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Highway robbery   /hˈaɪwˌeɪ rˈɑbəri/   Listen
Highway robbery

noun
1.
An exorbitant price.
2.
Robbery of travellers on or near a public road.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Highway robbery" Quotes from Famous Books



... ye what it is!" exclaimed the farmer, coming close to the car. "This ain't no better than highway robbery. I never expected ter have ye take the carcass away, when I told ye sich a ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... down the walls of the Bannu forts; John Nicholson has since reduced the people to such a state of good order and respect for the laws, that in the last year of his charge not only was there no murder, burglary, or highway robbery, but not an attempt at any ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... revealed to the thieves by the light of his wife’s dip, until day began to break, when, to avoid being recognised, they went off, having to content themselves with what spoil the second man could find in the room below. On another occasion, a narrow escape from highway robbery occurred in Woodhall under the following circumstances. It was at the time of the great August Fair at Horncastle, much larger at that time (in the forties) than it is at the present day; for it then lasted some three weeks. That fair has been the occasion of many robberies, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... most interesting case of a local character of capital punishment for highway robbery with violence and sheep-stealing combined, was one which occurred to a Royston gentleman, for which it is necessary to travel a dozen years beyond ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... general principles," admitted Cabot, "but circumstances alter cases. I consider the highway robbery that two of the most powerful nations of the world are attempting right here a circumstance strong enough to alter any case. So I would advise you to accept the only offer now remaining open. You will at least get ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... Peter, fetching the tea chest a belt. "One thirty-four do I hear? Make it one thirty-three fifty. Fifty cents do I hear? Come, come! this is highway robbery, gentlemen. Mr. Small—where ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... energies of such a nature as his, and he continued, possibly from habit, the tortuous courses which he had pursued for profit of Mr. Bentley. After a few tentative and resultless undertakings in the way of highway robbery—if one may venture to designate road-agency by so harsh a name—he made one or two modest essays in horse-herding, and it was in the midst of a promising enterprise of this character, and just as he had taken the tide in his affairs at its flood, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... others. This is regarded as a very grave offence. Analogous to our crime of piracy is the forcible arrest of ships at sea and the transfer to them of valuables. Sometimes the Kosekin pirates give themselves up as slaves. Kidnapping, assault, highway robbery, and crimes of violence have their parallel here in cases where a strong man, meeting a weaker, forces himself upon him as his slave or compels him to take his purse. If the weaker refuse, the assailant threatens to kill himself, which act would lay the other under obligations to receive punishment ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... "And highway robbery appeals to me—rather. It's more picturesque, and you wouldn't have to break into houses. I think I'd rather work in ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... examples have occurred recently which show that the judges of the superior courts are alive to their duty and that they can perform it when the occasion arises. A man named John H. Wood, a former soldier, was convicted of highway robbery, and he was speedily sentenced to imprisonment for life in Folsom Penitentiary. Judge Cook who passed sentence on him took the position that a man who used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime should receive the full penalty of the law. ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... philosophy, the ideal, in short, have often an even greater empire over the Germans than nature and the passions." In proof of this, she adduces the number of young Germans who committed suicide in consequence of reading "Werther"; or took to highway robbery ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... Domenico Avanzi. Simonetti was a man of thirty, whose life, short as it was, seemed to have been one long career of crime. He had enlisted at an early age in the Pontifical dragoons, and served for seven years; on leaving the army, he became a porter, and within a few months was guilty of a highway robbery, and sentenced to the galleys for life, then to five years' hard labour for theft, and again to seven years at the galleys for an attempt to escape, though how the last punishment could be super-added to the first, is a fact ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... Forest, the famous outlaw and his merry men, clad all in green, were the popular heroes. On Robin Hood's day the whole population turned gaily out to celebrate his festival, never weary of singing or hearing the ballads which commemorated his exploits. Robin was a robber, but in times of disorder highway robbery has always been an honorable occupation, and the outlaws of Sherwood Forest were reputed to give to the poor what they took from the rich. Diligent enquiries have been made to ascertain whether the personage ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... education. At 14 he waited on a gentleman, then was a tapster's boy at the Red Lion, at Brentford; got into service again, was butler to Sir Dennis Daltry; took to gambling; was suspected of being a confederate in robbing his master's house of plate; was dismissed. At the age of 24 took to highway robbery; stopped a coach on Hounslow Heath, and eased the passengers of about L11; with others committed several robberies on Bagshot and Hounslow Heaths; was arrested for attempting to rescue Captain Lennard, one of his ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... a March assize," replied the impatient counsel as he bustled onward. "There's Cartwright's case—highway robbery—in which I am for the prosecution. He'll swing for it, and ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... Betty, with a shocked look—"but you misunderstand. He spoke of such things as burglary and highway robbery, and you could never have helped him ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... rose early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-weary, even from success; grudged himself all pleasure, if his nature was capable of taking any, which I sometimes wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or corner in aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway robbery, treasures of conscientiousness ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... one of the branch post-offices in Bermondsey. Dr Lee disappeared from the neighbourhood the instant the state of his leg enabled him to do so, and I have never seen him since. John Wyatt, alias Black Jack, was transported for life, under the alias of John Martin, for a highway robbery near Fareham, in the year 1827. Lately I saw him on board the convict hulk ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... his prisoners from one to seventeen, according to the cell each happened to be in, and he wrote a crime opposite each number. The first was highway robbery, the next forgery, and after that followed treason, smuggling, barn-burning, bribery, poaching, usury, piracy, witchcraft, assault and battery, using false weights and measures, burglary, counterfeiting, robbing hen-roosts, conspiracy, and ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton

... said the lieutenant, referring to the document, and checking off the captives as they were identified; "horse-stealing, highway robbery, drunkenness, assault—yes, I have resolved what to do. As these offences seem comparatively light, and as our prison is for the present inefficient, I shall order all these men to be punished ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... calculated to excel. The most important, and that which required the greatest share of cunning and address, was undoubtedly that of the chalan or jockey, who frequented the fairs with the beasts which he had obtained by various means, but generally by theft. Highway robbery, though occasionally committed by all jointly or severally, was probably the peculiar department of the boldest spirits of the gang; whilst wielding the hammer and tongs was abandoned to those who, though possessed of athletic forms, were perhaps, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... has to be proved," argued Loring. "Your only way to get possession of them is through the courts. Your present action has no better legal status than highway robbery." ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... enough over this fool thing," he declared. "Now that I know what the game is we'll talk to the point. It's highway robbery, but I might have expected to be robbed. I'll give you six hundred ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... father, dear," she said more gently, "but somehow I cannot believe that this was just ordinary highway robbery. This road is supposed to be quite safe: travellers are not warned against armed highwaymen, and marauders wouldn't be so well horsed and clothed. My belief is that it was a paid gang stationed at the broken bridge on purpose to rob us ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... don't remember you," he said. "But I'll remember you next time. Are you standing guard now, or just doing a little highway robbery on your ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... Trick.—The following anecdote serves to exemplify how necessary it is upon any important occasion to scrutinise the accuracy of a statement before it is taken upon trust. A fellow was tried at the Old Bailey for highway robbery, and the prosecutor swore positively that he had seen his face distinctly, for it was a bright moonlight night. The counsel for the prisoner cross-questioned the man so as to make him repeat that assertion, and insist upon it. He then affirmed ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... could go off on leave or lounge idly about the barracks, so long as they paid the centurion his fee, nor was there any one to control either the amount of this impost or the means by which the soldiers raised the money: highway robbery or menial service was the usual resort whereby they purchased leisure. Then, again, a soldier who had money was savagely burdened with work until he should buy exemption. Thus he soon became impoverished and ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... lightness of the penalty of transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it is more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by that alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer capital, than what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost those great privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital cases, for the protection of innocence against unfounded accusation. They have lost the right of being previously furnished with a copy of the indictment, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... are admitted from the policy of justice, otherwise confederacies of crime could not be dissolved. There is no rule more solid than that a man shall not entitle himself to profit by his own testimony. But an informer, in case of highway robbery, may obtain forty pounds to his own profit by his own evidence: this is not in consequence of positive provision in the act of Parliament; it is a provision of policy, lest the purpose of the act should ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... pretext of his disloyalty, put to death Selim, pasha of Delvinon. Ali was now confirmed in the possession of all his father's territory and was also appointed lieutenant to the derwend-pasha of Rumelia, whose duty it was to suppress brigandage and highway robbery. This gave him an opportunity for amassing wealth by sharing the booty of the robbers in return for leaving them alone. The disgrace that fell in consequence on his superior, Ali escaped by the use ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a lawn somewhat quicker than seed. The best are cut from the road-side, but it is a hateful despoiling of one of the fairest of travellers' joys. Those who commit this highway robbery should reckon themselves in honor bound to sow the bare places they leave behind. Some people cut the pieces eighteen inches square, some about a yard long and twelve inches wide. Cut thin, roll up like thin bread and butter. When they ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the king of the Gibichungs. He tears the ring from her finger, and, claiming her as his wife, drives her into the cave without pity for her agony of horror, and sets Nothung between them in token of his loyalty to the friend he is impersonating. No explanation of this highway robbery of the ring is offered. Clearly, this Siegfried is not the Siegfried of the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... that I chose a very inappropriate place for my purpose. 'The Old Homestead' there is furnished with a telephone, a livery-stable, and all the modern protections against highway robbery. Besides, there is a cold chicken and a bottle of choice claret in the basket with which to supplement the larder of our host of the inn. We will take luncheon while my chauffeur is placing us ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... L2,500 a year near Dublin, which his family had owned for four hundred years, and whose daughters were given the munificent gratuity of L10 a-piece by the Council Board, and forbidden for the future to ask for any further assistance, might certainly plead extenuating circumstances[503] if he took to highway robbery. Such circumstances as these were common at this period; and it should be borne in mind that the man whose holding was worth but L40 a-year felt the injustice, and resented the inhumanity of his expulsion, quite as much as the nobleman with L4,000. So the Tories plundered their own ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... of surprise to other nations, and of congratulation to ourselves, that at the present such crimes against persons and property as burglary, pocket-picking and highway robbery are much rarer in proportion than in any other cosmopolitan city in ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... for crime, or from an instinctive desire to return to primitive simplicity, foreswore life in the towns "under the bell," and made their homes in the mountains or other remote places. Gathered in small bands with such arms as they could secure, they sustained themselves by highway robbery and the levying of black-mail from ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... of New York City had no trace of his whereabouts; but Mr. Michael Chalmette, an officer detailed by the U.S. Marshal in New Orleans to arrest Leon Sangrado, at the request of the Republic of Chili, on the charge of repeatedly committing murder and highway robbery in that country, was entirely sure that the missing person was sitting beside him, handcuffed to his left wrist, and that both were speeding toward New Orleans as fast as a railway-car ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... Raiders were various, ranging all the way from sneak thievery to highway robbery. All the arts learned in the prisons and purlieus of New York were put into exercise. Decoys, "bunko-steerers" at home, would be on the look-out for promising subjects as each crowd of fresh prisoners entered ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... rhetorical style). It's plain enough. You wanted some letters that belonged to me. You have spent the morning in stealing them—yes, stealing them, by highway robbery. And you have spent the afternoon in putting me in the wrong about them—in assuming that it was I who wanted to steal YOUR letters—in explaining that it all came about through my meanness and selfishness, and your goodness, your devotion, your ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... as we walked briskly across the silent square, "covers a multitude of sins, ranging from highway robbery with violence and paid assassination (technically known as 'bashing') down to the criminal folly of the philanthropic magistrate, who seems to think that his function in the economy of nature is to secure ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... he was going to act, whereupon the "gentleman of the road" returned him half-a-crown, and bade him a polite "Good-evening." Some time after this, news was brought into Covent Garden, at rehearsal one morning, that a man arrested for highway robbery was at the Bow Street Police Office, immediately opposite the theatre. Several of the corps dramatique ran across the street to that famous vestibule of the Temple of Themis; among others, Mr. Moody and Vincent de Camp. The latter immediately ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... simple, and when you have made your necessary debts, and creditors talk of imprisoning you, why, then, you need only appeal to the Venetian Ambassador for protection, and you are perfectly safe! But here! On the word of a gentleman, it is enough to drive a man to highway robbery!' ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... their natured natures, of dissimilar similarity. As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the planet in consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public money, betrayal of public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... the case that is building up against you, Powlett, and just as soon as you are able to sit or stand the court will meet for your trial. You have assault with intent to kill, at Bluff Siding if not at Urbana, highway robbery, theft, desertion, conspiracy, and kindred crimes to answer for; would it not be infinitely better that you should confess fully and at once? Even the men whom you have so bitterly wronged join in no clamor against—they would ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... here? Something, to be sure. The establishment of world credit systems is built on splendid and realizable faith in fellow-men. But it is, after all, so low and elementary a step that sometimes it looks merely like honor among thieves, for the revelations of highway robbery and low cheating in the business world and in all its great modern centers have raised in the hearts of all true men in our day an exceeding great cry for revolution in our basic methods and conceptions of industry ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... Grosvenor's, because he thought London might extend that way. Those five fields are now covered with the palatial streets of Belgravia,—but were then a dismal marshy flat intersected by black ditches, and notorious for highway robbery, as a district dimly lit with an oil lamp here and there, and protected by nothing but the useless old watchman in his box: it is the tract of land between Grosvenor Place and Sloane Street. His lordship had a reputation ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... much, I, too, went to board with the widow and learned every detail of Wiley's stay. One of Hillery's oldest friends had a son who had gone to the bad and was serving a term for highway robbery in a prison near Phoenix. I found that Wiley had taken a great interest in the lad and paid him more than one visit, promising to use his influence to have him pardoned. I went to Phoenix, talked with this prisoner and a few others, and incidentally ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... charges mostly: pilfering, fraud, theft, occasionally arson or manslaughter. One man, however, was arraigned for murder with highway robbery, and a woman for the most ignoble traffic, which evil feminine ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... illusion" to believe that war ever pays, because it is expensive. This is precisely like arguing that we should disband the police and devote our sole attention to persuading criminals that it is "an illusion" to suppose that burglary, highway robbery and white slavery are profitable. It is almost useless to attempt to argue with these well-intentioned persons, because they are suffering under an obsession and are not open to reason. They go wrong at the outset, for they ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... been preferred against General Morgan and his soldiers. So persistently have these accusations been made, that at one time an avowal of "belonging to Morgan" was thought, even in Kentucky, tantamount to a confession of murder and highway robbery. To this day, doubtless, the same impression prevails in the North, and yet, when it is considered how it was produced, it is surprising that it should or could last ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... hear crazier rubbish?" he asked, with contempt. "Highway robbery, I call it, to send us such stuff for ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... "I couldn't think of that, Mr. Hardwick—I couldn't think of doing it. It is nothing short of highway robbery!" ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... highway robbery," he finally calmed down enough to say. "I am an official of the Zone, and you shall ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... His behaviour was remarkably collected and composed. The prisoner listened with the greatest attention to the indictment, which the reader will find in another part of our paper, charging him with the highway robbery of Lord Mauleverer, on the night of the of last. He occasionally inclined his body forward, and turned his ear towards the court; and he was observed, as the jury were sworn, to look steadily in the face of each. He breathed thick and hard when the various aliases he had assumed—Howard, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... sure of that, my daughter. I don't entirely like the tone of some of these remarks. They lack vim, they lack venom. Here is one calls it a 'questionable measure.' Bah, there is no strength in that. This one is better; it calls it 'highway robbery.' That sounds something like. But now this one seems satisfied to call it an 'iniquitous scheme'. 'Iniquitous' does not exasperate anybody; it is weak—puerile. The ignorant will imagine it to be intended for a compliment. But this other one—the one I read last—has the true ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... a young man, was very dissipated, and belonged to a club, most of whose members took an infamous course of life. When his lordship was engaged at the Old Baily a man was convicted of highway robbery, whom the judge remembered to have been one of his early companions. Moved by curiosity, Holt, thinking the man did not recognise him, asked what had become of his old associates. The culprit making a low bow, and giving a deep ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... concise legend before you, all you need to do, my dear Marcel, is simply to decide for yourself whether our story deals with an unscrupulous wretch who abandons his young wife to engage on a career of highway robbery; or whether it is the history of a deserted girl who becomes the wife of a professional outlaw; or whether it is a betrayed young wife who gives herself up to the cause of elevating the human race. A French reader, under the circumstances, would be compelled to go through as much as thirty ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... "young as you are, there can be no doubt whatever in the minds of anyone who has heard the evidence that you have been an associate with these men who have been found guilty of highway robbery accompanied by murder. I consider that a merciful view was taken of your case by the magistrates who committed you for trial, for the evidence of your heartbroken father, on whose gray hairs your conduct has brought trouble and disgrace, leaves no doubt that you have for ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... carriage of an aristocrat; you drag a valuable whip out of the hand of his coachman; and you carry it off. If that is not highway robbery, what is it? ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... Gillis, who was again in Virginia, conceived a plan which would make it not only necessary for him to lecture again, but would supply him with a subject. Steve's plan was very simple: it was to relieve the lecturer of his funds by a friendly highway robbery, and let an account of the adventure furnish ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... in the Nottingham Mercury of January 19th, 1721. They are included in the London news, and are as follow: "Yesterday the sessions began at the Old Bailey, where several persons were brought to the bar for highway robbery, etc. Among them were the highwaymen lately taken at Westminster, two of whom, namely, Thomas Green, alias Phillips, and Thomas Spiggot, refusing to plead, the court proceeded to pass the following sentence upon ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... husband.... The fourth, fifth and sixth, all girls, died in infancy or early childhood. The seventh, a girl, remarried after the death of her husband, from whom she had been separated. The eighth, a boy who early in life began to exhibit criminal tendencies, was in prison for highway robbery and burglary. The ninth, a girl, normal mentally, was in quarantine at the Kansas State Industrial Farm at the time this study was made; she had lived with a man as his common-law wife, and had also been arrested several times for soliciting. The tenth, a boy, ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... The story of the man's crime was a short and simple one. He had been ringleader in a highway robbery lately committed, and taken in the very act, with the booty upon his person. The evidence was clear as daylight; no one attempted to dispute it or deny ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... the laws of tenure, the Town Tenants Act of 1906, which Mr. Balfour denounced as highway robbery, gives tenants in towns compensation for disturbance so as to prevent a landlord making a vexatious use of his rights. An attempt was made by the House of Lords to limit the compensation so paid to one year's rent, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... and brings cattle from the Cape A marine settler killed Natives A criminal court held Taylor executed Lowe punished A highway robbery Provisions in store Ration altered June, two whalers come in from sea Ideas of a whale-fishery Tempestuous weather Effects The Albion whaler arrives from England Her passage July, a missionary murdered The murderers tried and executed Orders published State of the farms ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... for his kind words, but he said there was a strong feeling in the east against truly good people like himself taking tainted money, and while he would not want to make a comparison between the methods men adopt to secure tainted money, in business or highway robbery, he hoped the gang to which he had been elected an honorary member would not insist on his carrying away any of the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... Nicaragua where newspapers do not circulate. It is impossible to get trustworthy intelligence about any event that has happened a hundred miles away, and stories of murders and robberies that were never committed are widely circulated amongst the credulous people. As far as my experience goes highway robbery is unknown in Nicaragua. Foreigners entrusted with money have stated they have been robbed, but there has always been suspicions that they themselves embezzled the money that they said they lost. Personally I never carried arms for defence in the country, and was never molested nor even insulted, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... to be lodging in the inn that night one of the officers of the Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, whose duty it was to travel the roads and inquire into cases of highway robbery. He hearing some time later that a man was lying in the house sorely wounded must needs go and make an examination of the matter. He therefore lighted his lamp and made his way to Don ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... mysterious beauty of whom rumor goes about this week, the woman rated surpassing fair, who has lately come into the acquaintance of your Grace, and whom your Grace has concealed as jealously as though he feared to lose her by some highway robbery?" ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... They spoke of diamond rings, in there. Well, I didn't see any diamond rings on his hands when I looked at his body, and I particularly noticed his hands, to see if there were signs of any struggle. No sir—it's just a plain case of what used to be called highway robbery and murder. But come round with me to the police-station, Mr. Viner—they'll have taken him to the mortuary by now, and I should like to hear what our divisional surgeon has to say, and what our people ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... which "Master Francis Fletcher, preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled, speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... will it cost, Matt? None of your highway robbery now. Be easy on the Retriever for old ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... Callings and Families at home, sit tippling one half Pint after another, till they become as fuddled as a Beef-Eater at a Tavern on a Sunday Morning, and go home mightily edified with the particulars of a Trial for a Rape, or a Highway Robbery. ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... happy, child-like heart the wisdom and discretion of a woman. She was only twelve when she was chosen as messenger from her father to his friend Mr. Baillie, who was then in prison in Edinburgh. Over lonely Soutra Hill (where highway robbery and murder were things not unknown), it was no easy or pleasant ride from Marchmont to the Port of Edinburgh; and here the bleaching skulls of martyred covenanters gave to those who entered the town grim ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... wood and water, splitting and piling logs, and scavenger-work of all sorts: it was all out of doors and in every extreme of the Siberian climate. His companions were all ruffians of a desperate caste: burglary, highway robbery, rape, murder in every degree, were common cases. One instance will suffice, and it is not the worst: it was that of a young man, clerk of a wine-merchant in St. Petersburg. He had a mistress whom he loved, but suspected ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... Every one knows what delightful dinners you give; but these little dramatic episodes which you offer your guests, by way of appetizer, are certainly unique. Last year an elevator stuck in the shaft with half the company in it, and this year a highway robbery, its daring punishment and its reckless repetition—what the newspapers will call "A Triple Mystery" when it gets to them—and both victims among our commensals! Really, I don't know what more we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded footpad himself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... I collar you, Dr. Slop? Send in your bill tomorrow! Did I smash the instruments beyond repair? And should you say now,—just speaking off-hand,—that two hundred and fifty dollars would be money enough to repair them? Of course, I can commit highway robbery, if it be absolutely necessary. My dear Mrs. Gamp, I fully appreciate the propriety of your suggestions. You want one quart of gin;—I comprehend. Shall it be your Hollands, your Aromatic Scheidam, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... poultry-snatching is, plagiarism is worse. Facilis descensus Averno! From highway robbery and crimes of violence one sinks gradually to literary petty larceny. However, there are coarsely effective poems in the volume, such as A Super's Philosophy, Dick Hewlett, a ballad of the Californian school, and ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... nine following malefactors were executed before the Debtors' Door at Newgate pursuant to their sentence, viz., Hugh Murphy and Christian Murphy alias Bowman, Jane Grace, and Joseph Walker, for coining. [Four for burglary, and one for highway robbery.] They were brought upon the scaffold, about half an hour after seven, and turned off about a quarter past eight. The woman for coining was brought out after the rest were turned off, and fixed to a stake and burnt; being first strangled by the stool being taken from ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various

... "Highway robbery!" he cried, making a trumpet of both hands, and then with a parting wave he passed from view, leaving the exasperated and almost tearful Alene to return to the house, with the disobedient Prince at her ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... State is obliged to perform certain duties for the community. It is obliged, for example, to make its roads fit for travelling, and so render them passable for the transfer of merchandise. It is bound to clear away all brigandage, highway robbery, and the like, for were this not done, no merchant would venture out through that State's territory, and its ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett

... given him the choice of going to jail, or of acting under his instructions, in which case he would be well rewarded. Naturally, he had chosen the second alternative. And, having him completely under his thumb, John Dormay had made him sign a paper, acknowledging his attempt at highway robbery ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... of a load uh booze an' hop sufficient t' hang 'im!" His hand slid into his trousers pocket, reaching for the comforting plug of tobacco. "Stuck up an' robbed is what happens t' Casey. You can ask anybody if it ain't highway robbery!" ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... his word to Sheba. He used his influence to get Elliot released, and with a touch of cynicism quite characteristic went on the bond of his rival. An information was filed against the field agent of the Land Department for highway robbery and attempted murder, but Gordon went about his business just as if he were not under ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... successful course of highway robbery runs in the channel of a swift accomplishment and a rapid getaway. Yet this crew, leaving the saddle-bags uninvestigated at their feet, were solemnly playing out their farce at the expense of valuable time—time which should have stood for miles ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... as any persons we might find in Mexico. A little curious to know the charges on which they had been committed, we inquired, and discovered that some had fifteen or twenty points against them, among which were such trifling charges as murder, manslaughter, arson, rape, and highway robbery. We thought best not to inquire too closely, but it is doubtful, whether any of the subjects here incarcerated under these long and dreadful lists of charges, are guilty of anything except insurrection—a final struggle ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... This increased their disposition to capitulate. Still the indomitable governor could not endure the thought of surrendering the majestic province of New Netherland to a force of four frigates. He regarded the movement, on the part of the English, as an atrocious act of highway robbery. But he was well aware that there was no escape ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... were passed round that night while we were discussing the qualities of the mountain-goat flesh, but yet I felt annoyed at our feat; the thing, to be sure, had been gallantly done, still it was nothing better than highway robbery. Hunger, however, is a good palliative for conscience, and, having well rubbed our horses, who seemed to enjoy their grazing amazingly, we turned to repose, watching alternately for ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... gallows," said I, in reply to myself,—"the more probably, too, as my finances have no means of improvement, except by a miracle or highway robbery. I am in love with two girls, and have only two clean shirts; consequently there is no proportion between ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... should like to know? It seems absurd that Dermot should be living at the Grange, not two miles off, and yet we're never to see one another. I thought I should at least meet him once a week, and now I mayn't even say, 'How do you do?' without being scolded as if I had committed a highway robbery." ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... ban, an ex-convict, a miscreant of the most dangerous description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom justice has long been in search of, and who, eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys at Toulon, committed a highway robbery, accompanied by violence, on the person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais; a crime provided for by article 383 of the Penal Code, the right to try him for which we reserve hereafter, when his identity shall have been judicially established. He ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... The highway robbery was never heard of. The excellent plaster which John Arniston left in the hand of the official had salved effectively the rude constriction of his throat, where John's right ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... bunch always drifting about Clinch's place in those days. There were fights. And not so many miles from Clinch's there was highway robbery and ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... that kind. Money was remitted to London either by carrier or through some merchant. Banks there were by this time: but most people preferred keeping their own money in their own houses. Also banks being few everybody carried gold: this partly explains the prevalence of highway robbery: very likely the passengers on any long stage coach carried between them some hundreds of guineas: a whole railway train in these days would not yield so much: for people no longer carry with them more money than is wanted for the small expenditure of the day: ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... compromise which we can put forward with the present dilemma in Greece, where it seems that to be armed or to be unarmed is almost equally perilous. But our secret opinion is, that in all countries alike, the only absolute safeguard against highway robbery is—a railway; for then the tables are turned; not he who is stopped—incurs the risk, but he who stops: we question whether Samson himself could have pulled up his namesake on the Liverpool railway. Recently, indeed, in the Court of Common Pleas, on a motion to show cause by Sergeant Bompas, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... against the laws of nature and put off human feeling as to act basely for mere amusement. Ask any of those who live by robbery whether he would not rather obtain what he steals and plunders by honest means; the man whose trade is highway robbery and the murder of travellers would rather find his booty than take it by force; you will find no one who would not prefer to enjoy the fruits of wickedness without acting wickedly. Nature bestows upon us all this immense advantage, that the light of virtue shines into the ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... face; "one of those rascals nearly throttled me, he pulled my handkerchief so tight. Well, this is a wicked world, this, to take away a fellow-creature's life for thirteenpence-halfpenny, for that was all the money they found in my pocket. I thought an itinerant tinker was safe from highway robbery, at all events. Did you not say that they attacked you, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... This worthy had lost his hand during youth, and replaced it with a hand of iron. He was bold, daring, and unscrupulous, but scarcely fitted for generalship, his knowledge of war being confined to the tactics of highway robbery. Nor can it be said that his leadership of the peasants was voluntary. He was as much their prisoner as their general, his service being ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... sale-price of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors—multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring out its effective amount in current coin. Dog cheap, it must be owned, for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of mutiny, injustice, anarchy, and highway robbery; a purchase that might have proved dear enough to another ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... prevent myself from being deprived of my luxuries—liquor and cards. Is that a roundabout way of saying I intended to act the highwayman, perhaps the—murderer—on this occasion? By no means, madam! What is highway robbery? Is it not the brutal and wanton robbery of the poor as well as the rich? Well, I was not going to rob anybody. I was going to request a small loan—and so far from intending violence, or—murder—," he ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... came famine in Russia, followed by agrarian troubles. I saw a crowd of peasants demand from a local landlord all the grain and foodstuffs in his granary. This puzzled me; I could not understand how honest men were indulging in what seemed to be highway robbery. But I noted at the time that every man who was taking part in this incident was a drinking man, while their fellow villagers, who were abstemious, had sufficient provisions in their own homes. Thus it was that I observed the industrial effects ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... was mistaken. For the last year you have even failed to pay interest as stipulated between us. Your intention is evident. I quite understand that you have made up your mind to defraud me of what is rightfully mine. I don't know how you may regard this, but I consider it as bad as highway robbery. I do not hesitate to say that if you had your deserts you would be in the Penitentiary. Let me advise you, if you wish to avoid further trouble, to make no delay in paying a portion of this debt. Yours, etc. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... chiefs as bribes to keep them quiet. Macnaghten had objected to this retrenchment, pointing out that the stipends to the chiefs were simply compensation for the abandonment by them of their immemorial practice of highway robbery, but he yielded to pressure, called to Cabul the chiefs in its vicinity, and informed them that thenceforth their subsidies would be reduced. The chiefs strongly remonstrated, but without effect, and they then formed a confederacy ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... permanent happiness must, and would crown that marriage union. And thus far, it has followed it, and must continue to follow it, for John Barclay is a man of high-toned principle, and would as soon think of committing a highway robbery, as ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... too, some of them were, acute reasoners, sophists, casuists. We had no doubts, fears or suspicions of them, and they thought no evil of us. Some of them we invited to a reading in our tower; and once we enacted the "Aminta" with great applause: Beltramo, a very engaging boy (afterwards hanged for highway robbery and prison- breaking), Violante, an unfrocked priest called Il Corvo, Virginia and I took parts. Beltramo I never saw again but once, and that against my will. I saw him hanged at Genoa in 1742. A curious life indeed, which, to one ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... been committed on a people who have uniformly received them as friends." "I really believe that more plunder and outrages have been committed by this army than by any other that ever was in the field." "A detachment seldom marches... that a murder, or a highway robbery, or some act of outrage is not committed by the British soldiers composing it. They have killed eight people since the army returned to Portugal." "They really forget every thing when plunder or wine is within reach."]; ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... by accidentally enclosing herself in a chest with a spring lock[7]—of the girl frightened into complete idiotcy by those who placed a skeleton, or, as some say, a skull only, in her bed[8]—and of ladies, bishops, &c. obtaining their livelihoods privately by highway robbery[9], with similar narratives, rather romantic than superstitious, are general property, and to be met with under various modifications throughout England. The tale of the King of the Cats[10], a German tradition, has its exact counterpart in an Irish one, related to us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... experience in lottery gambling to assure the community that their whole system is as foul as highway robbery. We purchased a wheel from one of the fraternity in Washington City, and drew in Philadelphia three times, then carried it to Washington, and there demonstrated to the satisfaction of those who witnessed our drawing, that what we asserted was ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... a respectable family, son of the sheriff of Warren County, Ky. He fell into bad company and bad habits at New Orleans, drinking and gaming, until for an act of highway robbery he was sent to the penitentiary. The reader will observe the general activity of the intellect and the adjacent social sentiments indicated by the translucency, and the general torpor, indicated by the opacity in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... worst the dashing outlaw could never have been a very bad fellow. Certainly the author has carefully kept him from participation in the grosser acts of lawlessness of which his revengeful old partner Ben Marston, the more typical bushranger, is guilty. Cattle-stealing and highway robbery as supervised by Starlight are allowable, and even meritorious, in so far as they afford him opportunities to practise some facetious deception on the police. Such raids are not ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... "And highway robbery appeals to me—rather. It's more picturesque, and you wouldn't have to break into houses. I think I'd ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... at St. Stephen's, Lord Minster; at any rate, I have not been forwarding schemes for highway robbery and the national ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... drao, which affects the brain, but does not corrupt the blood; and subsequently begged, and generally obtained, the carcases. The men plied tinkering and brasiery, now and then stole horses, and occasionally ventured upon highway robbery. The writer has here placed the Chies before the Chals, because, as he has frequently had occasion to observe, the Gypsy women are by far more remarkable beings than the men. It is the Chi and not the Chal who has caused ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... o' six days Sam was still alive and losing a shilling a day, to say nothing of buying 'is own beef-tea and such-like. Ginger said it was fair highway robbery, and tried to persuade Sam to go to a 'orsepittle, where he'd 'ave lovely nurses to wait on 'im hand and foot, and wouldn't keep 'is best friends awake of ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall lose courage without the enlivening presence of ces dames. We will start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles. In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be garrisoned with provisions; ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... to the crowd. "I move that you apologize to Mr. Phillips. Are you game?" Her question met with a yell of approval. "Now, then, there's a new case on the docket, and the charge is highway robbery. Are you ready to vote a verdict?" Her face was set, her eyes ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... they could; and something like a perpetual feud always existed between the wealthier cities and the knights who infested the trade routes leading to and from them. Still, these belligerent relations were taken as a matter of course; and no disgrace, in the modern sense, attached to the occupation of highway robbery. ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... the happy days when there is "nothing in the papers"—that is to say, nothing interesting, absorbing, soul harrowing, in the form of financial ruin, highway robbery, murder, arson, fire, or flood. Everything in the world at the present brief hour seemed going on well, consequently the papers were very dull, flat, stale and unprofitable, and were soon laid aside by the host and his guest, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... there was a little stir of anticipation when young Breckenbridge rode forth armed with a warrant for John Ringo. For Ringo was a bad man of larger caliber than even Curly Bill. He was the brains of the outlaws, and the warrant charged highway robbery. ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... said Ranson, meekly. "I'm a very happy man; I'm the happiest man on earth. I want to ride across the prairie shooting off both guns and yelling like a cowboy. Instead of which I am locked up indoors and have to talk to you about a highway robbery which does not amuse me, which does not concern me—and of which I know nothing and care less. Now, YOU are detailed to prove me innocent. That's your duty, and you ought to do your duty, But don't drag me in. I've got much more important things ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... stage hold-up or some scrape of that kind every week or two!" replied Tommy with a wink at Will. "We remained over at Green River a couple of days and heard a good many stories about highway robbery. There is said to be gold in these mountains," the boy continued, "and there is also said to be a band of brigands who lie in ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... sing. To publish an account in the newspapers. The kiddey was chaunted for a toby; his examination concerning a highway robbery was published ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... of that, my daughter. I don't entirely like the tone of some of these remarks. They lack vim, they lack venom. Here is one calls it a 'questionable measure.' Bah, there is no strength in that. This one is better; it calls it 'highway robbery.' That sounds something like. But now this one seems satisfied to call it an 'iniquitous scheme'. 'Iniquitous' does not exasperate anybody; it is weak—puerile. The ignorant will imagine it to be intended for a compliment. But ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... the other hand, his cheery, quiet neighbor develops into a hero, ready uncomplainingly to lay down his life for his friend. One who in an eastern city is merely a backbiter and slanderer, in the western woods lies in wait for his foe with a rifle; sharp practice in the east becomes highway robbery in the west; but at the same time negative good-nature becomes active self-sacrifice, and a general belief in virtue is translated into a prompt and determined war upon vice. The ne'er-do-well of a family who in one place has his debts paid a couple of times and is then ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... staying in this disreputable den with criminals and social outcasts? To whom could appeal be made for proof, but to this poor, old wench, who had been in the employment of the four, two of whom are charged with highway robbery? Would not my friends and acquaintances feel averse to further association with such a person? They might suspect that both Oswald and I had practiced deceit in ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee



Words linked to "Highway robbery" :   robbery, price, terms, damage



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