"Extortion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a most cold-blooded extortion," he said; "but you shall have it. And at your peril you ever interfere with ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... after, General Butler landed and took command of the city, for which he had not struck a blow. He stationed his garrison in the public buildings, the hotels, and even in private houses; and then commenced a system of oppression and extortion, that—while it made the blood boil in the veins of every southron—has sent his name to the honest thinkers of the future linked with a notoriety which all history proves to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... again, and saw the breast Like a rough ocean—ne'er at rest: Fear, guilt, and conscience gnawed the heart; Extortion ever made it smart— It seemed as if no sunlit gleam Could brighten it ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... with Mexico has been almost annihilated. It was formerly highly beneficial to both nations, but our merchants have been deterred from prosecuting it by the system of outrage and extortion which the Mexican authorities have pursued against them, whilst their appeals through their own Government for indemnity have been made in vain. Our forbearance has gone to such an extreme as to be mistaken in its character. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... this method of earning a subsistence, but had drifted into his evil practices by degrees. In the first instance he had quitted the bar in consequence of having been connected with a scandalous case of extortion and blackmailing, in which he had been suspected of constructing forged documents for his client, though the crime had not been proved against him. His reputation, however, had been ruined, and he had been forced to seek his bread elsewhere. It chanced that the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of a sensible reform of the tariff—that is to say, I do not wish to put it in the power of the few to practice extortion upon the many. Congress should always be wide awake, and whenever there is any abuse it should be corrected. At the same time, next to having the tariff just—next in importance is to have it stable. It does us great injury to have every dollar invested ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... say that my plan was to walk by night. They all assured me he would charge me a reasonable sum. I insisted that the day was too hot for walking. They told me, did these Etruscans, that I need fear no extortion from so ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... when the law is only a petty, meddlesome, cruel, greedy spy, mingling in every household act and peering in at every window pane, then the poor who are guiltless would be justified if they spat in its face, and called it by its right name, a foul extortion. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... address deserved all praise; but the beauty of the form was insufficient to disguise the inconclusiveness of the reasoning. It confessed an offence which the hearers knew to be none; the true provocation which had led to the penalty—the unjust extortion of the high church officials—was ignored. The crowd laughed and hooted. The clergy fiercely tightened their purse-strings, and the bishop was heard out with hardly restrained indignation. "My lord," it was shortly answered by one of them, "twenty nobles a year is but a bare ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerous and some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and some that cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that a guide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are you allowed to be a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay. The guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man who is to take your life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is his turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... transactions of the province of Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before enlarging on this deplorable business. We need no longer wonder at the terror caused by the establishment of the Press in Africa, as was contemplated ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Courts, of which I spoke just now: they were founded for the discipline of morality—they were made the instruments of the most detestable extortion. If an impatient layman spoke a disrespectful word of the clergy, he was cited before the bishop's commissary and fined. If he refused to pay, he was excommunicated, and excommunication was a poisonous ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... another sense it was a dear, {91} a very dear, victory to the minister. The consent of the King to the offer of compromise had been extorted, more than extorted, by Walpole. Indeed, as Walpole often afterwards told the story, it was on his part not an extortion, but an actual disregard and overriding of the King's command. The King refused at the last moment to send the message to the prince; Walpole said the Peers were waiting to carry it, and that carry it they should, and he would not allow the King time to retract his former consent, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Europe by never going to church, though and while she actually lived in a disestablished and disendowed monastery. To punish them for which (the non sequitur is intentional) she does little but talk of dirt, discomfort, bad food, extortion, foul-smelling oil and garlic, varying the talk only to foul-smelling oil and garlic, extortion, bad food, discomfort, or dirt. The book no doubt yields some of her finest passages of descriptive prose, both as regards landscape, and in the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... subjects' or else that of others. In the first case he ought to be sparing, in the second he ought not to neglect any opportunity for liberality. And to the prince who goes forth with his army, supporting it by pillage, sack, and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this liberality is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor your subjects' you can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander; ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... price of life; and the fruits of labor taken by force through warring centuries. A guarded and grudging system of exchange gradually developed; the robbing instinct slowly simmering down to legally limited extortion; but each party surrendering his goods reluctantly, and only with the purpose of gaining more than he lost. Here also is the basic spirit of sacrifice—to get something now or in the far future—always the trading spirit at the bottom. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... monopolies and patents, granted by a crown ever eager to obtain money under any pretext, however unjustifiable and iniquitous, provided it was plausibly coloured; and these vexatious privileges were purchased by greedy and unscrupulous persons for the purpose of turning them into instruments of extortion and wrong. Though various branches of trade and industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no means of redress. The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them down as they pleased, farming out whole districts, and dividing ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Blucher levied contributions on the poor Parisians, and his army was newly clothed. The Bank of France was called upon to furnish him with several thousand pounds, which, it was said, were to reimburse him for the money lost at play. This, with many other instances of extortion and tyranny, was the cause of Blucher's removal, and he took his departure by ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... finally shattered, surrendered Nantes to the French by arrangement. England was apparently to bear the entire brunt of the war. Henry was justified in appealing to his subjects for every penny that could be raised, and resorted to "benevolences"—an insidious method of extortion which had been declared illegal in the previous reign, but under the existing abnormal conditions could hardly be resisted. A great demonstration of warlike ardour was made, on the strength of which Spain was urged to pledge herself to throw herself into the war next year with ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... imposed upon, but never, even for an instant, did the thought flash across her mind that his statements were false, and only used for the purpose of extortion. Obtaining the specified amount, she placed it in his hands with a gush of tears, for her feelings were greatly hurt at his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... entertainment was crowded, and congregations patiently awaited their turn in the street, undeterred by rain or wind or snow, offering absurdly high prices for scant accommodation and disheartened at having their offers refused. Extortion was rampant and profiteering went unpunished. Foreigners, mainly American and British, could be seen wandering, portmanteau in hand, from post to pillar, anxiously seeking where to lay their heads, and made desperate by failure, fatigue, and nightfall. The cost of ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... meeting it is an imperative military necessity—we must be very careful and economical in our food use here at home. We must eat less; we must waste nothing; we must equalize the distribution of what food we may retain for ourselves; we must prevent extortion and profiteering which make prices so high that the poor cannot buy the food they actually need; and we must try to produce more food by planting more wheat and other grain, raising more cattle and swine and sheep, and making ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... you accept my offer," he said, "that you give me your promise to do your best to earn the money. It doesn't pay to be too squeamish in this world," he continued, in a soothing tone; "all business is to a certain extent a game of extortion—a question of do the other fellow or he will do you." Then arising, and holding out a skinny hand to grasp Page's, as if to bind the bargain, he added: "I shall expect you to keep faith with me, Mr. Page," and ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... his extortion, taking 33s. 7d. for the plank and woodwork of Boston stocks, is fined 5l. and censured to be set ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... kindness of English people, which far surpass what I had expected; even the poor people are pleasant, very unassuming, and easy to get on with when one talks to them. Those who come much into intercourse with strangers—cab-drivers, porters, etc.—naturally have a tendency to extortion, but soon give in when they see that one understands the language and customs and is determined not to be put upon. Generally I find the life much cheaper than ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... A few of the more bashful ghosts thrust their hands in their pockets and looked awkwardly another way. The Barbarian felt a momentary relief followed by a slight pang of mortified vanity. He was a little afraid of them. The price was an extortion, certainly, but surely he was ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... an aversion to the mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law-breaker, partly because the word "black-mail" stood for what he did not dare suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was genuine; there were certain things which he didn't want to commit, and extortion was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try to scare her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, "borrow" from such men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had never attempted to black-mail anybody except his wife—which, of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... course of the great emergency and after it was over, the Office of Works perhaps, upon the whole, took precedence over all rivals. Its prodigality was, to do it justice, tempered by extortion. Did the system of commandeering hotels and mammoth blocks of offices create new Departments of State? Or did the creation of new Departments of State precede the commandeering of the hotels and blocks of offices? ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... the interests confided to his care, brilliant with extraordinary displays of intellect, upheld by dauntless courage, memorable as well by his triumphant successes as by the moderation of his fees and by the moral light which he diffused around him, regarding, as he ever did, rapacity, extortion, and complicity in evil-doing as the worst of crimes, and more memorable, as blending in a single character, and at an early age, those uncommon qualities which separately make the reputation of a great advocate, of a great civilian, and of a great master of the ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... construction of roads, by the establishment of an excellent police system, and introduced a uniform system of weights and measures. He looked after the administration of his viceroys in his numerous provinces, permitted no extortion on the part of his officers, and saw that justice was impartially meted out to all classes. He was a Mohammedan, but he was tolerant of all the prevailing sects ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... King, loosed from that awe and constraint he was under, soon began to discover those irregularities of his nature, which till then he had suppressed and disguised, falling into those acts of oppression and extortion that have made his name and memory infamous. He kept the see of Canterbury four years vacant, and converted the revenues to his own use, together with those of several other bishoprics and abbeys, and disposed all church preferments ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... him to rebuke the tradesmen who oppress and devour him by overcharges of every kind, we shall find these obdurate persons very quick upon their defence, and full of admirable justification of their supposed extortion. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... according to public anticipation. The competing corporations worked without sufficient remuneration at competing points, and, to make good the losses resulting, were often guilty of extortion at the non-competing points. They discriminated against persons and places. Citizens protested against these abuses in vain. The railroad corporations, when threatened with the power of the Government, indulged in the language of defiance, and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... for ever and aye; Worse was it never.[137] We have plenty of great oaths, And cloth enough in our clothes, But charity many men loathes, Worse was it never. Alas, now is lechery called love indeed, And murder named manhood in every need, Extortion is called law, so God me speed; Worse was it never. Youth walketh by night with swords and knives, And ever among true men leseth their lives, Like heretics we occupy other men's wives, Now-a-days in England: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Edinburgh. 3. Groceries. 4. Wine. 5. Washing. This last article was, in my time, regulated by the college, as there were certain privileged washer-women, between whom and the students it was but fair that some proper authority should interfere to prevent extortion, in return for the monopoly granted. Six guineas was the regulated sum; but this paid for everything,—table- linen, &c., as well as for wearing apparel; and it was understood to cover the whole twenty-eight or thirty weeks. However, it was open to every man to make his own arrangements, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... gift, but an extortion, of reward. I do not like to see you put on what was given in so indifferent a manner. Take it off—I give you my bracelets if you leave it here. Take these bracelets, and go now. [ROHINI goes out.] Another defeat! I should have thrown this necklace ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... of revenue were demanded from distant provinces, and heavy impositions were laid upon the richest of the inhabitants of Delhi. The great misery caused by these impositions was considerably augmented by the corrupt and base character of the Indian agents employed, who actually farmed the right of extortion of the different quarters of the city to wretches who made immense fortunes by the inhuman speculation, and who collected, for every ten thousand rupees they paid into Nadir's treasury, forty and fifty thousand from the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... 'It is extortion!' cried the Frank. 'What right have they to charge me money for the water of this natural spring, which is the gift of ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... domestic virtue. While in most parts of Asia the people are oppressed by petty tyrants, and ground down by taxes,—while they have no motive to improve their condition, since every advance will only expose them to greater extortion,—the people of China are industrious and happy. In no part of the world has agriculture been carried to such perfection. Every piece of ground in the cultivated parts of the empire, except those portions devoted to ancestral monuments, is made to yield two or three crops ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... however, from that of romance or of knight-errantry which inspired the bosoms of the citizens whose acclamations now rent the air on her approach. They beheld in the princess whom they welcomed the daughter of that Henry who had redeemed the land from papal tyranny and extortion; the sister of that young and godly Edward,—the Josiah of English story,—whose pious hand had reared again the altars of pure and primitive religion; and they had bodied forth for her instruction and admonition, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... probable, however, that it would require a show of force before the Natal natives would consent to budge. Indeed, it is absurd to suppose, that anything would induce them to leave peaceful Natal, and plunge into the seething cauldron of bloodshed, extortion, and political plots that we have cooked up in Zululand under the name of a settlement. Proper provisions must first be made for the government of the country, and security to life and property made certain. Till this is done, no natives in their ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... say it is a nuisance and should be abolished. Some call it an outrage and ask for legislative interference. Some say it is an extortion and refuse to pay it. Some say it is a necessary evil and suffer it. The wise ones look at it a little differently. Possibly it is best explained or excused, whichever way you wish to call it, by one of Gouverneur Morris's characters in a ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... the King's anger and perform his wishes and apply himself diligently to the doing of that where with he chargeth him, such duty is always incumbent on him; but how, an the King's whole pleasure be tyranny and the practice of oppression and exorbitant extortion; and what shall the Wazir do if he be afflicted by intercourse with this unjust lord? An he strive to turn him from his lust and his desire, he cannot do this, and if he follow him in his lusts and flatter ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... entry of the house Maria met Wilhelm's mother, and promised her she would consult with Frau Van Hout that very day, concerning the extortion practised by the market-men. Then she went to poor Bessie, who sat, pale and weak, in a little chair. Her prettiest doll had been lying an hour in the same position on her lap. The child's little hands and will were too feeble to move the toy. Trautchen ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that the only way to keep what he had got was to make it better, and not worse, than he found it. His first Egyptian act was to put to death Cleomenes, Alexander's lieutenant, who had amassed vast treasures by extortion; and who was, moreover, (for Ptolemy was a prudent man) a dangerous partisan of his great enemy, Perdiccas. We do not read that he refunded the treasures: but the Egyptians surnamed him Soter, the Saviour; and on the whole he deserved the title. Instead of the wretched misrule and slavery ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... that goodness Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one, Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion; The goodness of your intercepted packets You writ to the Pope against the King. Your goodness, Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious. My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble, As you respect the common good, the state Of our despis'd nobility, our issues, ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... taking of it out. Also here in Venice the dames turn their black hair yellow by the sun and art, to be wiser than Him who made them. Ye enter no Italian town without a bill of health, though now is no plague in Europe. This peevishness is for extortion's sake. The innkeepers cringe and fawn, and cheat, and in country places murder you. Yet will they give you clean sheets by paying therefor. Delicate in eating, and abhor from putting their hand in the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the divisions were exposed to be called into action, or were more directly under central inspection, the effective force was kept up at its full complement, but the people were compelled to submit to every kind of extortion and tyranny. The tendency of absolute power being always to weaken the power of the law, and to increase the authority of the executive agents of the sovereign, soon manifested its effects in the rapid progress of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... cleanliness, and as to health that was utterly disregarded. Low typhoid fever was frequently prevalent, and numbers were swept off by it. The strong prisoners used to tyrannise over the weak, and the most frightful cases of extortion and cruelty were practised amongst them, while the conduct of the officials was culpable in the highest degree. At one time the chapel was let as an assembly room. The prisoners used to get up, on public ball nights, dances of their own, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... of extortion was successfully launched the Trust determined to reward its patrons, as a means of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... conceive of a meaner case of extortion than this. As Morse says in a letter to Mr. Kendall, of August 3, 1860, after he had consented to a reference of the matter to three persons: "I have no apprehensions of the result except that I may be entrapped by some legal technicalities. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Legislatures which have neglected to pass laws which would have made the Commission effective, or even provide funds for the Commission to carry on its work, even had the Commissioners been so inclined, California has been left helpless to oppose any extortion which the railroad might see fit to exact. The system of charging all that the traffic will bear has governed utterly. For this the Southern Pacific Company can thank, and the People of California ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... power and gas supply of Salt Lake City; and its franchises left it free to extort whatever it could from the people of the whole country side, by virtue of a partnership with the Church authorities whereby extortion was given the protection ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... incapacitated for any exertion whatever, either bodily or mental. The affairs of his realm were neglected, and his bailiffs and feudal chiefs, left with irresponsible power, were guilty of such acts of extortion and tyranny, that, in the province of Suabia the barons combined, and a fierce insurrection broke out. Forty important towns united in the confederacy, and secured the co-operation of Strasburg, Mentz and other large cities on the Rhine. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... indeed, and he was to suffer for it. He was tried,—not on any political charge, however, the crimes alleged against him were peculation and extortion, common practices with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... without drawing blood, and has obtained the observance of your royal decrees so equitably that those who were most opposed to him confessed that he was just. Lastly, Sire, he is completing his visit this year, without having inflicted extortion or wrong on a single person. He has attended to the service of your Majesty with continual and incessant labor—which, although he has not had at all good health, he has not spared by day or night, on feast days, or ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... more than anything else to dull the faculties and deaden the conscience of the unfortunate who surrenders himself to its seductive spells. The inevitable results were for him the premature loss of health and strength, and for his people misrule, extortion and ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... announced) had been caused in Perth and its neighborhood, by the exposure of an anonymous attempt at extortion, of which a lady of distinction had lately been made the object. As her name had already been publicly mentioned in an application to the magistrates, there could be no impropriety in stating that the lady in question ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... forgot Clarissa. She rose up in that waterlogged cart like a Statue of Liberty. "Never!" says she. "We will never submit to such extortion. We'll ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... country," declared that his Catholic colleagues must decide for themselves what action to take. Mr. Dillon contradicted the statements in Cardinal Monaco's letter to the effect that the contracts were voluntary or that the campaign fund of the Land League had been collected by extortion. A meeting of forty Catholic members of Parliament assembled in Dublin, and in the Mansion House in that city signed a document denying the allegations about free contracts, fair rent, the Land Commission, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... yesterday, when upon the motion of Ephraim Tutt, of the firm of Tutt & Tutt, Judge Simeon Watkins, sitting as a committing magistrate, held for the action of the grand jury Raphael B. Hogan and Joseph P. Simpkins, his assistant, for the crime of extortion, and directed that their case be referred to the Grievance Committee of the County Lawyers' Association for the necessary action ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... cabildo, he condemned them to suffer death; but their punishment, at the intercession of Olmedo, was mitigated to banishment. Thus the settlement of Segura fell to the ground, which had been established in a very fertile country, but exceedingly unhealthy. By the cruelty and extortion of Alvarado, the minds of the natives were alienated, and they threw off their allegiance; but he reduced them again to submission, and they continued ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... to manifest their subjection to the ruling race. Nowhere else do they live in conditions of such demoralizing promiscuity as in some of the cities of Morocco. They have so long been subject to unrestricted extortion on the part of the Moslems that even the wealthy Jews (who are numerous) have sunk to the habits and appearance of the poorest; and Sefrou, which has come so recently under French control, offers a good specimen of a Mellah ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... have added, that the top is usually the least nutritious, or "mealy" part of the potato, which would make the loss still less. His third suggestion, he says, he received from a Sligo miller. It was a plan to prevent extortion and high prices, should a famine really come. It consisted in this, that a "nominal subscription" should be entered into by each county, and that a committee of the leading men of each county should be formed, having ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Two lire fifty? Why, this is downright extortion!" declared the woman with the eyeglasses. She was ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... unknown principal demanded that a larger sum should be handed over as an evidence of good faith on her part before he would consider further negotiations. This, though, turned out to be only the beginning of the extortion processes. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... compassion on his fatherless children—to take his part, and breed up a fresh race of tyrants to our misery. Let the extortioner consume all he hath, and the stranger spoil his labour—for what he has is itself taken by extortion, and he has spoiled the labour of thousands. Let his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation his name be clean put out. Let the wickedness of his father and the sin of his mother be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord; that he may root out the ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... its equivalent every evening, and thus force him to retain an extra man to attend to the check-issuing business it is right that the employees should bear that expense. I believe the mills at Westlake have commissaries, but I know the mill-owners and do not believe they practice any extortion. They pay off in checks. They have a monthly pay-day, and if, like railway employees, these should wait until the first Saturday after the 5th or 10th of each month they could draw their wages in cash. No mill at either place mentioned pays off in checks. You might roast such mills as those on ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... border, vicious rum-selling traders, and hungry land-thieves. They had still another cause of complaint. Shute had promised to build trading-houses where their wants should be supplied without fraud and extortion; but he had not kept his word, and could not keep it, for ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... and omit the weightier matters of the Law,—judgment, mercy and faith. Ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess! Woe, woe unto you! Ye are like whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men's bones! Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye build tombs for the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous while ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... the appropriation of the four millions and a half, the result of the extortion inflicted on the Senate of Hamburg, in the affair of Napper ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and entrance of every creed; but it was widely different then, and, even if they could have quitted Spain, there was not a spot of ground, in the whole European and Asiatic world, where persecution, extortion, and banishment would not equally have been their doom. Constant relapses into external as well as internal Judaism, there were, but they were but the signal for increased misery to the whole nation; and by degrees they ceased. It was from the forcible ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... of it," said Andrea, who, without becoming angry, as Caderousse feared, at this new extortion, quietly resigned the ring. Caderousse looked so closely at it that Andrea well knew that he was examining to see if all the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... French; and the disappointed governor could say nothing in his own vindication, but that they were debauched by their intercourse with the inhabitants of Dover. His pupil, however, was so much offended at their extortion, that he absolutely refused to employ them, even when they abated one half in their demand, and swore he would stay on board till the packet should be able to enter the harbour, rather ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... With self-assured movements, They're "Earthworms" again— Those "Earthworms" whose victuals Are never sufficient, Who always are threatened With drought, blight, or famine, Who yield to the trader The fruits of extortion 110 Their tears, shed in tar. The miserly haggler Not only ill-pays them, But bullies as well: "For what do I pay you? The tar costs you nothing. The sun brings it oozing From out of your bodies ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... exchequer was replenished by a tax on marriages, births, and burials, the very extortion which had been feared by the insurgents in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The tax collectors had access without payment of fee to the registers. The registration of births was discontinued when the Taxation Acts expired. An attempt to ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... his successors, see authorities already given. The best account of James's share in the extortion of confessions may be found in the collection of Curious Tracts published at Edinburgh in 1820. See also King James's own Demonologie, and Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland, vol. i, part ii, pp. 213-223. For Casaubon, see his Credulity and Incredulity in Things Natural, pp. 66, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... peoples by making it more difficult to negotiate loans in the markets of the world to subdue their outbreaks. For it firmly rejected in the Cuban adjustments the immoral doctrine that an ill-treated and revolting colony, after gaining its freedom, must still submit to the extortion from it of the cost of the parent country's unsuccessful efforts to subdue it. We therefore left the so-called Cuban bonds on the hands of the Power that issued them, or of the reckless lenders who advanced the money. At the same time the United States strained a point elsewhere in ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... himself in the abortive and equivocal schemes of Lepidus to subvert the Sullan constitution, Caesar took up the only instrument of political warfare left to the opposition by prosecuting two senatorial governors, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (in 77 B.C.) and C. Antonius (in 76 B.C.) for extortion in the provinces of Macedonia and Greece, and though he lost both cases, probably convinced the world at large of the corruption of the senatorial tribunals. After these failures Caesar determined to take no active part in politics for a time, and retraced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Well, I am living at enormous expense, and am wonderfully pleased with my way of life. My strict abstinence from all extortion, based on your counsels, is such that I shall probably have to raise a loan to pay off what you lent me. My predecessor, Appius, has left open wounds in the province; I refrain from irritating ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... labor or his natural and conferred rights. Not only may individuals rob and plunder their fellows with absolute impunity, but our laws have put breath into that soulless thing which has become notoriously infamous as a "corporation." Around this thing, this engine of extortion and oppression, our laws have placed bulwarks which the defrauded laborer, the widow and orphan, and even the sovereign public, cannot overleap. Here is where Monopoly first shows its ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... on man's perdition, his sin. They are those brittle evidences of law, Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate For leaving out one syllable. What are whores! They are those flattering bells have all one tune, At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores Are only treasures by extortion fill'd, And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse, Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows, And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore! She 's like the guilty ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... deny it. Only fancy his bamboozling me when I was most on my guard! I wasn't to be taken in by any of his silly occult tricks and catch-words; but it never occurred to me he was going to victimise me financially in this way. I expected attempts at a loan or an extortion; but to collar my signature ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... his scolding, and his bitter wrath. All these qualities shone in the parliamentary fight before the Austrian war, when for three years he defied the country, and raised the Prussian war-funds by extortion! ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... nation one interesting lesson—namely, that by excessive extortion the trusts will lose soon their respectable friends and unite all of ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... and threatened them when they did amiss. The other tribes, allies of the French, were of the same mind; and their respect for their Great Father seems not to have been permanently impaired by his occasional practice of bullying them for purposes of extortion. Frontenac appears to have had a liking not only for Indians, but also for that roving and lawless class of the Canadian population, the coureurs de bois, provided always that they were not in the service of his rivals. Indeed, as regards ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... canceled his guilt—so, at least, said the code under which Lorelei lived. What concerned her far more than the moral complexion of the liaison, was her brother's connection with the unlawful scheme of extortion. Jim, she saw, had gone wrong with a vengeance, and the consequences to him troubled her, for in spite of all that he might be or do she cherished a sisterly affection for him. Family ties were very real and very strong to her—strong enough ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... of these events was known to very few. Evelyn, who had in general excellent sources of information, believed that the corruption and extortion of which Marlborough was notoriously guilty had roused the royal indignation. The Dutch ministers could only tell the States General that six different stories were spread abroad by Marlborough's enemies. Some said that he had indiscreetly suffered an important military secret to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... e'en without remorse. The possession of money is therefore rather a source of anxiety than happiness, though this doesn't seem to diminish in the slightest degree the Chinaman's natural craving for as much of it as he can secure. At the same time, the abominable system of official extortion must go far to crush a spirit of enterprise which would otherwise most undoubtedly be rife. Everybody is so afraid of bringing himself within the clutch of the law, that innovation is quite out ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... house resolved itself into a committee to consider of raising money, in consequence of which the excise was afterwards voted. But Mr Prynne was not a member of parliament till 7 Nov. 1648; and published in 1654 "A protestation against the illegal, detestable, and oft-condemned tax and extortion of excise in general." It is probably therefore a mistake of the printer for Mr Pymme, who was intended for chancellor of the exchequer under the earl of ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... his businesse on the further side the seas. They were honorablie enterteined, and at their departure princelie rewarded. [Sidenote: A prudent consideration of the king.] The king thus returned into England, punished the shiriffes of the land very greuously for their extortion, briberie, and rapine. After this, studieng how to assure the estate of the realme vnto his sons, vpon good consideration remembring that no liuing creature was more subiect to the vncerteintie of death than Adams heires, [Sidenote: Mans nature ambitious.] ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... which the absence of this stipulation from the treaty is very greatly regretted. "I am afraid," says one, "we shall be again left to the tender mercies of the local mandarins, and that their old habits of arrogance and deceit and extortion, will be resumed. For what are consuls? They have no power of communicating even with the provincial officers: or if this should now be conceded, they have none with the government at Pekin: and may we not fear that the Chinese will continue to force away gradually, by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... brewer, who was dazed and frightened by the meshes in which he was enveloped. Staring at the horrid specter of publicity which these men of craft kept before him, he could not vigorously protest against extortion. Beck discovered that twenty ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... effects, whether by breach of trust or otherwise, the genera are: wrongful non-investment, interception, divestment, usurpation, investment, of property; wrongful withholding of services, destruction, occupation, or detainment, embezzlement, theft, defraudment, extortion. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... his wealth as it was necessary that he make his fortune in one year. After he returned to Rome, another came who recommenced the whole process. There was, indeed, a law that prohibited every governor from accepting a gift, and a tribunal (since 149) expressly for the crime of extortion. But this tribunal was composed of nobles and Roman knights who would not condemn their compatriot, and the principal result of this system was, according to the remark of Cicero, to compel the governor to take yet more plunder from the province ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... simple, gentlemen, and it is this: Take with you a man who knows the country well, who can act as guide, and from his frequent travels there can speak two or three languages—a faithful trusty fellow who will watch over you, guard you from extortion, and be ready to fight, if needs be, or force the people he comes among to give you or sell you ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... communion with a cold and heartless world, she would not have submitted to this piece of selfish extortion; but, inexperienced, and half frightened by the woman's manner, she begged the pittance offered as a boon, dropped her thimble, and made a hasty retreat. When the poor girl reached the street, she began to reflect on what she had done. ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... our customs and laws with regard to them, the better ones, at least, would think twice before seducing young girls, to abandon them afterward with their children. I am only speaking now of true love and not of the extortion so often practiced by women of low character, or those already ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... offered to steal from a hive, Profusion of honey; Pinguinalis[38] brought butter, And with wax Cereana[39] came all in a flutter. These presents the Emperor gladly accepted, Save Galleria's theft, which with scorn was rejected, So little do moths of great minds patronise The base who by fraud or extortion would rise. In the mean time the Empress her Swifts[40] had sent out To deliver the cards for this elegant rout. Puss[41] sent an excuse, with the Kitten[42] engaged, And the Eggar,[43] poor lady, was ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... The revenues of the country come into the august treasury through the means of farmers, to whom the districts are let out, and who are personally answerable for their quota of the taxation. This practice involves an intolerable deal of tyranny and extortion on the part of those engaged to levy the taxes, and creates a corresponding duplicity among the fellahs, who are not only wretchedly poor among themselves, but whose object is to appear still more poor, and ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could be devised for promoting civilization among the friendly tribes and for carrying on trade with them upon a scale equal to their wants and under regulations calculated to protect them from imposition and extortion, its influence in cementing their interest with ours could ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... how many horses the peasant has, how many have already been hired, and how many are left in the stable. He must then inscribe his name, the hour of his departure, and the number of horses he requires. By this arrangement deception and extortion are prevented, as every thing is open, and the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... here was Warren Hastings, who long years afterwards, as governor of India, was convicted of cruelty and extortion. Cowper showed the loyalty of his nature by refusing utterly to believe in the guilt of his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... fault," Simon said. "What a change has taken place, since he was sent hither from Jerusalem to take up our government! All abuses have been repressed, extortion has been put down, taxes have been lightened. We eat our bread in peace and comfort, and each man's property is his own. Never was there such a change as he has wrought and, were it not for John of Gischala, Justus the son of Piscus, and Jesus the ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... allegation taken as confessed against him. The order and the statute which authorized it were held unconstitutional in a notable opinion by Justice Bradley, as follows: "Breaking into a house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own testimony or of his private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of crime or to forfeit his goods, is [forbidden] * * * In this regard the Fourth and Fifth Amendments run almost into each other."[29] Thus the case established ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... at Makullah) that great insecurity to navigation prevailed on both the African and Indian shores, at the entrance of the Red Sea; and one particular instance was adduced, in which the crew of a Muscat vessel, wrecked on the coast near Aden, were subjected to such inordinate extortion by Sultan Mahassan, that "the master, in anger or despair, burned his vessel. The Bombay government could only give general instructions, that in case of any outrage being offered to a vessel under British colours, redress should be peremptorily demanded. But long before these instructions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... possessed by Earl Leofric; and it has been suggested that this is enough to account for the commemoration of Godgifu. It would no doubt be an excellent reason for affixing her renowned name to a periodical ceremony already performed there. But it would hardly be a reason for commemorating her extortion of privileges in which the inhabitants of Southam did not share; and it would leave the black lady unexplained. She may, indeed, have been a mere travesty, though the hypothesis would be anything but free from difficulty. Here, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... may well escape our censure in comparison with those who not only close their purses to the poor but shamelessly and forcibly deprive and rob their needy neighbor of his own by overreaching, by fraud, oppression and extortion; who take from the Church the property rightfully hers and especially reserved for her, snatching the bread from her mouth, so to speak. Not only is the papistical rabble today guilty of such sin, but many who would be known as evangelical practice ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... scientists, the brawling of the underling officers, the silent chagrin of the endlessly patient Bering. One can easily believe that the God-speed from the Siberians was sincere; for the local governors used the orders for tribute to enrich themselves; and the country-side groaned under a heavy burden of extortion. The second winter was passed at Yakutsk, where the ships that were to chart the Arctic coast of Siberia were built and launched with crews of ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... character. Buonaparte began by signing a treaty, by which the Duke of Modena was to pay twelve millions of livres, and neutrality was promised him in return; this was soon followed by the personal arrest of the Duke, and by a fresh extortion of two hundred thousand sequins; after this he was permitted, on the payment of a further sum, to sign another treaty, called a Convention de Suerete, which of course was only the prelude to the repetition of similar exactions. Nearly at the same period, in violation of ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... regard as useless or pernicious. If I am a provincial or a peasant, I pay for maintaining an "Opera" which I never attend and for a "Sevres" and "Gobelins" of which I never see a vase or a piece of tapestry.—In times of tranquility the extortion is covered up, but in troubled times it is nakedly apparent. Under the revolutionary government, bands of collectors armed with pikes made raids on villages as in conquered countries;[2204] the farmer, collared and kept down by blows from the butt ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... any house harbor him against the dagger of the assassin, the swift blow, it might even be the lingering justice of such fanatics as sought to rule Poland. He knew that there was none. Abject assent could be the only reply. He must yield to any humiliation, suffer any extortion rather than speak the word which would be as irrevocable as the penalty ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually normal working men and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money; these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors insist on good order and allow no extortion, while the police, though of course aware of their existence, never interfere. Homosexual cafes for women are ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... information been given than the proprietor of the opposite shop rushed in, and offered him the same article for three crowns. The original merchant, not at all surprised at the intrusion, and not the least apologising for his former extortion, then demanded two. His rival, being more than his match, he courteously dropped upon his knee, and requested his customer to accept the article gratis, for his sake. The generous dealer would infallibly have carried the day, had not ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... the courts. Justice and the laws disappeared. The rope was loosened from the very neck of the robber if he had anything of value to promise the king; while the popular courts of shires and hundreds were forced to become engines of extortion, probably by the employment of the sheriffs, who were allowed to summon them, not according to the old practice, but when and where it suited their convenience. The machinery of the state and the interpretation of its laws ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... ambitions, that he had staked. And the stake was down. He could not now take it up. It might well be, for the odds were great against him, that it was to this day that all his life had led up; that life by which men would by-and-by judge him, recalling this and that, this chicane and that extortion, thanking God that he was dead, or perhaps one here and there shrugging his shoulders in ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... remote mountains. We shall find, that amongst the so-called barbarians of The Desert there was nothing equal in atrocity to this. What wonder that the Arab prefers, if he can, to pasture his flocks on savage and remote wastes to being subjected to these regular Governments—of extortion! And yet we, in our ignorance of what is here going on, are surprised at their preference. If the people are not ready with their money, the little barley, their winter's store, is seized, and they must pay afterwards their usual quotas of money. Several bags of barley are illegally ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... time I had no peace. Day after day I was called upon to resist the wanton cruelty of judges and magistrates, till at last I found myself at feud with the whole "San Luang." In cases of torture, imprisonment, extortion, I tried again and again to excuse myself from interfering, but still the mothers or sisters prevailed, and I had no choice left but to try to help them. Sometimes I sent Boy with my clients, sometimes I went myself; and in no single instance was justice granted from a sense ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... money, be bringing him into discredit, then was the plaintiff's declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what is called an 'innuendo.' The dictionaries, and men in general, understand by 'shaving,' 'extortion,' and nothing else. To call a man a 'shaver' is to say he is an 'extortioner,' without going into details. But, in Wall street, and among money-dealers, certain transactions that, in their eyes, and by the courts, are not deemed discreditable, have of late ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... would ride through the prouinces of his realme, searching out how the iudges and great lords demeaned themselues in the administration of iustice, sharpelie punishing those that were found guiltie of extortion, or had done otherwise in anie point than dutie required. In all things he vsed [Sidenote: Wil. Malm.] such politike discretion, that neither was he put in danger by treason of his subiects, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... good spirits; if, therefore, you will permit this unworthy individual to wear, while making the venture, the ring which he perceives upon your finger, and which he recognizes as a very powerful charm against evil, misunderstandings, and extortion, he will go ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... her what troubled her. I explained that I would blame her for nothing, that I only wanted to help her, to give her comfort. But she wouldn't tell me anything. She declared that nobody could help her and that, anyway, there would never be a repetition of the extortion. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... enheritance mey have, eny lyffelode to support the seid name, estate and dignite, or eny name of estate; and oft time it is sen that when eny lord is called to high estate and have not liffelode conveniently to support the same dignite, it induces gret poverty, indigens, and causes oftymes grete extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had.... Wherfore the kyng, by the advyse ... [&c.] exactith that fro hensfforth the same erection and making of Duke, and all the names of dignite guyffen to the seid George, or the seid John Nevele ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the manuscript in your own care, or, if it must needs be shown, send it to another. Though not very patient of censure, I would fain obtain fairly any little praise my rhymes might deserve, at all events not by extortion, and the humble solicitations of a bandied about MS. I am sure a little consideration will convince ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Eunice fall again into the lax hands of Essie Scofield. Stephen would advise him shrewdly, taking advantage of the law, or skilfully overcoming its obstacles. He had unbounded faith in the power of money where Essie was concerned; at the same time he had no intention of laying himself open to endless extortion, threats, almost inevitable, ultimate scandal. What a bog he had strayed into, a quagmire reaching about him in every direction. He must discover firmer ground ahead, release from the act of that other man, his youth. The memory of the serene purity of Miss Brundon's office ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... is a typical instance of the lawlessness of the times. The corruption, too, which followed on the disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny. Every Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates by illegal means; and bakshish—that bogie of the Nile Valley—cast its ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the great profanitie and severall Abuses which usually fal forth at Pennie-Brydals proving fruitful Seminaries of all lasciviousnesse and debausherie, as well by the excessive number of people conveened thereto, as by the extortion of them therein, and licentiousnesse thereat, To the great dishonour of God, the scandall of our Christian Profession, and prejudice of the Countreys welfare; Therefore they Ordain every Presbyterie in this Kingdome, To take such special ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... contributions levied from the lower German provinces, where no distinction was made between friend and foe; and the territories of all princes were subjected to the same system of marching and quartering, of extortion and outrage. If credit is to be given to an extravagant contemporary statement, Wallenstein, during his seven years command, had exacted not less than sixty thousand millions of dollars from one half of Germany. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... themselves. Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. "Who will ever be found guilty," exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, "if it be enough to deny?" "And who," replied Julian, "will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon |
