend:—"I am getting a kind of fame as the literary man of Scotland. Thirty years ago, in the North countries, a fellow achieved an immense reputation as 'The Tollman,' being the solitary individual entitled by law to levy blackmail at a ferry." In 1860 he was made Honorary President of the Associated Societies of the University of Edinburgh, his competitor being Thackeray. This was the place held afterward by Lord Lytton, Sir David Brewster, Carlyle, and Gladstone. Aytoun wrote the 'The Life and Times of Richard the First' ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... fabulous riches which the Persian kings had amassed in their spring residence, Susa. Thence he at last ascended upon the Iranian plateau. The mountain tribes on the road (the Oxii, Pers, Huzha), accustomed to exact blackmail even from the king's train, learnt by a bitter lesson that a stronger hand had come to wield the empire. Alexander entered Persis, the cradle of the Achaemenian house, and came upon fresh masses of treasure in the royal city, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... said to him, quietly. "And you can rise in the Senate on Tuesday and move your vote of want of confidence and object to our concession, and when you have resumed your seat the Secretary of Mines will rise in his turn and tell the Senate how you stole out here in the night and tried to blackmail me, and begged me to bribe you to be silent, and that you offered to throw over your friends and to take all that we would give you and keep it yourself. That will make you popular with your friends, and will show the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... were a bulwark none too wide or strong against the incursions of the terrible Mohawks, whose name sent a shiver of fear throughout savage New England, and whose forbearance the Nipmucks and Mohegans were fain to ensure by a yearly payment of blackmail. Each summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and down the Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons and wampum, and proclaimed the last harsh edict issued from the savage council at Onondaga. The ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... the same. This boy is a young gamester. He wanted to frighten me into paying him money. It's a pure case of blackmail." ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... at him. 'Pooh,' he said angrily, 'you can't blackmail me like that. You can't prove anything on me. I reckon the people around here will take the word of the sheriff of their county against the booze fightin' son of ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... recalled me to my senses. It has ever been an instinct with me that no real prosperity comes out of double-dealing. And commerce with such a sneak sickened me. "Go back to your father, Philip, and threaten him, and he may make you rich. Such as he live by blackmail. And you may add, and you will, that the day of retribution is coming ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ascribed to them which they never uttered, if they are held guilty of deeds from which they would shrink in horror. Law and custom are alike powerless to fight this tyranny, which is the most ingenious and irksome form of blackmail yet invented. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... sycee, make up a tolerably valuable bag, and would often fall a prey to the highwaymen which infest many of the provinces, but that most offices anticipate these casualties by compounding for a certain annual sum which is paid regularly to the leader of the gang. For this blackmail the robbers of the district not only agree to abstain from pilfering themselves, but also to keep all others from doing so too. The arrangement suits the local officials admirably, as they escape those pains and penalties which would be exacted if it ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... asked, was it pushing so hard for a civil rights bill? The fact was, several legislators argued, the Department of Defense was interfering with the civil rights of businessmen and practicing a crude form of economic blackmail.[21-72] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... as a parting shot, "that girls don't get into clubs here by blackmail. Even if Judy had put you up, you wouldn't have had the ghost ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... pretext for misusing her worse than he's already done. Yes, sir; he'd be actually tickled to death if he could nose up some hint of a scandal about her—something that he could pretend to believe, and work for his own advantage to levy blackmail, or get rid of her, or whatever suited his book. I didn't think there was such an out-and-out cur on this whole footstool. I almost wish, by God, I'd thrown ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... I've stated your case, messieurs. It amounts to simple, clumsy blackmail. I'm to split my earnings with you, or you'll denounce me to the police. That's ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... an interminable Arabian ditty all day long, and Faris and the two other assistants, were models of fidelity and willing service. They did not quarrel (except once, over the division of the mule-loads, in the mountains of Gilead); they got us into no difficulties and subjected us to no blackmail from humbugging Bedouin chiefs. They are of a picturesque motley in costume and of a bewildering variety in creed—Anglican, Catholic, Coptic, Maronite, Greek, Mohammedan, and one of whom the others say that "he belongs ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... old man remained-motionless, staring up. The word "blackmail" resumed its buzzing in Mr. Ventnor's ears. The impudence the consummate impudence of it from this fraudulent old ruffian with one foot in bankruptcy and one foot in the grave, if not in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pioneer I had tried to express it in an address which was in fact a sloppy poem. I should not like to have that manuscript printed precisely as it came from my pen, and a phonographic record of my voice would serve admirably as an instrument of blackmail. However, I thought at the time that I had done moderately well, and my mother's shy smile confirmed ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... or no experience of human guile. No one cares to shoot them, in the abundance of larger game, and the absence of stones from the fat prairie-soil places them out of danger from the small boy. Their only foe is the hawk, who levies blackmail on them as coolly and regularly as any other plumed cateran. Partly, perhaps, by reason of this outside pressure, they are cheek by jowl with the poultry,—the cow-bunting, which is the pet prey of the hawk, following them into the back ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... remarked meditatively, "have you ever considered the possibilities of blackmail if the right sort of evidence were obtained under this new 'white-slavery act'? Scandals that some of the fast set may be inclined to wink at, that at worst used to end in Reno, become felonies with federal ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... participation in the war, nor could Japan fail to regard with uneasiness a liberation of the economic activities of 400,000,000 people."[70] Accordingly the proposal lapsed. It must be understood that throughout the war the Japanese were in a position to blackmail the Allies, because their sympathies were with Germany, they believed Germany would win, and they filled their newspapers with scurrilous attacks on the British, accusing them of cowardice and ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... told his story I asked myself, Could Charles' conduct be dictated by the desire to have a hold over Benson—with a view to blackmail later on? But he was not likely to risk his own neck by becoming an accomplice in the concealment of the murdered man's body! Charles, if he were innocent himself, must have thought that Benson was the murderer. It was impossible that he could have come to any other ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... said Eddie. "I believe he came to blackmail you. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the marriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money ought to be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care how it's done? I can't see much difference ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... advertize them, the restaurants which cater for them, and, in short, all the trades to which they are good customers, not to mention the public officials and representatives whom they silence by complicity, corruption, or blackmail. Add to these the employers who profit by cheap female labor, and the shareholders whose dividends depend on it [you find such people everywhere, even on the judicial bench and in the highest places in Church and State], and you get a large and powerful class with a strong pecuniary incentive ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... though later he makes amends. But I take it that it was Mr. LOCKE'S idea to present a very ordinary decent sort with the common man's prejudices and frank distrust of subtleties. A sinister mystery of love, death and blackmail runs, a turbid undercurrent, through the story. The publisher's pathetic apology for the drab grey paper on which, in the interests of War Economy, the book is printed, makes one wonder how the other ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... time or another had a go at John M. Hurd. Boring him to death has been unsuccessfully tried several times, but as you are in the family, you may of course have superior facilities to any of your predecessors. Blackmail might accomplish something. But really I can't help you any, Charlie. If I had any plan, I'd deserve to hang from your friend's pergola roof for giving it to you instead of using it myself. I guess this is where you begin to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... flung at him. "You're trying to frighten me—to blackmail me—into selling you my lace for thirty shillings, when maybe it's worth twenty times that. But if any one calls the police, it will be me, to give you in charge ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... showing all his letters to Lord Clare, whom Clancarty hated. He then gave Macallester the lie, and next apologised; in fact, he behaved like Sir Francis Clavering. Before publishing his book, Macallester tried to 'blackmail' Clancarty. 'His Lordship is now secretly and fully advertised that this matter is going to the press,' and, indeed, it was matter to make the Irish peer uncomfortable in France, where he had consistently ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... at Washington issues a statement characterizing Stegler's allegations about Capt. Boy-Ed as "false and fantastic," and "of a pathological character," and hinting at attempted blackmail. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I can only guess at, without being able to explain my conviction. But, honestly, fellows, I hardly think these people are as bad as you make out. I know blackmail is practiced over in Italy a lot. And that one of the favorite ways to get money is to kidnap the son or daughter of a rich man, and demand a heavy ransom. But in this case they would hardly pick ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... answered. "I've looked into that. Chris, himself, had no connection with it. Once he threatened me ... but I've since learned what he meant.... Just a little blackmail which concerned a ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... a fair fight, the duty of every American would be to keep on the side-lines and preserve an open mind. But it is not a fair fight. To devastate a country you have sworn to protect, to drop bombs upon unfortified cities, to lay sunken mines, to levy blackmail by threatening hostages with death, to destroy cathedrals is ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... "I have money at my camp. If that is not enough to pay your blackmail, my valet has gone back to the railway with my guide for a remittance of a thousand dollars, which must have come ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... reduced passenger rate, or payment of brokerage, is illegal. It is worth while considering whether it would not be wise to confer on the Government the right of civil action against the beneficiary of a rebate for at least twice the value of the rebate; this would help stop what is really blackmail. Elevator allowances should be stopped, for they have now grown to such an extent that they are demoralizing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... relations with the Chetneys. From the police Lord Edam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of the Russian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by her own government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by her beauty. Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney either knew it already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and the father and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis altered his will, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... was found guilty of blackmail, and was sentenced to one year at hard labor in the State prison, in addition to a fine ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... blackmail soon became a serious affair. The ruler, or pasha, of Tripoli was bold enough to declare war against this country, and cut down the flagstaff in front of our consul's house. Two other Barbary states, Morocco ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... him blackmail Larkin for five hundred dollars back by the corral fence. An' Larkin knew what he had to do as soon as Caldwell showed up. Didn't yuh see him turn ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... and I have seen most of his private papers. If he could have caught you with the goods, he would have had you long ago. I told you that the last time you called at the house and I saw you. What! Do you think John Minute would pay blackmail if he could get out of it? You ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... he found the door locked, he exclaimed: 'If you do not open this door immediately, I will have you thrown into prison for blackmail ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... one thing, Featherstone never spoke about his life in the Old Country, and Foster was surprised when he stated his intention of spending a few months there. It looked as if Daly knew his secret and had used his knowledge to blackmail him. ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... in exchange for protection? True that they practise blackmail and extortion? Of course it's true. Whenever a big temptation appears loose in a city half the people who get a look at it trip and fall. Oh, I'd like to reform this city, Miss Barbara—and this country. I'd like to be dictator for ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... trouble Fern, but I was afraid you would. He used your name as well as mine, the rascal! Everything is paid up, and all the trouble now is that a miserable scamp has got hold of some of the paper and wants to blackmail him. And what I called you here to-day for is to get you to agree—with me—to acknowledge every scrap of that paper as being ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... preface (signed Asa G. Eddy) attacking Edward Arens, and contains the famous chapter on "Demonology" in which Mrs. Eddy devotes forty-six pages to settling scores with half a dozen of her early students, charging one and another with theft, adultery, murder, blackmail, etc. The Reverend Mr. Wiggin, when he revised Mrs. Eddy's book in 1885, persuaded her to omit these vituperative passages on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Raffles. "On the other hand, you would be permanently out of danger of figuring in the dock on a charge of blackmail. And you know your profession isn't popular in the courts, Mr. Levy; it's in nearly as bad odour ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... and they always intend to do so. For one thing, these raiding dattos don't like to have white men on Mindanao. The spread of civilization here means that the old-time dattos will be driven into the wilds, and that there won't be any more plunder or blackmail money to live on. These Moros out yonder wouldn't have bothered me, this time, if I had paid the money ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock |
