"Felony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... till I had been two days here I never so much as heard of Oliphant's death. You would not believe it. Nor, I fancy, is it much use telling you that the scoundrel owed me money, that I was shielding him from the consequences of an old felony for which he might have had penal servitude, and that the little he did pay me was stolen from your property. Of course you wouldn't believe it. It is only about your brother, who has been a slung stone ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... deal like a vulture in the face, With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave, Was by no means so ugly as his case; But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be, Quite a poetic felony ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... scolded and berated one another for the space of ten minutes or more with prodigious volubility and energy, the juniors expatiating upon the murder of the horse as an act of the most unpardonable folly, while the senior seemed to insist that the wasting of so much good liquor was a felony of equally culpable dye; and it is probable he had the better side of the argument, since he continued to grumble for a long time even after he ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... for the judicial outrage. But, when he found that the statement was a preliminary to a different and more alarming movement, and especially when he saw placed in the sheriff's hands a warrant for delivering up his client to the British, to be tried for a former felony, from the punishment of which, he feared, from what he had just heard, there would be no escape, he was sadly nonplussed, and knew not which way to turn himself. And it was not until Gaut, who, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... that the L700 never having been actually in his master's possession, could not be the subject of a felonious taking. The alarming consequences of this doctrine led to the passing of stat. 39 Geo. III. c. 85, [passed on the 12th July 1799,] which declared such an act of embezzlement to be felony, punishable with fourteen years' transportation: this was lately repealed, but re-enacted by stat. 7 and 8, Geo. IV. c. 29, Sec. 47, [passed on the 21st June, 1827,] on the occasion of consolidating that branch of the criminal law.—See 4 COLERIDGE'S ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... taking that imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of his own barons, who represented the extreme danger of such a measure,[**] and, what had a greater influence on Lewis, the justice of punishing by a legal sentence the barbarity and felony of John. Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with an intention of composing the differences between the king and his nobility: he recommended to both parties every peaceable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... minor felony, I judge, from the brevity of your incarceration," replied the Governor, emptying the coffee pot into Archie's cup. "I have never been in jail and to the best of my knowledge I have never been indicted; or if I have the sheriff has never caught up with me! My heart bleeds ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Mogul condemned one of his own nation on suspicion of felony; but as he was one of the handsomest men in India, and the proof was not very clear against him, instead of condemning him to death, he sent him in irons to me as a slave, to be disposed of as I pleased. This was looked upon as a great favour, and I accordingly returned thanks; yet added, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... thrust me into his study, and, while thrilling music swept through the echoing halls, and the solid flooring swayed under the feet of the dancers, the Beast opened his heart. Shrinking, as though 'twere felony, from the penury of early life, flying from a brief hour of married happiness, in wild triumph he plunged into the dreariness of the upward struggle. Maddened with success, spurning all thought ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... expose any inhabitant of Belfast, charged with any offence against the Irish Government, to the certainty of being tried in Dublin or in Cork. If an Irish law cannot touch the law of treason or of treason-felony, the leaders of the Irish Parliament may easily invent new offences not called by these names, and the Parliament may impose severe penalties on any one who attempts by act or by speech to bring the Irish Government into contempt. ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... toasts. But he is a very Ajax in his conclusion. He draws his sword, gallantly as an Afranius should, and in sight of all cuts his throat over the grave—and God knows it was high time for an execution, if oratory can be felony. The historian states that all the spectators admired and lauded Afranius; as for me, I was inclined to condemn him on general grounds—he had all but given a catalogue of sauces and dishes, and shed tears over the memory of departed ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... to purge himself by the Great Law was required to observe the following order: He had to make an oath in his own person that he was innocent touching the felony and breach of the King's peace, and the entire crime laid to his charge—"So help me God and these hallows!" (i.e., the Gospels on which he was sworn). After that six men had to swear that, according to their privity and knowledge, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... it was some six weeks from the time of that felony, and Osberne was on his legs again, and had gone to and fro in the wood nigh to the hermit's cell, now he began to think he must get him home to the House of Longshaw, and thence away to the Dale with a trusty guide; and the hermit would not say him nay, whereas ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... king’s pleasure lay in the men or women players” at the theatres. He wounded several of his assailants, but had his own nose cut to the bone; in consequence of which “The Coventry Act” was passed in 1671, making it felony to maim or disfigure a person, and refusing to allow the king to pardon the offenders. A later owner was Sir William Kite, Bart., who ran through a large fortune, and sold Halstead and Stixwould to Lord Anson, the distinguished navigator, and Lord High Admiral of England; some ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... similar amount. It was plainly the intention of the legislature to provide a just trial for any slave, for they even went so far as to enact that the lawyer appointed by the court for the prisoner should "defend such slave as in cases of free persons prosecuted for felony by the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... Government never allows itself to enter into any bargain where a rascal can get off. He may turn State's evidence against his pals, and in that way get lighter punishment; but there can be no such a thing as compromising a felony against ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... information—as an urchin, so many years spent in the protectory; as a youth, so many years in the reformatory; as a man, a year on Blackwell's Island for a misdemeanour and a three-year term at Sing Sing for a felony; also he dug up the entry of an indictment yet standing on which trial had never been held for lack of proof to convict; finally a long list of arrests for this and that and the other thing, unproved. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... disgust, impatience broke out, for the first time—"try to think what you're running away from! It's a long rope, and it'll take you all your time and wits to get beyond its reach. And think of the risk I'm running; I'm compounding a felony. I—Harry Jacobs!" ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... trip, faux pas[Fr], peccadillo; flaw, blot, omission; failing, failure; break, bad break |![U.S.], capital crime, delictum[Lat]. offense, trespass; misdemeanor, misfeasance, misprision; malefaction, malfeasance, malversation; crime, felony. enormity, atrocity, outrage; deadly sin, mortal sin; "deed without a name" [Macbeth]. corpus delicti. Adj. guilty, to blame, culpable, peccable[obs3], in fault, at fault, censurable, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, illaudable[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of new rope in the chuck-wagon, took off his hat and rubbed his shiny, pink pate in dismay. He was, for the moment, a culprit caught in the act of committing a grave misdemeanor if not an actual felony. He dropped the rope and went forward with dragging feet—ashamed, for the first time in his life, to ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony—bloody felony—was at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... up to having pinched it. Not here at the desk, but to Rosenthal's man who made the charge—that is, she didn't deny it. The stuff was worth $250. That's a felony, you know." ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... can the ill Christian be, That stole my pot away, My pot of basil of Salern, from me? 'Twas thriv'n with many a spray And I with mine own hand did plant the tree, Even on the festal[A] day. 'Tis felony to ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... till they were become useless, worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you, then, wonder that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... or go back to the little ones. The skyscraper will not come down from the heavens merely because a belated traveller rails that his view of the stars has been obscured. You cannot make economy a crime, progress a misdemeanour, or efficiency a felony! If so, you can ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... strange when you have a worthy object to accomplish? The information you need is of more importance than mere looks. It thoroughly amazes me to see the awe in which a genuine Parisian is held by the dread of appearing singular! One would imagine that all originality was felony, and that to catch the same key-note of voice, to move with the exact motion, and tread in the precise footprints in which every one else speaks, moves, walks, was the only evidence of honesty. What is a man's individuality worth, if it is to be trodden out ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... of Parliament were passed in England—the first interference of Parliament in this kingdom—against false prophecies, conjurations, witchcraft, sorcery, pulling down crosses; crimes made felony without benefit of clergy. Both the last article in the list and the period (a few years after the separation from the Catholic world) appear to indicate the causes in operation. Lord Hungerford had recently been beheaded by the suspicious tyranny of Henry ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... smooth forehead; "if it was only a suspicion I might keep quiet, not wanting to injure Tip, though I've got little cause to love the brute. But since I actually know something that would prove a valuable clue to the officers, I'm afraid it would be what I've heard a lawyer call 'compounding a felony' if I refused to inform on Tip. How about that, Hugh? I want to do the right thing, even if I hate to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... tell you! I say, Win, I'm not at all sure that what I've just done isn't a chargeable offense—I believe they call it a felony. You wouldn't like to see me put into prison, would you? Then hold your tongue about it! Give me your word! Can you ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... what period the Gypsies or Rommany made their first appearance in England. They had become, however, such a nuisance in the time of Henry the Eighth, Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth, that Gypsyism was denounced by various royal statutes, and, if persisted in, was to be punished as felony without benefit of clergy; it is probable, however, that they had overrun England long before the period of the earliest of these monarchs. The Gypsies penetrate into all countries, save poor ones, and it is hardly to be supposed that a few leagues of intervening salt water would have kept a race ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... thirty millions. Of these, twenty-nine millions, let us say, are never consciously tempted to commit a felony. Why? For want of opportunity? Not at all; good men, whom the police do not watch, have more opportunities for crime than those whose character causes them to be suspected. Is it because wrathful passion, the love of money, and other incentives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... priests declared void, vows of chastity are made perpetually binding, private masses and auricular confessions are sanctioned. Denial of transubstantiation was made punishable by the stake and forfeiture of goods; those who spoke against the other articles were declared guilty of felony on the second offence. This act, officially entitled "for abolishing diversity in opinions" was really the first act of uniformity. It was carried by the influence of the king and the laity against the parties represented by Cromwell ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... trials. It is confined so strictly to England that Hutchinson is able to say 'I meet with little mention of Imps in any Country but ours, where the Law makes the feeding, suckling, or rewarding of them to be Felony'.[840] It is not found north of Lancashire, and the chief records are in Essex, Suffolk, and the other ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... would be illegal; and they asserted their right to be tried by Baron Thorpe, 'a sworn judge.' The prisoners, who could not be convicted of high treason, were condemned to death as horse stealers. They vainly pleaded, that to requisition a horse for a warlike enterprise was not felony, and that 'the country knew we did not intend to steal,' but acted 'as the soldiers did now at London, and elsewhere, who came against us.'[45] About fourteen of those poor fellows were put to death, with Grove and Penruddock; ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony." Among the articles charged on the Protector Somerset is this extraordinary one:—"You commanded multiplication and alcumestry to be practised, thereby to abate the king's coin." Stowe, p. 601. What are we to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... against Bunyan had perhaps been suggested by the anticipation of the general pardon which was expected in the following spring. At the coronation of Charles, April 23, 1661, an order was issued for the release of prisoners who were in gaol for any offences short of felony. Those who were waiting their trials were to be let go at once. Those convicted and under sentence might sue out a pardon under the Great Seal at any time within a year from the proclamation. Was Bunyan ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... citizenship, which culminated in the passage of a "Jim Crow" car law, and an act to amend the Constitution so as to disfranchise the colored voters. It was noticeable, however, that although the "Jim Crow Car" law got through that body in triumph, yet the "Jim Crow Bed" law, which made it a felony for whites and colored to ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... speech I tell; And what He is if thou wouldst see— My Lamb, my Lord, my dear Jewel, My Joy, my Love, my Bliss so free,— The prophet Isaiah writeth well Of His most mild humility: 'Guiltless, when men upon Him fell For never a fault nor felony, As a sheep to the slaughter led was He; Quiet, the while the crowd contemn, As a lamb in the shearer's hands might be, He was judged by Jews ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... both dealt only in small matters, he would never have attempted a roguery of this kind, had he not imagined it altogether safe; for he was one of those who have more consideration of the gallows than of the fitness of things; but, in reality, he thought he might have committed this felony without any danger; for, besides that he doubted not but the name of Mr Allworthy would sufficiently quiet the landlord, he conceived they should be altogether safe, whatever turn affairs might take; as Jones, he imagined, would have friends enough on one side, and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... they fled. They pretended to believe that our fugitive slaves were entitled to more rights than their white citizens; perhaps they were right, they know one another better than I do. You may charge a white man with treason, or felony, or other crime, and you do not require any trial by jury before he is given up; there is nothing to determine but that he is legally charged with a crime and that he fled, and then he is to be delivered up upon demand. White ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... no estate or reversion in the land, but the seignory only, with the rent and services, by virtue of which he might again become entitled to the land by escheat, as for want of heirs of the feoffee, or by forfeiture, as for felony. If the feoffment were in tail, the land would then, as now, revert on failure of issue, unless the entail had been previously barred. The right of alienation was gradually acquired; the above statute of Quia Emptores was the most important enactment in that behalf. With this exception, and the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... and then said: "Why doth the Goldburg folk suffer all this felony, robbery and confusion, so near their borders, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... repented of. No debauchee ever read the life of Badman to gratify or increase his thirst for sin. The tricks which in those days so generally accompanied trading, are unsparingly exposed; becoming bankrupt to make money, a species of robbery, which ought to be punished as felony; double weights, too heavy for buying, and light to sell by, overcharging those who take credit, and the taking advantage of the necessities of others, with the abuse of evil gains in debauchery, and its ensuing miseries, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Slavens, "your bluff don't go. Miss Gates has not broken any law in registering and entering this land under an alias. There's no crime in assuming a name, and no felony in acquiring property under it, unless fraud is used. She has defrauded nobody, and you could not make a case against her in a ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... it was made a capital offence, felony without benefit of clergy, for soldiers or sailors to beg on the high roads without a pass; and I suppose this statute arose from their frequently robbing on the highways in the character of beggars.[11] There must at that time have been an immense number of soldiers in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... this time respecting the art of transmutation, that an act of parliament was passed in the fifth year of Henry IV, 1404, which lord Coke states as the shortest of our statutes, determining that the making of gold or silver shall be deemed felony. This law is said to have resulted from the fear at that time entertained by the houses of lords and commons, lest the executive power, finding itself by these means enabled to increase the revenue of the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... such as has never been perpetrated before. We have always known that women were in reality ranked with idiots and criminals, but it has never been said in words that the state should ... restrict or abridge the suffrage ... on account of illiteracy, minority, sex, conviction of felony, mental condition, etc.... We must fight this bill to ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... at Assizes at Salisbury in Summer 1631 fuit assault per Prisoner la condemne pur Felony; que puis son condemnation ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist. Et pur ceo immediately fuit Indictment drawn pur Noy envers le Prisoner, et son dexter manus ampute et fixe al Gibbet, sur que luy mesme immediatement hange ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... without blushin', but a business man who is in pollytics jus' to see that th' civil sarvice law gets thurly enfoorced, will give Lincoln Park an' th' public libr'y to th' beef thrust, charge an admission price to th' lake front an' make it a felony f'r annywan to buy stove polish outside iv his store, an' have it all put down to public improvemints with a pitcher iv him in th' ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... to military law who commits manslaughter, mayhem, arson, burglary, robbery, larceny, embezzlement, perjury, assault with intent to commit any felony, or assault with intent to do bodily harm, shall be punished ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... farmers and workingmen an unusual opportunity to assail the evils which they declared infested the State. The instrument which they drafted bound the state legislature with numerous restrictions and made lobbying a felony; it reorganized the courts, placed innumerable limitations upon corporations, forbade the loaning of the credit or property of the State to corporations, and placed a state commission in charge of the railroads, ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of the earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the Newgate Calendar. So, for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... providing that any person contracting or attempting to contract to supply coolie labor to another be guilty of felony. Excluding convicts, and women imported for immoral purposes, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... dastardly that Pemberton declared with much emotion he would humble them, were he governor, though it cost him his head. Being unable longer to withstand Dudley by honorable means, they tried to blast him by charging him with felony. Their letters are too long to be reproduced in full; but their purport may be guessed by the extracts given, and to this day they remain choice gems of ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... advice, or innuendo, calculated to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious disaffection among the slaves of the Territory, or to induce such slaves to escape from the service of their masters, or to resist their authority," was pronounced a felony punishable by five years' imprisonment. To deny the right of holding slaves in the Territory, by speaking, writing, printing, or circulating books, or papers, was likewise made a felony, punishable ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Forever oaths! Why should the people trust in tribunes, when kings perjure themselves? Alas! truth and honesty are no longer, as in the days of King John, in the mouth of princes. A whole senate has been convicted of felony, and, the interest of the governors always being, for some mysterious reason, opposed to the interest of the governed, parliaments follow each other while the nation dies of hunger. No, no! No more protectors, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... wise, most learned, and most generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better secured than that of a scholar! that the poorest manual operations should be more valued than the noblest products of the brain! that it should be felony to rob a cobbler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best authour of his whole subsistence! that nothing should make a man a sure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them!' See post, May 8, 1773, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of that family, formed an alliance with the Harcourts, and with them the lordship remained till the middle of the fourteenth century, when the domains of Geoffroy d'Harcourt were confiscated for felony, and the castle would have passed into the hands of a new master, had not the successes of our sovereign, Edward III. interfered, and stopped the effects of ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... with your consent and connivance, slipped it into the escritoire; and you afterwards showed Mr. Tillington the place where you had set it or seen it set, leading him to believe it was Mr. Ashurst's will, and so involved him in all this trouble. Note that that was a felonious act. We accuse you of felony. Do you mean to confess, and give evidence on our behalf, or will you force me to send for a policeman to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... legal instrument that deprives a poor man of his mattress that a rich one may lounge on his ottoman. Ca. Sa. is a similar benevolent contrivance for punishing misfortune as felony. ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... citizens of said State twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion, or for felony at common law; and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates; and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... House of Commons by a group of Nonconformists mainly on the Liberal side. This Bill was very largely on the lines of the Dutch law already mentioned; it proposed to raise the age of consent to nineteen; making intercourse with a girl under that age felony, punishable by five years' penal servitude, and any attempt at such intercourse by two years' imprisonment. Such a measure would be, it may be noted, peculiarly illogical and inconsistent in England and Scotland, in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... was no object to me. I abandoned that to my comrades, and only asked the post of danger. I remember well that when I stood with my drawn sword guarding the door while they committed the felony, I had not a thought of my own safety. I was only meditating on my sense of supposed wrong from my family, my impotent thirst of vengeance, and how it would sound in the haughty cars of the family of Willingham, that one of their descendants, and the heir apparent ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he. "'Twas mighty near the compounding of a felony, a shocking lapse in a Justice-General. To tell the truth, I was only too glad, in MacTaggart's interest, while he was ill, to postpone disclosures so unpleasant as are now the talk of the country; and like you, I find him infinitely worse in these ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... it would have to be some high-grade felony, he being proof against common depredations. Well, then, along come this Sunday paper, with two whole pages telling about how the meat of the common whale will win the war, with a picture of a whale having dotted lines showing how to butcher it, and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... perpethrating that same for nine months. But I'm a just man,' sez I, 'an' over-lookin' the presumpshin that yondher settee wid the gilt top was not come by honust'—at that he turned sky-green, so I knew things was more thrue than tellable—'not come by honust. I'm willin' to compound the felony for this ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the multitude, they put him vnto extreame torture to make him confesse the trueth. They punish murther with death, and carnall copulation also with any other besides his owne. By his own, I meane his wife or his maid seruant, for he may vse his slaue as he listeth himself. Heinous theft also or felony they punish with death. For a light theft, as namely for stealing of a ram, the party (not being apprehended in the deed doing, but otherwise detected) is cruelly beaten. And if the executioner laies on an 100. strokes, he must haue an 100. staues, namely for such as are beaten vpon sentence ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... Tribunal da Justica (consists of nine justices appointed by the president and serve at his pleasure; final court of appeals in criminal and civil cases); Regional Courts (one in each of nine regions; first court of appeals for Sectoral Court decisions; hear all felony cases and civil cases valued at over $1,000); 24 Sectoral Courts (judges are not necessarily trained lawyers; they hear civil cases under $1,000 and ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Mathew Hale on the subject. Speaking of larceny, the learned author says: "As it is cepit and asportavit, so it must be felonice, or animo furandi, otherwise it is not felony, for it is the mind that makes the taking of another's goods to be a felony, or a bare trespass only; but because the intention and mind are secret, the intention must be judged of by the circumstances of the fact, and these circumstances are various, and may sometimes deceive, yet regularly ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... for it.[Footnote: Counsel were not allowed in France for that important part of the proceedings which was carried on in secret. Voltaire, xlviii. 132. In England, at that time, counsel were not allowed of right to prisoners in cases of felony; but judges were in the habit of straining the law to admit them. Strictly they could only instruct the prisoner in matters of law. Blackstone iv. fol. 355 (ch. 27). The English seem for a long time to have entertained a wholesome ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... men! rouse ye to stand for the right, To action and duty; into the light Come with your banners, inscribed, "Death to rum!" Let your conscience speak. Listen, then, come; Strike killing blows; hew to the line; Make it a felony even to sign A petition to license, you would do it, I ween, If that were your son, and he ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... astonishment in the royal presence, and he had intimated that his majesty had a memory; a property of the mind which, as it might prove dangerous to the liberties of Leaphigh, were it left in the keeping of any but a responsible minister, it had long been decided it was felony to impute to the king. By the fundamental law of the land, the king's eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender, may have as many memories as he please, and he may use them, or abuse them, as he shall see fit, either in private or in the public service; but it is held to be utterly unconstitutional ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the collection several interesting relics of humorous felony; such as the snuff-box of the Cock-lane ghost—the stone thrown by Collins at William the Fourth's head—a copy of Sir Francis Burden's speech, for which he was committed to the Tower—an odd black silk glove, worn by Mr. Cotton, the late ordinary of Newgate—Barrington's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... said Dunstan. "The worst that can happen to the deputy is to lose his job, the dummy entryman can abandon his filing at any time he may elect, and there is no law making it a felony to accept money in exchange for information—if you do not state where you acquired it. How are you going to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... heard of a sheep-stealer who had rendered his dog so skilful an accomplice in his nefarious traffic, that he used to send him out to commit acts of felony by himself, and had even contrived to impress on the poor cur the caution that he should not, on such occasions, seem even to recognise his master, if they met accidentally.[II-9] Apparently, Lord ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Ismael was indicted[240] by twelve men Of felony, burglary, and murder, As the indictment declareth how, where, and when, Ye heard it read to you lately in order: You, with the rest, I trust all true men, Be charged upon your oaths to give verdit directly, Whether Ismael thereof ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... station, feared themselves victims of a servile insurrection. The cause of the uprising was at once sought for, and a hundred writers laid the blame at the door of the Boston Liberator. Garrison was indicted for felony in North Carolina. The legislature of Georgia offered a reward for $5,000 to any one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the state. With one voice the entire South cried out that the Liberator must ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of advertisements, but one after another the replies were unfavourable, until his whole heart died within him. No intelligence could be obtained of his father's hiding-place, and before a year had elapsed since Sir Rollo's bankruptcy and felony had been made known, Lady Bruce died at her son's lodgings, worn out with ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... improper purposes. It provides that 'Whosoever shall UNLAWFULLY, either by force or fraud, lead or take away, or decoy, or entice away, or detain any child, &c., with intent to deprive ANY parent, &c., of the possession of such child'—shall be guilty of felony. It is perfectly clear, that in the case before me, the infant was not, 'by force or fraud, led or taken away, or decoyed, or enticed away.' The statute, however, uses the word 'detain;' and this, it appears to me, has much the same force and intention as the previous words. It is to be noted, ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... question of constitutional policy, that is, whether the decision of the question of libel ought to be left to the judges as a presumption of law, rather than to the jury as matter of popular judgment, as the malice in the case of murder, the felony in the case of stealing. If the intent and tendency are not matters within the province of popular judgment, but legal and technical conclusions, formed upon general principles of law, let us see what they are. Certainly they are most unfavourable, indeed, totally adverse, to the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... to gentle felony, shall I not shower blessings on the head of him who has been robbing ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... French militaires were particularly vehement in their language, and Lord Palmerston so far bowed to the demands of the French Foreign Minister as to introduce a Bill to make the offence of conspiracy to murder, a felony instead of, as it had previously been, a misdemeanour. The Conservative Party supported the introduction of the Bill, but, on the second reading, joined with eighty-four Liberals and four Peelites in supporting ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... of remedies for these evils: Reduce the members of Congress at least one-half; pay them $2 a day and board; petition the legislature to pardon every convict, and make the punishment for any felony working on the roads or some other place where the culprit can be taught wisdom and virtue, murder alone to be cause for confinement or death; petition for the abolition of slavery by the year 1850, the slaves to be paid for out of the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... treacherous Sir John had recovered, and in due course had become sheriff, and indicted his brother for felony. As Gamelyn did not appear to answer the indictment he was proclaimed an outlaw and wolf's-head, and a price was set upon his life. Now his bondmen and vassals were grieved at this, for they feared the cruelty of the wicked sheriff; ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... merely alters the criminal procedure may with perfect propriety be made applicable to past as well as to future offences. It would have been the grossest injustice to give a retrospective operation to the law which made slavetrading felony. But there was not the smallest injustice in enacting that the Central Criminal Court should try felonies committed long before that Court was in being. In Torrington's case the substantive law continued to be what it had always been. The definition of the crime, the amount of the penalty, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... heard say that a man mustn't thrash his wife with anything thicker than his own thumb. That's as may be—and I do recollect when the first lieutenant wanted to cut off the men's hair that the purser told him that it was felony, under the Act of cutting and maiming. I don't know whether the first lieutenant would have made a felony or not; but this I'm sartain of—he'd have made a mutiny. You desarve no mercy, and you shall have none. This ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... know. Oh! never look so haughtily insulted, Mrs. Walraven. I almost doubt myself. It's my first felony, and it is natural a fellow should quake a little. But Mollie is worth the risk—worth ten thousand risks. If it were to do over again, I would do it. By Heaven, Blanche! you should have seen her as she stood there brandishing that dagger aloft and defying ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... States the offence of bribery is very severely dealt with. In many states, bribery or the attempt to bribe is made a felony, and is punishable with varying terms of imprisonment, in some jurisdictions it may be with a period not exceeding ten years. The offence of bribery at elections is dealt with on much the same lines as in England, voiding the election ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... cheats: I am far from it, and have given sufficient testimony of the contrary; having, I assure you, been the only person who actually formed, drew up, and first proposed that very cause to the House of Commons, which made it felony to the bankrupt to give in a false account. It cannot, therefore, be suggested, without manifest injustice, that I would with one breath prompt creditors to be easy to rogues, and to cheating fraudulent bankrupts, and with another make a ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... shall not allow you to set up France as immaculate on this point, neither—" said John Effingham, looking at the last speaker with an affected frown—"A young lady may have a tongue, and she may even speak to a young gentleman, and not be guilty of felony; although I will admit that five tongues are unnecessary, and that five listeners are more than sufficient, for the wisdom ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... illegal as well as unjust, in that it was contrary to the privilege of Parliament. The law provides that "no Member of Parliament can be imprisoned either for non-payment of a fine to the King, or for any other cause than treason, felony, or refusing to give security for the peace." It may be questioned whether, in the presence of this law, his first imprisonment, even under the sentence of the Court of King's Bench, was legal. But having been imprisoned, and having been expelled ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... felony which may be subject to reversal does not constitute ground for divorce, but such conviction ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... cattle was defined and enforced. Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined four bushels of malt for absenting himself from the meeting. Thomas Gray, for "divers things objected against him," was ordered "to remove himself out of the limits of this patent before the end of March next." "For the felony committed by him, whereof he was convicted by his own confession," John Gouldburn, as principal, and three other persons, as accessories, were sentenced "to be whipped, and afterward set in the stocks." Servants, "either man or maid," were forbidden to "give, sell, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... would remain so until some new philosopher's stone was found to convert gold back into iron—a much more difficult feat, it was thought. However, to be on the safe side, the English Parliament, in 1404, saw fit to pass an act declaring the making of gold and silver to be a felony. Nevertheless, in 1455, King Henry VI. granted permission to several "knights, citizens of London, chemists, and monks" to find the philosopher's stone, or elixir, that the crown might thus be enabled to pay off its debts. The monks and ecclesiastics ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is brave, and vows reformation; there shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; and the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops. I will make it felony to drink small beer: all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,that they may agree like brothers; and they shall all worship me as their lord. ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... Person guilty of, or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any state, shall flee from Justice, and be found in any of the united states, he shall upon demand of the Governor or executive power, of the state from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the state having ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... injunctions of feudal honor in relation to the political institutions of those times. The treachery of a vassal was branded with extraordinary severity by public opinion, and a name of peculiar infamy was invented for the offence which was called "felony." ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... sayest thou, Mary Blandy, art thou guilty of the felony and murder whereof thou standest indicted, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... common Nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, Would I not have; but Nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, To feed my ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Republic, and in his more enthusiastic moments had declared that if he could have his way about it, any man so hopelessly dead to the nobler impulses of the human heart as to confess himself a partisan should be declared guilty of a felony and confined for a proper period of years at hard labor. What the country called for, according to Colonel Sneekins, was Reform. The first step in bringing about the triumph of Reform was to put all the offices ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... me frankly the truth. If you are right, and she is not the murderer, the truth can't harm her. And if she is the guilty person, you are compounding a felony, in the eyes of the law, to ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... made salutation and answered, "Truly, most paradisiacal lady, these gentlemen make grave allegations that you did insidiously incite them to the commission of a felony." ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 1826. The second statute removed doctrines which had hitherto been useless lumber in the statute-book, or laid down general rules applicable to the whole criminal code. It abolished in toto the benefit of clergy in cases of felony; appointed certain punishment for offences to which no special statute affixed any particular penalty; relieved discharged prisoners from severe official expenses; and purified the law from a load of obscure and unnecessary verbiage. The third act contained the law of offences against ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... born in Johnston county about the year 1754, and was the vilest and bloodiest wretch ever seen in our limits, most richly deserving the punishment of the gallows. He continued his criminal courses as long as he lived, and was pardoned for a capital felony committed on the Island of Cape Breton not long before his ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... This strikes directly at the criminal class. It puts that class beyond the power of continuing its depredations upon society. It is truly deterrent, because it is a notification to any one intending to enter upon that method of living that his career ends with his first felony. As to the general effects of the indeterminate sentence, I will repeat here what I recently wrote for the Yale ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... think the judge was, on the whole, a better shot than any of his sons. In the year 1883 the household was increased, a good deal to my father's annoyance, by two policemen. At the Liverpool summer Assizes he had tried a gang of dynamiters, I think for treason-felony. They, or most of them, were convicted and sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. Some of my father's friends, not understanding that if anybody wanted to murder him it was quite as likely to be done, and quite as easy to do, in England as in Ireland, and perhaps entertaining the fantastic ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Mallalieu, masterful and insistent as ever. "You have the power! D'ye think I've been a justice of the peace for twelve years without knowing what law is? You've the power to admit to bail in all charges of felony, at ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... was in line with its other liberal legislation and with legislation in other Western States. This divorce statute included, and still includes, seven causes of action: impotency, adultery, desertion for one year, conviction of a felony, gross drunkenness, cruelty and failure of the husband for a period of one year to provide ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... task upon which he had been engaged for some years, the amalgamation of the conflicting and overlapping diamond interests under the name of the De Beers Consolidated Mines. It was soon found that the new industry was insufficiently protected by the existing criminal law and a new felony was created by the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... the mother-in-law couldn't prove what she says about her daughter's husband, which very few mother-in-laws can, Mawruss," Abe said, "the Crown Princess would be able to get her devorce upon the grounds that her husband was convicted of a felony, y'understand, which he will be, Mawruss, just so soon as the Peace Conference has finished drawing ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... touch of satire on his times. When 'High Life Below Stairs' was first acted, Selwyn vowed he would go and see it, for he was sick of low life above stairs; and when a waiter at his Club had been convicted of felony, 'What a horrid idea,' said he, 'the man will give of us ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... made him pay the debt. He paid it in a curious way—by going to his tailor and buying a hundred dollars' worth of clothes for Cub and having them charged. It was compounding a felony, but my client was satisfied and Roger was grateful. He began to have some regard for me. Not every lawyer had been able to make him pay. Within a day or so he came to consult me about ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... dreaming. And, oh! the Sundays! the dreary, bestial days, with Sunday-school at half-past nine and chapel at eleven, and Sunday-school at half-past two and chapel at half-past six and family prayers at nine, and bed at half-past nine, and books forbidden, and speech a crime, and whistling a felony. Paul had broken loose, and knew not what to look for, and cared little for the hour. For his head was full of verses, and his heart was full of the summer day, and for the first time in his life he had gone to Nature, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... make Witchcraft Felony without the benefit of Clergy. Witches are burned in England. You have read— For you read all things, not a book escapes you— The famous Demonology ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... construction of an act of parliament. Of the same nature and use is the comparison of a law with other laws, that are made by the same legislator, that have some affinity with the subject, or that expressly relate to the same point. Thus, when the law of England declares murder to be felony without benefit of clergy, we must resort to the same law of England to learn what the benefit of clergy is: and, when the common law censures simoniacal contracts, it affords great light to the subject to consider what the canon law ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... dure: "punishment severe and merciless"; a penalty formerly imposed by Enlish law upon persons who refused to plead on being arraigned for felony. It consisted in laying the accused on his back on a bare floor and placing a great iron weight on his chest until he consented to plead or died. There is one instance of the infliction of this punishment in American colonial history: Giles Cory, accused of witchcraft, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Liberator in that county. It was even confidently expected that a requisition would be made by the Executive of the State upon the Governor of Massachusetts for their arrest, when they would be tried under a law, which made their action felony. "Whipping and imprisonment for the first offence, and death, without benefit of clergy, for the second." Governor Floyd said in his message to the Virginia Legislature in December that there was good cause to suspect that the plans of the Southampton massacre were "designed and matured ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... shall be no monopolies, except for new inventions profitable to the country, and for a short time; no imprisonment without bail except for crimes capital and contempts in open court; freedom of alienation and power to devise; no primogeniture, no escheats on attainder and execution for felony; succor to those fleeing from tyranny; full freedom to advise, vote, give verdict or sentence according to true judgment and conscience; in short, the expression or the indication of those safeguards to liberty, the possession of which enables a people ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... suggested, loyal persons duly qualified under the law existing before secession but "the male citizens of said state, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, ... except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law." This was the death knell to the idea that the leaders of the Confederacy and their white supporters might be permitted to share in the establishment of the new order. Power was thus arbitrarily thrust into the hands of the newly ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... masters, and the merchants together in the guilds and the cities were violently destroyed. The self-government and the self-jurisdiction of both, the guild and the city were abolished; the oath of allegiance between guild-brothers became an act of felony towards the State; the properties of the guilds were confiscated in the same way as the lands of the village communities; and the inner and technical organization of each trade was taken in hand by the State. Laws, gradually growing in severity, were passed to prevent artisans from ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... the long standing of the Darwin family and its vicissitudes; he even took down some fat yellow books, and showed the old man how many curious laws had been made from time to time for the special protection of pigeons in Dovecots, very ancient statutes making the killing of a house-dove felony. Then 1 James I. c. 29 awarded three months' imprisonment "without bail or main price" to any person who should "shoot at, kill, or destroy with any gun, crossbow, stone-bow, or longbow, any house-dove or pigeon;" but allowed an alternative ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... grandfather, one for two, the other for five thousand, dollars. He has robbed him of seven thousand dollars, and we have Herresford's permission to prosecute. He signed no such checks, and he desires us to take action. He refuses to make good our loss. We cannot compound a felony." ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... part in the Chester raid. Now, Michael himself told me afterwards that Corydon had never seen him before he "identified" him in prison; and that though he really was at Chester, Corydon could not have known this. Michael Davitt and John Wilson were convicted of treason-felony. As showing the man's noble character, it should not be forgotten that the Irishman made an earnest appeal for the Englishman, declaring that Wilson knew nothing of the object for which the weapons were wanted, and asking that ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... of the second section of fourth article of the Constitution shall be so construed that no State shall have the power to consider and determine what is treason, felony, or crime, in another State; but that a person charged in any State with treason, felony, or crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... death, because of her own warm-hearted affection. But you, citizens of France, who, above all, are noble, true, and chivalrous, you will not allow the sweet impulses of young and tender womanhood to be punished with the ban of felony. To you, women of France, I appeal in the name of your childhood, your girlhood, your motherhood; take her to your hearts, she is worthy of it, worthier now for having blushed before you, worthier than any heroine in the great roll of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have, of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers. Although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... "Conspiracy is felony, Mr Armstrong—and that their priest had been let loose. It was soon evident that no work was to be done that day. They assembled about the roads in groups; at the chapel-door; at Priest Flannery's house; at the teetotal reading-room as they call it, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the said banner with all reverence—he himself and his principal barons waiting the whilst with heads uncovered, and without their robes of honour. And that, moreover, he pitch beside it, on the one hand, his own Banner of Austria reversed, as that which hath been dishonoured by theft and felony, and on the other, a lance, bearing the bloody head of him who was his nearest counsellor, or assistant, in this base injury. And say, that such our behests being punctually discharged we will, for the sake of our ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott |
