"Thieving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather of a fairer Colour than the Generality of the Natives of George's Island, but more especially the Women, who are much fairer and handsomer, and the Men are not so much Addicted to thieving, and are more Open ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... accustomed to perch on the shoulder of its mistress, and eat from her hand. It was intensely jealous, and would fly savagely at any one to whom its mistress showed the least favor. This particular pet proved as troublesome as a thieving cat, for was any fine fat chicken or partridge left lying on the kitchen table, if the cook's back was turned for a moment, the prize was either mangled or borne away to a hiding-place ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... agitators, our juvenile courts, our child welfare exhibits are so persistently—and rightly —showing the wrongdoing child as the helpless victim of heredity and environment that hasty thinkers are jumping to the conclusion that, since a child is not to blame for his thieving tendencies, it is our duty, rather than punish, to let him go on stealing; since it is a natural instinct for a boy to like the sound of crashing glass and the exercise of skill needed to hit a ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... act of pocket-picking, for which offence he had spent some weeks in prison. While there a visitor had spoken to him very earnestly, and advised him to try an honest life, as being, to say the least of it, easier work than thieving. He had made the attempt. Through the influence of the same prison-visitor he had obtained a situation, from which he had been advanced to the responsible position ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... I will, when the sweet Mrs. Dripping is mine. As for the girl, you can have her, Tom Trippet, if you take a fancy to her; and as for the Corporal, he may be handed over to my successor in Cutts's:—for I will have a regiment to myself, that's poz; and to take with me such a swindling, pimping, thieving, brandy-faced rascal as this Brock will never do. Egad! he's a disgrace to the service. As it is, I've often a mind to have the superannuated vagabond drummed out of ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... basest treachery with the most touching fidelity, intense religious fanaticism with an avarice that will even induce a man to play false with his faith, and a lavish hospitality with an irresistible propensity for thieving. It will be remembered how 'Muridism,' the spirit of religious enthusiasm inflaming political hostility, was stirred up by the Mullahs of the Caucasus against the Russians, and embittered the resistance of the tribes. The same elements of fiery hatred lie close below the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... times, and yet again he drank of the secret. That he of all men should make this discovery! His danger became as nothing; he forgot even the object of his thieving visit. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... her pony Madcap. To have such a march stolen on him after he had heard and seen the thieves was indeed hard. High time it was that these horse thieves be run to earth. No Indian had planned these marauding expeditions. An intelligent white man was at the bottom of the thieving, and he ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... but of course he could not be aware of my beneficent intentions: so he treated me as he thought I was for treating him, and making one snatch at the bun, ran off cramming it into his mouth. I stood looking at any hand. I learnt in that instant what thieving was, and begging, and hunger, for I would have perished rather than have asked for another cake, and as I yearned for it in absolute want of food, the boy's ungenerous treatment of me came down in a cloud on my reason. I found myself being led through the crush of people, by an old ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lives, or rather the deaths of malefactors, and if I have done no other good in writing them, I shall have at least this satisfaction, that I have preserved them from being presented to the world in such a dress as might render the Academy of Thieving their proper title, a thing once practised before, and if one may guess from the general practice of mankind, might probably have been attempted again, with success. How a different method will fare in the world, time only can determine, and to that I leave ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... presume," responded Raikes sourly as he replaced the gem, from which he seemed unable to remove his thieving eyes. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... system of instruction shall be substituted for that which has been abolished, the children (as the French are fond of examples from the ancients) will take their lessons, like the Greeks, in the open air; and, in the mean while, become expert in lying and thieving, like the Spartans. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Lhari's short, yellowed crest bobbed in surprise. "Why? Who ever comes here but our ships? And what could we do with the stuff but take it back with us? Why locked? You've been on the drift too long—among those thieving humans! It's time you got back to live among decent folk ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Bill and Blindeye Bozeman had been caught at work in a cross-cut tunnel which led to the property of the Blue Poppy mine, and one of them, at least, had admitted that the sole output of the Silver Queen had come from this thieving encroachment. Then Anita completed the recital,—of the plans of the Rodaines to leave and of their departure for Center City. At last, Fairchild spoke, and he told the happenings which he had encountered in the ramshackle house occupied by Crazy Laura. It was ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... 'Our thieving lout, ensconced without, Came through the window slinking; He grabbed the pot and on the spot Began ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... grunt of disgust. "A regular pity they didn't get killed, I think; and I shouldn't wonder if they are at the bottom of this piece of thieving also." ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... to-night. (Stands for a moment in terrible emotion; then begins to walk up and down.) I knew a man named Eyvind. His father was poor and had many children. Eyvind was the next to the oldest. It was said in those parts that thieving ran in the blood of his kin, though no one could say anything against Eyvind's father. (Halla looks up, listening.) Two years ago or more, toward the end of the winter, it happened, as often before, that there was no food in the house. Eyvind went ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... She was worse, if possible, even than Hollands. Before he left I detected her in lying, thieving, and intemperance, besides abominable hypocrisy, and was thankful to get her out of ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... "It's true that the thieving craft is a curst craft for the gallows, but to-morrow's trouble is like yesterday's dinner, not worth thinking on. We are here, safe and comfortable. Let that suffice. And to-day, so far from doing harm ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... think I can get mine. This is the most almighty abandoned swindle I ever met in all my born days." The whole meeting, except Mr. Tyrrwhit, received this assertion with loudly expressed applause. "Such a blackguard, dirty, thieving job never was up before in my time. I don't know 'ow to talk of it in language as a man isn't ashamed to commit himself ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... man like Reuben made argument impossible. To his morbid inner sense the boy seemed to have entered irrevocably on the broad path which leadeth to destruction. Perhaps in another year he would be drinking and thieving. With a curious fatalism Reuben felt that for the present, and till he had made some tangible amends to Sandy and the Unseen Powers for Hannah's sin, he himself could do nothing. His hands were unclean. But some tremulous ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... write to Bill Hicks about it," she cried, eagerly. "He'll come on here and get after this thieving real estate ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... "Had he a thieving look?" she demanded, without attending to the manner in which she was so suddenly deserted by all those who had just expressed the strongest sympathy in her loss. "Was he a man that had the air of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... point to catch a plack; Abuse a brother to his back; Steal thro' a winnock frae a whore, But point the rake that taks the door; Be to the poor like onie whunstane, And haud their noses to the grunstane, Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... superstition about childhood lingering in the mind of the lawbreaker. Strack (361) has discussed at considerable length the child (dead) as fetich among the criminal classes, especially the use made of the blood, the hand, the heart, etc. Among the thieving fraternity in Middle Franconia it is believed that "blood taken up from the genitals of an innocent boy on three pieces of wood, and carried about the person, renders one invisible when stealing" (361. 41). The same power was ascribed to the eating of the hearts ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... represented here—spies, cheating contractors, political generals, generals as meek as missionaries. You have seen the worst of it—the worst. But my dear Penhallow, there is one comfort, Richmond is just as foul with thieving contractors, extravagance, intrigue, and spies who report to us with almost the regularity of the post; and, as with us, there is also honour, honesty, religion, belief in their cause." The Secretary had spoken at unusual length and in an unusual mood. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... also on a bear, who was about a honey tree, and had taken much comb from the wild bees. On him Ralph drew his sword and drave him exceeding loth from his purchase, so that the knight dined off the bear's thieving. Another time he came across a bent where on the south side grew vines well fruited, and the grapes a-ripening; and he ate well thereof before he ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... poor emigrants from India during the two preceding centuries, with this difference—the emigrants from India to Europe were idlers, loafers who sought to make their fortunes among the Europeans by practising, without work, the most subtle arts of double-dealing, lying, deception, thieving, and dishonesty, and the fate that attends individuals following out such a course as this has attended the Gipsies in all their wanderings; the consequence has been, the Gipsy emigrants, after their first introduction to ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... happened Cock-eye gets his two guns on him, slow and deliberate like, mind you, and throws forty-eights into him till he ain't worth shooting at no more. Murders him like the mud-eating, horse-thieving snake of a Greaser that he is; but being within the law, the kid drawing on him first, he don't stretch ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Snowstorm was awful dejected. He had hated the capitalist right off. 'He wears a gold watch chain and silk underclothes like one of these fly city dames,' says Snowstorm, who was a knowing old scoundrel, 'and he says his syndicate on the reports of these two thieving experts will pay twelve hundred for it and not a cent more. What do you ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... search of sticks, they often find at their return the work all destroyed, and the materials carried off. However, I have met with a story which shows that they are not without some sense of the criminality of thieving. There was in a rookery a lazy pair of rooks, who never went out to get sticks for themselves, but made a practice of watching when their neighbours were abroad, and helping themselves from their nests. They had ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... there," said John, grimly; "ee's talkin' sense for onst when 'ee says that. I'd dig a hole in the hill and bury it sooner nor I'd trust it to 'im—I would, by——" he swore vigorously. "A thieving set of magpies is all them ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Beardsley's "renters"—that is to say, he hired from the captain a few acres of ground, on which he managed to raise enough corn and potatoes to keep his family from absolute want, and a little log cabin in which he found shelter when he was not absent on his hunting and thieving expeditions. Marcy had not seen him since his return from Barrington, but he had heard of him as a red-hot Confederate who went about declaring that hanging was too good for Yankees and their sympathizers. When Marcy heard of this, he told ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... kept sitting in the mud—cold, hungry, and cursing. Decrees issued relating to the educational institutions of the Empress Mary Department. Corruption rampant in the foundling homes. An undeserved monument. Thieving among the clergy. The reinforcement of the political police. A woman being searched. A prison for convicts who are sentenced to be deported. A man being hanged for murdering a ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... larger now than the owner could use. No wonder she thought I stole the money. I, who had failed to rebuke man-stealing, might steal anything. That meeting-house which I had been helping to build by entertaining its builders and aiding them about subscriptions, it and they were a part of a great man-thieving machine. I had been false to every principle of justice; had been decorating parlors when I should have been tearing down prisons! I, helping Black Gagites build ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... I reckon not. You hain't had time for that yet. It was only last night I run two thieving rascals off my land. They hed a camp a little ways down the creek, an' fur two whole days they were livin' at my expense, stealing applies, an' eggs, an' chickens, an' whatever else they could lay their ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... this morning, just after my husband had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign, that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats; they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again. And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house—and calling for this—and calling for that—as if they owned the fee-simple of every thing on the plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horse-Shoe, to see them run out in the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... and bearing the inscription, "Given by George Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It contained the letter which accompanied the gift till lately: it has disappeared; no one guesses who took it, but whoever he was, as my guide observed, he must have been a thief for thieving's sake truly, as he durst no more exhibit his autograph than tip himself a bare bodkin. Sad, infamous tourist, indeed! Although I saw abundance of comfortable-looking desks and arm chairs, yet this room seemed rather too ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... in a comfortless, poverty-stricken home, without any religious teaching or influences, what wonder that they became addicted to most of the petty vices,—that they acquired an unenviable reputation for mischief, mendacity, and thieving in ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... replacing the heathen social standard and established with the same power and universality, and the majority of men as much ashamed of taking any part in violence or in profiting by it, as they are to-day of thieving, swindling, begging, and cowardice; and at once we see the whole of this complex, and seemingly powerful organization of society falls into ruins of ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Tip Branders had been inclined to be boastful. He had shown his boldness by his thieving exploits and by daring to face the steady rifle fire of Private Hal Overton, United States Army. But when the sentence of the court came upon him Tip broke down. He wept and could hardly stand. He implored the judge to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... Thus Joe Harris, or Thieving Joe, as he was known among his associates, and his wife Moll came to be passengers along with our two little travellers on board ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... cry has arisen 820 "Have mercy! Have mercy!" A check to the story; They hurry off quickly To see what has happened; And there on a bank Of a ditch near the roadside, Some peasants are birching A drunken old lackey, Just taken in thieving. A court had been summoned, 830 The judges deciding To birch the offender, That each of the jury (About three and twenty) Should give him a stroke Turn in turn ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... at Bow Street; and think how speedily the practical catchpolls would reply, that all this might be very fine, but, as far as they had studied history, the naked story was, after all, that numbers of men had a propensity to thieving, and their business was to catch them; that they, too, had been sifters of facts; and, to say the truth, their simple opinion was, that their brethren of the red waistcoat—though they should be ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... opportunity; and the most amusing part of it was, they never attempted to deny the theft, but stoutly maintained their right to the article! Numerous were the thrashings inflicted by Buctoo on them for tobacco thieving, but the ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... be ways. There were other Mexican officials than the thieving one that Reedy had bribed to protect his movements and robberies. There were some fair Mexicans; and there were others, even if unfair, on whom the pressure of self-interest could ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... and let this black, sneaking, prowling, thieving" (here the Baron used some shocking expressions which I shall not set down) ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... name is Dan Egan. He was mixed up in some brutal outrage on an inoffensive farmer, had to leave the county, went to Dublin, and enlisted. He went out to Spain with his regiment, was flogged twice for thieving, then he shot an officer who came upon him when he was ill-treating a Portuguese peasant; he got away at the time, and it was months before he was heard of again. It was thought that he had deserted to the French, but I suppose he got down to a port somewhere in disguise and shipped on board ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... and Sandwich are several villages of free blacks, probably the major portion of them having been assisted in their escape by the Abolitionists. They are not very good neighbours from their propensity to thieving, which either is innate, or, as Miss Martineau would have it, is the effect of slavery. I shall not dispute that point; but it is certain that they are most inveterately hostile to the Americans, and will fight to the last, from the dread of being again ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... preceptor's wife at the preceptor's command does not stain the pupil. The sage Uddalaka caused his son Swetaketu to be begotten by a disciple. A person by committing theft for the sake of his preceptor in a season of distress is not stained with sin. One, however, that takes to thieving for procuring enjoyments for himself becomes stained. One is not stained by stealing from other than Brahmanas (in a season of distress and for the sake of one's preceptor). Only one that steals under such circumstances without himself appropriating any portion thereof is untouched by sin. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... interval of fine weather, we hung out our clothes to dry, and the contents of our knapsacks, instruments, knives, and beads were strewed on the ground, while we went inland to shoot a few ducks. We cautioned no one against thieving, and were so much at their mercy that everything might have been taken without a possibility of detection; yet not a single article was found to have been removed from its place at our return. At night I was attended by the same bedfellows as before; the young puppy, however, being now better ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... it was. The burden of the theft crushed my heart to the dust. Perhaps notes would have made it seem less like thieving, but ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... in the stalls. In "Othello" she delighted me more than in the "Barber of Seville," where she represents a finished coquette instead of a lively, witty girl. As Sextus in "Titus" she looks really quite splendid. In a few days she is to appear in the "Thieving Magpie" ["La Gazza ladra"]. I am anxious to hear it. Miss Woikow pleased me better as Rosina in the "Barber"; but, to be sure, she has not such a delicious voice as the Heinefetter. I wish I ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... whole sad story. Two dead horses alone marked the spot where their freight wagon had stood. Alan aroused Ned, and as the Cibola sailed low over the place the boys saw that the thieving Utes had gone—with the wagon, horses, freight and ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... broken here," he said to the Mistress, "unless I am much mistaken. When the post office opens in the morning we must wire for Turle, the vet. Thieving's bad enough, but—there are some ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... on the very same day, been detected in two or three attempts to steal a knife, and various pieces of iron. It is evident, from the above and other traits, that the natives of this island, like all other savage nations, are naturally addicted to thieving: from the fear of detection, however, the instances of their venturing to indulge the propensity, do not ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... cunning than their neighbours, turn their thoughts to private methods of trick and cheat, a modern way of thieving every jot as criminal, and in some degree worse than the other, by which honest men are gulled with fair pretences to part from their money, and then left to take their course with the author, who skulks behind the curtain of a protection, or in the Mint or Friars, and bids ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... The proverb there is, "The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the son thigs,"[1]—that is, the grandfather worked hard and made a fortune, the father built a fine house, and the son, "an unthrifty son of Linne," when land and goods were gone and spent, took to thieving. Merchants are sometimes princes to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed property may ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Then came ten minutes of hard work clearing away the snow and getting at the packages which Katherine had been obliged to cache a few hours before. One package had been torn open, and its contents scattered, which showed that the wolf had already started thieving operations; so that even if Oily Dave and his companion had contemplated no raid on the cache, there would not have been much left later which was ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... that gives value or ownership to things. You can only own that which expresses you. For that reason you cannot own the palaces of which you dream. Their service will require a hundred thieving hirelings whose very names you cannot know. This house is mine because I have built it as a work of love and art and expressed myself in it with infinite tenderness and infinite pains. It is not a palace in size, but it is a palace, glorious ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... this venturing into a camp of hostile Indians through the darkness, but Donald reflected that it would be even worse by daylight. He also argued, that while success in his proposed thieving would mean everything to him, he could not be worse off than he was a few hours since, even if he failed and was captured. So he crept forward with the noiseless motions of a serpent, until the conical lodges were plainly in view by the dim light of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... From thieving light of eyes impure, From coveting sun or wind's caress, Her days are guarded and secure Behind her carven lattices, Like jewels in a turbaned crest, Like ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... farmer wad pay him four punds Scots out of each hundred punds of valued rent, whilk was doubtless a moderate consideration, Rob engaged to keep them scaithless;—let them send to him if they lost sae muckle as a single cloot by thieving, and Rob engaged to get them again, or pay the value—and he aye keepit his word—I canna deny but he keepit his word—a' men allow ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is a-selling of her baskets, I'll be bound, and she and the old woman live on the fat of the land with the money that they bring. My baskets, I calls 'em. It's sheer thieving! A fine old yarn she'll have told, too, and a nice character she'll have ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to convey to his "little congregation," as he called them, some idea of abstract morality. He was bold enough "to speak against their inveterate practices, thieving and lying, telling fortunes," etc., and at first experienced much opposition. About the result, he seems to have cherished no illusions; still, he wrote a hymn in their dialect which he taught ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... was hardly prepared for the suspicion and danger which stood between him and his father. As hotheaded as his father, Drew was ready to move on to California—until the day all proof of his Rennie name was stolen from him, and his unwarranted arrest for horse-thieving brought on the accusations of the one man whose trust ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... honesty and the simplicity of the Indian were remarkable. Kenton said he had been happy among the Indians. Col. Zane had many Indian friends. Isaac Zane, who lived most of his life with the Wyandots, said the American redman had been wrongfully judged a bloodthirsty savage, an ignorant, thieving wretch, capable of not one virtue. He said the free picturesque life of the Indians would have appealed to any white man; that it had a wonderful charm, and that before the war with the whites the Indians were kind to their prisoners, and sought ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the village of Mudros East. It proved to be a collection of ramshackle dwellings, as little habitable as English cowhouses; of stores, where thieving Greeks sold groceries to the soldiers; and of taverns, whose vines hung heavily clustered over porch and window. There was an ornate and lofty Greek Orthodox Church, and a little, unconsidered cemetery, where the bones of the dead were working their ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... and twelve o'clock on one of the evenings I have mentioned we were taken by Dickens's favorite Detective W—— into a sort of lock-up house, where persons are brought from the streets who have been engaged in brawls, or detected in the act of thieving, or who have, in short, committed any offence against the laws. Here they are examined for commitment by a sort of presiding officer, who sits all night for that purpose. We looked into some of the cells, and found them ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... one small book, a volume of Homer, which perhaps was improperly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp has found by this time. I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough. The Pope's Homers would soon ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... greater abundance. But Lady Ebba would have none of it. Fowls had to be carefully tended, protected from foxes, hawks and other enemies; the fierce half-wild hogs could take care of themselves. All that they needed was a peasant herdsman with a dog to keep them together and see that thieving neighbors did not help themselves. There was more food in one hog than in a whole covey of game birds, to say nothing of the trouble of catching and cooking ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... as good as a party. But one of the worst night sights I know in London, is to be found in the children who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fight for the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay their their thieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge the constables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on the pavement of the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet. A painful and unnatural result comes of the comparison ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... down the grassy hills, or with a goad To prod the hungry swine in beechen woods, Than over the departed to bear sway. Then from the clouds to note the warning cry Of the harsh crane; to see the Pleiads rise, The vine and fig-tree shoot, the olive bud; To hear the chirping swallows in the dawn, The thieving cuckoo laughing in the leaves! So, may Achilles pass his palace gate, And later ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... several other islands, we made that of Rotterdam: the islanders here resemble those on the island of Amsterdam. The people were very good-natured, parted readily with what they had, did not seem to be acquainted with the use of arms, but were given to thieving like the natives of Amsterdam Island. Here we took in water, and other refreshments, with all the conveniency imaginable. We made the whole circuit of the island, which we found well-stocked with cocoa-trees, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... against something, but without avail. It was—Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled—to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears—a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... him alone. Here's the thieving hypocrits." But the two young men had disappeared among the people, and Uncle was being taken away in such a crowd that John could get no view whatever of the situation, so he ran howling and sputtering round and round the fast increasing crowd like a child gone insane. Presently ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... utterly repellent, so depraved and wicked: I could not get it out of my head, and for a long time saw before me the crafty eyes and the grinning mouth. Obviously the man was a criminal born who would start thieving as soon as he was out of prison, hopelessly and utterly corrupt. But it was curious that his character should be marked so plainly on his face; it was a danger-signal to his fellows, and one would have thought the suspicion ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... ironical one, just like lucus a non lucendo, or, in other words, because the poor creature is strictly honest and well tempered. And, indeed, there are some animals much more moral in their disposition than others. Some are kind, affectionate, benevolent, and grateful; and some, on the other hand, are thieving robbers and murderers. No, sir, I admit that I was wrong, and, so to speak, I owe Freney an apology for having given him a bad name; but then again I have made it up to him in other respects. Now, you'll scarcely believe what I am going to tell you, although you ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the thieving populace of Puebla had so provoked the agent of the company who own the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz, by abstracting everything they could lay their hands on, whether available for any purpose ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... thousand emigrants, ninety-nine-hundredths of whom land without a sixpence in the world beyond the clothes they stand in. The consequence of this is, that those who cannot succeed in obtaining immediate employment, take to thieving, from necessity; and some daring gang robberies are committed every year. They do not, however, long continue this mode of life; for the eight thousand new comers soon scatter, and find employment either ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... much in goodness, and this day—well, this day's work ha' finished me. Don't talk to me of justice, nor mercy neither. What ha? they done with Will, Hetty? He's the only honest lad I ever came across,—and there—he's took up for thieving! Oh, don't ever talk to me about there being real goodness ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... I lost the Fianna It was a fine boy I was, It was not about thieving was my knowledge, But always putting spells, Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna, And you are making me a rogue At ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... certain inalienable rights," and that these were now to be protected by law. Ah, no, look at it as you will, it is a black page, a raw deal. The officers of our frontier army know all about it, because they saw it happen. They saw the treaties broken, the thieving agents, the trespassing settlers, the outrages that goaded the deceived Indian to despair and violence, and when they were ordered out to kill him, they knew that he had struck in self-defense and was ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... pantomimic fight. Shooting with the bow, the gun, and the pistol, is an exercise for Circassian boys at an age when those of countries more civilized are spelling, syllable by syllable, the lessons of the primer and the catechism. The art of thieving adroitly is also reckoned an accomplishment by these mountaineers, as formerly by the Spartans, when the despoiled is an enemy, or at least a member of another tribe. And as in their council-rings there is as often an opportunity for ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... recollection of the painful antecedents, and with the exception of some thieving by the natives, the friendly ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of the great spiritual revelation with which the land of the Pharaohs is impregnated. Both alike—Jeremiah, unmoved by the cruelty and hardness of Jehovah, Herodotus, oblivious to the sensuality and immorality of his own gods, who, according to Xenophon, were adepts at thieving and lying—shook their heads in dismay before the Egyptian symbols. But Plato, on the contrary, was able to appreciate the harmonious beauty of a divine Trinity, sublime incarnation of that which is "eternal, unproduced, indestructible . . . eternally uniform ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... quite natural, and even good, but which those other people, the men who made the laws, considered to be crimes. Such were the persons who sold spirits without a license, smugglers, those who gathered grass and wood on large estates and in the forests belonging to the Crown; the thieving miners; and those unbelieving people who ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the island, hid in a taro swamp till the next night. He meant to steal food and a canoe—and seek for Oneata. But the Manono people found him, and, though he fought desperately, they overcame and bound him, and the women cursed him for a Tafito{*} devil, a thieving beast, and beat and pelted him as the men carried him back to the plantation, tied up like a wild boar, to get their ten dollars reward for him from the manager. And Burton gave him thirty lashes ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... waited on by my girl, must you—no older face will do for you—and you beat her? Your horses must eat corn, must they, while we eat grass? And we buy salt for you, and wheaten bread for you, and are beggars for you! For you, you thieving wretch, who tax the poor and let ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... London, of which City he probably became a freeman; for in a pamphlet addressed to the City of London,[41:2] he claims to be "one of thy sons by freedom." He then goes on to relate how, "by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the war," he "had been beaten out of both estate and trade," and had been forced "to accept of the good-will of friends, crediting of me, to live a ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... remains on duty, and it is only upon the return of her partner that she ventures abroad. The eggs are never left uncovered at all—while one bird leaves the nest the other nestling in by its side. This precaution is rendered necessary by the thieving propensities prevalent in the rookery, the inhabitants making no scruple to purloin each other's eggs at every ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... see their fellows need, is a remedy. Sending a fever patient to hospital is a poor expedient unless we cure the disease. Sending a thief to prison is a poor affair if he remains a thief. It is not in reality a victory over thieving; it ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... in what place, away from the slow-thieving dust, you keep them now. I find in my solitude some song of your evening that died, yet left a deathless echo; and the sighs of your unsatisfied hours I find nestled in the warm quiet of ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... He had had great ideas about Russia, but now he had given up all hope. Russia was doomed; and Germany, whom he hated and admired, would eat her up. And what did it matter? Perhaps Germany would "run Russia," and then there would be order and less thieving, and this horrible war would stop. How foolish it had been to suppose that any one in Russia would ever do anything. They were all fools and knaves and idle ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... a confiding friend; item, faithless to master; item, committed perjury consciously, cheerfully, in set form of words; item, dug your way into houses through the walls; item, caught at thieving; item, strung up repeatedly and plead your case before eight bold, brawny beef-eaters with a gift ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... letter V, for voleur, thief. Women, not being condemned to imprisonment in irons; are exempt from the penalty of being marked. This punishment is said to produce considerable effect on the culprits, as well as on the spectators. Previously to its being revived, persons convicted of thieving were insolent ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... his life as a post-trader had not. But it did not satisfy his innate craving for excitement. Therefore, he cast about to enlarge his field of activity. He became a whiskey-runner. His profits increased enormously, and he gradually included smuggling in his repertoire, and even timber thieving, and cattle-rustling upon the ranges along ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the time of my commencing to work for him he had white men hired who were worse, if any thing, in their habits of shiftless laziness than the lazy blacks. These whites, whom the negroes usually termed "white trash," were, as a general thing, the most vicious, brutal, thieving, shiftless, and lazy human beings imaginable. They were ignorant in the greatest degree, and would not work so long as they could obtain food to sustain life in any other way. They deemed it an honor to be noticed civilly by ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... like to take the risk," added the sergeant, who had not quite finished. He ended with an irrepressible outburst of honest indignation: "Why, you blasted, thieving Dutch scum, do you think I don't know you were stealing that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... remarks by way of improving the occasion. He spoke strongly of the utter meanness of the one who could play so heartless a trick on a schoolmate. He said that it was as much thieving to get your fun at the expense of another as to steal his money. And while he talked, all eyes were turned on Hank—all except the eyes of Mirandy Means. They looked simperingly at Ralph. All the rest ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... heard some of them say that they were quite contented to work on the clove plantations, and preferred that to loafing about the streets of Zanzibar, where hundreds of them are to be seen every day, with nothing to do and very little to eat, unless they take to thieving!" ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... alley at every few steps, or comes out where he least expects to, unless he knows every court and every alley exactly and separately. According to Dr. Kay, the most demoralised class of all Manchester lived in these ruinous and filthy districts, people whose occupations are thieving and prostitution; and, to all appearance, his assertion is still true at the present moment. When the sanitary police made its expedition hither in 1831, it found the uncleanness as great as in Little Ireland or along the Irk (that it is not ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... comrade. But there is no time to go round the place and prove that we be honest Protestants and good sailors, whilst the little man is a thieving Papist and murderous traitor. We should cause clamour enough to give him warning and time for escape. We will get within. Thou wilt stay with the widow, and keep her from doing us a mischief. I will ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... disputes. Frequently a citizen became overbold and visited his old haunts instead of remaining safely, even if monotonously, at home. Train robbery was a sure passport to Gophertown's protection. Man-killing lent an added distinction to an applicant for hurried admission. Cattle-and horse-thieving were mere industries not to be confounded ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... I will make you wish as how the whole Saskatchewan were running down your crater of a throat in two, three minutes more. But there will be no Saskatchewan—non, not one leetle drop of water to cool your thieving tongue!" ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... masses of laboring men the iniquitous, outrageous, thieving "Plantation Credit System" was a plague and a crime. Deprived of homes and property the Negroes were compelled to "work the crops on the shares." A plantation store was kept where the Negroes' ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... has never been heard in extenuation of guilt; has never been heard to plead the cause of the gambler, the swearer, the drunkard, the robber, or the assassin. Wherever vice has lifted its "seven heads and ten horns"—wherever fraud has showed its thieving hand—wherever gambling has displayed its rotten heart—wherever demagogues have sought to impose on the honest people—there have we tried to be conspicuous; not as their aider and abettor, but as their scourge, their accuser, and their unrelenting foe. And among this class of men are our most ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... Shelton, and accused you of what you had done. You neither confirmed nor denied it. We told you then to leave the town. We warned you never to return. We warned you that we were through with your trickery. We were through with your cheating and your thieving. We warned you, Shelton, and now you're back, back, by your own ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... there is something you care for. Well—you asked about Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old villain ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... followed an effect which shows the very wide difference between participating in innocent and guilty pleasures. While companions in raking and gambling heartily despise and hate one another, and when they meet in the streets pass each other with looks cold and shy as sheep-thieving curs, these virtuous young men, by spending their evenings together in innocent and manly exercises, contracted a friendship which lasted for life. When George, twenty-five years after this, was called to lead the American armies, he did not forget his old ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... here,"—suddenly the Duca's voice filled the room—"to do that which my priests were unable to do. And the moment has come when the Gods will no longer trifle with you. You dog! You thieving intruder! You—" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... a fine place, Mr. Maurice,—a regular castle. The drawbridge is raised and the portcullis closed, so that a thieving Redskin would find it a hard matter to make his way in. From what I hear, it is not unlikely that before long they'll be trying to drive the whites out of ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... Effendi!" approved the lieutenant, his eyes gleaming with Gallic enthusiasm. "These are no People of the Black Tents, no Beni Harb, nor thieving Meccans. These are men of the very ancient, true Arabic ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Aie! Old thief! You are always thieving! You stole a necklace on your wedding day: You could not bear a child, you stole your daughter: You stole a shroud the morn your husband died: Last week you stole ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... pheasants and a desperate fight with a gang. Looking at it as property, the squire had been merciful, pleading with the magistrates for a mitigated penalty. The drunkenness was habitual. In short, they were a bad lot—there was a name attached to the whole family for thieving, poaching, drinking, and even worse. Yet still there were two points that did sink deep into Smith's mind, and made him pause several times that afternoon in his work. The first was that long family ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Lake they had been held by thieving Indians and a great part of their provisions taken from them, leaving them to make their way in comparative poverty to the next ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Passed from hand to hand, as the hard wage of toil, the prize of infamy, the badge of shame! Tossed from the fingers of the spendthrift, dragged from the reluctant miser, filched from yokel and rounder, slyly stolen by thieving domestic or dishonest clerk, still the "long green" was as sacred to Fritz Braun as Mahomet's emerald banner hanging over the pulpit of magnificent Saint Sophia to ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... Buckstone gives notice of the thieving Knobs University job. It is said the noses have been counted and enough votes have ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... "Greediness is so great that they will not even invite a parasite." Excessive selfishness leads to every kind of dishonesty. "A man of probity is as rare as a mule's foal, or as a shower of stones from a cloud." "What day is so sacred that it fails to produce thieving, perfidy, fraud, gain sought through every crime, and money acquired by bowl and dagger. The good are so scarce that their number is barely as great as that of the gates of Thebes, or the mouths ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... be a lot of thieving, rascally scoundrels, too lazy to work, and too dishonest to pay their way, even when they have ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... of spraying materials: They were discovered through accident, in an effort to prevent thieving in the vineyards of Bordeaux, France. It seems that workmen on the way to their places of employment were in the habit of foraging on the vineyards of the farmers along the way. To prevent that some of the fruit growers conceived the idea it would be a good thing in order to ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... sisters. With that she remained silent, and looked down as though she had divulged her entire fate. She informed Daniel that they had decided to rent the room to some dependable young man, because there had been considerable petty thieving in the neighbourhood of late and they would like to enjoy the protection of a man, for they were entirely alone, except for the boy who tended the garden. They told him also that they had had several offers, but that they had declined them because they did not like the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... good Scottish ale; This county (Avondale) in former times, Was the cursed climate of rebellious crimes: For Cumberland and it, both kingdoms borders, Were ever ordered, by their own disorders, Some sharking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving, Each taking pleasure in the other's grieving; And many times he that had wealth to-night, Was by the morrow morning beggared quite: Too many years this pell-mell fury lasted, That all these borders were quite spoiled and wasted, Confusion, hurly-burly ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... Thieving is considered disreputable among the Indians; that is, it is highly criminal and infamous to steal from each other. Thieves are compelled to restore what they have stolen, or to make satisfactory amends to the injured party; in their default, their nearest relations ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones |
