"Extortion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fine day after a week's downpour, Members for the most part stayed away from Westminster. Some, it is charitably supposed, have gone to look after their allotments. Others, it is believed, have been kept away by a different reason. The taxicab-drivers, men constitutionally averse from extortion, have refused to enter the railway-station yards so long as the companies persist in exacting from them a whole penny for the privilege. Consequently some of our week-ending legislators are reported to be interned at Waterloo ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings, who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of dagobas and other religious monuments.—Mahawanso, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Malmsbach on the Pegnitz would lately have been bought by the city for a thousand Rhenish gulden, but that Master Ulrich Rummel, whose it was, would not part with it. And we were now required to pay the price of two dozen such strongholds! It was indeed an unheard-of and devilish extortion; and when Kubbeling came to hear of it he turned his wild-cat-skin pocket inside out, and fell ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... perplexed at this time by the cost of living, and go round with him to rebuke the tradesmen who oppress and devour him by overcharges of every kind, we shall find these obdurate persons very quick upon their defence, and full of admirable justification of their supposed extortion. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... is given as 50,000 denarii. This fixes the value of the denarius as .4352 cent, or approximately four-tenths of a cent. It is implied in the introduction that the purpose of the law is to protect the people, and especially the soldiers, from extortion, but possibly, as Buecher has surmised, the emperor may have wished to maintain or to raise the value of the denarius, which had been steadily declining because of the addition of alloy to the coin. If this was the emperor's object, possibly the value of the denarius is set somewhat ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... deny that, in the great art of inspiring large masses of human beings with confidence and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he had made himself popular with the English by giving up the Bengalese to extortion and oppression, or if, on the other hand, he had conciliated the Bengalese and alienated the English, there would have been no cause for wonder. What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief of a small band ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to disrupt the Jewish communal organization and rob the Kahal of all its authority by degrading it to a kind of posse for the capture of recruits and extortion of taxes. But while the Jewish masses hated the Kahal elders, they retained their faith in their spiritual leaders, the rabbis and Tzaddiks. [1] Heeding the command of these leaders, they closed their ranks, and offered stubborn resistance to the dangerous cultural influences threatening ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Butler landed and took command of the city, for which he had not struck a blow. He stationed his garrison in the public buildings, the hotels, and even in private houses; and then commenced a system of oppression and extortion, that—while it made the blood boil in the veins of every southron—has sent his name to the honest thinkers of the future linked with a notoriety which all history proves to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the tithe-farmer is to get from the parishioners what the parson would be ashamed to demand, and so enable the parson to absent himself from his duty. The powers of the tithe-farmer are summary laws and ecclesiastical courts; his livelihood is extortion; his rank in society is generally the lowest; and his occupation is to pounce on the poor in the name of the Lord! He is a species of wolf left by the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence.' A single tithe-proctor had on one occasion ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... imprecated in vain: at last I declared that we all should suffer together, as I would denounce them as having been aware of my intentions, and state that it was only in consequence of my having refused to submit to farther extortion, that they had not fulfilled their agreement. This startled them; for they knew that the Inquisition gladly seized upon all pretexts; and that even if not convicted, their imprisonment would be long. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... both sons were forced to flee; when the elder was taken and imprisoned; when the most atrocious public extortion was practised; and when ruffianly officials regarded the defenceless widows as their prey. Their house had to be mortgaged, and then first one and then the other of their two vineyards; and finally ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... would prove insuperable. It is probable, however, that it would require a show of force before the Natal natives would consent to budge. Indeed, it is absurd to suppose, that anything would induce them to leave peaceful Natal, and plunge into the seething cauldron of bloodshed, extortion, and political plots that we have cooked up in Zululand under the name of a settlement. Proper provisions must first be made for the government of the country, and security to life and property made certain. Till this is ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Matthew J. O'Rourke, after thorough study, fixed it at seventy-five millions, adding that if his report had included the vast issues of fraudulent bonds, the swindling by franchises and favours granted, and peculation by blackmail and extortion, the grand total would aggregate two hundred millions. Of the entire sum stolen ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... rascals have just sacked the chateau of Dampierre. Calls for men are constantly made upon us," which we cannot satisfy, "because the call is general on all sides." The details are curious, and here, notwithstanding the Minister's familiarity with popular misdeeds, he cannot avoid noting one extortion of a new species. "The inhabitants of the villages[3261] collect together, betake themselves to different chateaux, seize the wives and children of their proprietors, and keep them as bail for promises of reimbursement which they force the latter to sign, not merely for ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sharply, reflecting tighter monetary policies and stronger measures to control food prices. At the same time, the government struggled to (a) collect revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; (b) reduce extortion and other economic crimes; and (c) keep afloat the large state-owned enterprises, most of which had not participated in the vigorous expansion of the economy. From 60 to 100 million surplus rural workers are ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... earl, whose revenue ran a losing race with his hospitality, had borrowed at sundry times of the said abbot: for the abbots and the bishops were the chief usurers of those days, and, as the end sanctifies the means, were not in the least scrupulous of employing what would have been extortion in the profane, to accomplish the pious purpose of bringing a blessing on the land by rescuing it from the frail hold of carnal and temporal into the firmer grasp of ghostly and spiritual possessors. But the earl, confident in the number and attachment of his ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... monstrous relation that existed between the dominant and the subject nationalities, not in Greece only, but in every part of the Ottoman Empire where Mohammedans and Christians inhabited the same districts. The second great and general evil was the extortion practised by the tax-gatherers, and this fell upon the poorer Mohammedans equally with the Christians, except in regard to the poll-tax, or haratsch, the badge of servitude, which was levied on Christians alone. All land paid tithe to the State; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... purchase of 'bad debts.'" In pursuit of creditors he was unsparing, and his methods were not infrequently of the nature of blackmail. Jordon, Madame de Beauvilliers, and Saccard himself fell into his power, though Saccard refused to submit to extortion. Another of Busch's lines of business was the purchase of depreciated shares and debentures, thousands of which he collected together, selling them to bankrupts who found difficulty in accounting for real or imaginary ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... "Extortion was the source of this scoundrel's delicacy. We were still too near the Hospital to make any noise. 'Silence!' said I to him, 'you shall have a louis d'or for the job': for less than that he would have helped me ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... expedients an eligible plan could be devised for promoting civilization among the friendly tribes and for carrying on trade with them upon a scale equal to their wants and under regulations calculated to protect them from imposition and extortion, its influence in cementing their interest with ours could ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the officers of the revenue, the provision in favor of trial by jury in criminal cases, will afford the security aimed at. Wilful abuses of a public authority, to the oppression of the subject, and every species of official extortion, are offenses against the government, for which the persons who commit them may be indicted and punished according to the circumstances of the case. The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to depend on circumstances ...
— The Federalist Papers
... funds raised through front businesses, drug trafficking, credit card fraud, extortion, and money from covert supporters. They use ostensibly charitable organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for funding and recruitment. Money for their operations is transferred surreptitiously ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States
... hatred of the great, legalized malefactor, Ames, by opposition to his selfish caprice, and whose utter defeat and discrediting before the public would now place the crown of righteous expediency upon his own chicanery and extortion and his wantonly ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... respected by neither the one nor the other. At present the office is vacant, none having been appointed since the demise of the last who occupied the episcopal chair. That event occurred in the commencement of 1861, and his attempts at extortion were so frequent and undisguised, that his death must have been felt as a great relief by the people. Petitions were sent at that time to Constantinople, praying for the appointment of a Slavish Metropolitan; but, independently of the difficulty of finding anyone ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... and extortion, to say nothing of his exceedingly bad record as a pirate, both in East and West Indian waters, compel a far different estimate of him as a man, from that of Arber, however excellent he was as a mariner. Professor ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... authority and power of Congress and the people of the United States to deal with them. The great question to-day was whether the government was superior to the corporations, or the corporations superior to the government. The corporations had exhibited shameless and unpardonable oppression and extortion, as well as effrontery in their dealing with the people and the Government of the United States." "Our people and our country," said the speaker, "were only able to stand the drafts thus made on their liberties because they were yet ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... Nature, be careless of the individual, but it is extremely careful of the typewriter, and insists on making a special charge for this instrument, officially regarded as a bicycle. But as Sir ERIC GEDDES announced that this extortion, "though legal," was in his opinion "neither just nor expedient," we may hope that it will shortly be abandoned. The Ministry of Transport at last seems ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... a footman—however wounded at her obstinate rejection, have been likely, in pursuit of no legal rights, to have alarmed her by threatening letters and intrusions, for no purpose but one confessedly of pecuniary extortion? From the very mode of pursuing his claim it is plain that Savage felt it to be a false one. It seems, also, to be forgotten by most readers, that at this day real sons—not denied to be such—are continually ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Blucher levied contributions on the poor Parisians, and his army was newly clothed. The Bank of France was called upon to furnish him with several thousand pounds, which, it was said, were to reimburse him for the money lost at play. This, with many other instances of extortion and tyranny, was the cause of Blucher's removal, and he took his departure by ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... pending treaty. The Comte de Soissons, moreover, complained loudly and bitterly of the undue power of the ministers, and especially inveighed against the Chancellor Sillery, whom he unhesitatingly accused of extortion and avarice, of publicly making a trade of justice to the dishonour of the nation, and of ruining those who were compelled to solicit his protection. On this point alone he was in accord with Concini; and it was to this mutual hatred of the ministers that ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... governments, what could be expected but a continued system of war and extortion? It has established itself into a trade. The vice is not peculiar to one more than to another, but is the common principle of all. There does not exist within such governments sufficient stamina whereon to engraft reformation; and the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and his successors, see authorities already given. The best account of James's share in the extortion of confessions may be found in the collection of Curious Tracts published at Edinburgh in 1820. See also King James's own Demonologie, and Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland, vol. i, part ii, pp. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... pretensions being finally shattered, surrendered Nantes to the French by arrangement. England was apparently to bear the entire brunt of the war. Henry was justified in appealing to his subjects for every penny that could be raised, and resorted to "benevolences"—an insidious method of extortion which had been declared illegal in the previous reign, but under the existing abnormal conditions could hardly be resisted. A great demonstration of warlike ardour was made, on the strength of which Spain was urged to pledge herself to throw herself into the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... extortion, charging what they do for a room like this," grumbled Keith, busy at the trunk. "The Sherwoods must pay a mint of money for theirs. I wonder ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... advantage of the law, or skilfully overcoming its obstacles. He had unbounded faith in the power of money where Essie was concerned; at the same time he had no intention of laying himself open to endless extortion, threats, almost inevitable, ultimate scandal. What a bog he had strayed into, a quagmire reaching about him in every direction. He must discover firmer ground ahead, release from the act of that other man, his youth. The memory of the serene purity ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Wine. 5. Washing. This last article was, in my time, regulated by the college, as there were certain privileged washer-women, between whom and the students it was but fair that some proper authority should interfere to prevent extortion, in return for the monopoly granted. Six guineas was the regulated sum; but this paid for everything,—table- linen, &c., as well as for wearing apparel; and it was understood to cover the whole ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... that they may again be made beautiful and take their place in a building there."[1] And again: "We rely upon your zeal and prudence to see that the required blocks of marble are forwarded from Faenza to Ravenna without any extortion from private persons; so that, on the one hand, our desire for the adornment of that city may be gratified, and, on the other, there may be no cause for complaint on the part ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... been guilty of such extortion in the peace with Austria and with Bavaria that he was complained against by those Powers and therefore removed—it was he who advised the war with Spain, and prevented N. from seeing the Duke d'Enghien, whom ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... proprietors who made some of their serfs wait on others. I saw that every use of money, whether for making purchases, or for giving away without an equivalent to another, is handing over a note for extortion from the poor, or its transfer to another man for extortion from the poor. I saw that money in itself was not only not good, but evidently evil, and that it deprives us of our highest good,—labor, and thereby of the enjoyment of our labor, and that that blessing I was not in a position to confer ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... obliged to have recourse to the King of France for succor. Philip, who was then on the throne, entered into his quarrel. Nor was William, on his side, backward; though prodigal to the highest degree, the resources of his tyranny and extortion were inexhaustible. He was enabled to enter Normandy once more with a considerable army. But the opposition, too, was considerable; and the war had probably been spun out to a great length, and had drawn on very bloody consequences, if one of the most extraordinary events which are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the villagers had few complaints to make but, at the place he went to on this occasion, the headman had been behaving as in the old times; and Stanley had to listen to a long series of complaints on behalf of the villagers. The case was fully proved, both as to extortion and ill treatment. Stanley at once deprived the man of his office, and called upon the villagers to assemble and ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... to delight in the opportunity of humbling a European—all along the road when the king is expected the people are patiently waiting as for some dreadful disaster; plague, pestilence or famine are nothing to the misery of being subject to the violence and extortion of this rabble soldiery. ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... Kennedy and his administrative officials and congressional leaders used political extortion and promises of bribes with public money to force the House of Representatives, in January, 1961, to pack the House Rules Committee, imagine how the President could whip Congress, and the whole nation, ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... merest trifle. He might have added, that the top is usually the least nutritious, or "mealy" part of the potato, which would make the loss still less. His third suggestion, he says, he received from a Sligo miller. It was a plan to prevent extortion and high prices, should a famine really come. It consisted in this, that a "nominal subscription" should be entered into by each county, and that a committee of the leading men of each county should be formed, having at their disposal this subscription, should it be found ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... center's control over the financial system. In 1994 strong growth continued in the widening market-oriented areas of the economy. At the same time, the government struggled to (a) collect revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; (b) keep inflation within bounds; (c) reduce extortion and other economic crimes; and (d) keep afloat the large state-owned enterprises, most of which had not participated in the vigorous expansion of the economy. From 60 to 100 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many barely subsisting through part-time ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... generous monks, the government substituted agents and officers from the interior, who, not possessing any ties at Monterey, cared little for the happiness of the inhabitants. The consequence is, that the Californians are heartily tired of these agents of extortion; they have a natural antipathy against custom-house officers; and, above all, they do not like the idea of giving their dollars to carry on the expense of the Mexican wars, in which they feel no interest. Some morning (and they have already very nearly succeeded ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... soon think of buying a rope for his own neck, as of displaying his wealth in the presence of a pasha; but Djeylany has not yet laid aside the customs which the Mekkawys learned under their old government, particularly that of Sherif Ghaleb, who seldom exercised extortion upon single individuals; and they now rely on the promises of Mohammed Aly, that he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... a caustic tongue. His father, he tells us, in his "A Frank Confession of Deeds and Thoughts" (imitated from Rousseau's "Confession"), was also of an independent character in general, and in particular—contrary to the custom of the epoch—detested extortion and bribery, and never accepted gifts. "Sir!" he was accustomed to say to persons who asked favors of him in his official position, "a loaf of sugar affords no reason for condemning your opponent; please take it away and bring legal proof of ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... from twenty thousand to thirty-six thousand. And all the while, encamped upon the heights round about Paris, were victorious German troops squatting like Semitic creditors in Russia, refusing to budge till their account was settled to the last farthing of extortion. ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... the great profanitie and severall Abuses which usually fal forth at Pennie-Brydals proving fruitful Seminaries of all lasciviousnesse and debausherie, as well by the excessive number of people conveened thereto, as by the extortion of them therein, and licentiousnesse thereat, To the great dishonour of God, the scandall of our Christian Profession, and prejudice of the Countreys welfare; Therefore they Ordain every Presbyterie in this Kingdome, To take such ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... that such abuses have been discovered in the commissariate transactions of the province of Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before enlarging on this deplorable business. We need no longer wonder at the terror caused by the establishment of the Press in Africa, as was contemplated ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... not invite competition from abroad, but is based on the controlling principle that competition at home will always prevent monopoly on the part of the capitalist, assure good wages to the laborer, and defend the consumer against the evils of extortion. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... away. "Never do that," he said briefly; "private interviews," thought he, acting on past experience, "with women always mean proposals, and with men always mean extortion." ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... vice which keeps so firm a hold upon human nature, and governs it with so unlimited a tyranny, since it cannot be wholly eradicated, ought at least to be confined to particular objects, to thrift and penury, to private fraud and extortion, and never suffered to prey upon the public; and should certainly be rejected as the most unqualifying circumstance for any employment, where bribery ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... even although their comforts may be diminished by the change. Free negroes won't serve, and the official must not employ a slave; thus, a gentleman sent out to look after the interest of his country, and in his own person to uphold its dignity, must either submit to the dictation and extortion of his white servant—if even then he can keep him—or he may be called upon suddenly, some fine morning, to do all the work of housemaid, John, cook, and knife and button boy, to the neglect of those duties he was appointed ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the mines of Nerchinsk, their terms of service varying from two to twenty years, or for life. I was told that the longest sentence now given is for twenty years. The condition of prisoners in former times was doubtless bad, and there are many stories of cruelty and extortion practiced by keepers and commandants. The dwellings of prisoners were frequently no better than the huts of savages; their food and clothing were poor and insufficient; they were compelled to labor in half frozen mud and water for twelve or fourteen hours daily, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... good deeds outweighed his evil ones. William II., after Paul's death, kept the Abbey in his own hands for four years, using, as was his wont, the revenues for his own advantage. His death in the New Forest was considered by the monks of the Abbey as a special punishment for the extortion he had ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... banish care. Fortune of war, Sir John,—fortune of war, never be daunted! Up to-day, down to-morrow. Come what may—York or Lancaster—still a rich man always falls on his legs. Five hundred or so to the captain; a noble or two, out of pure generosity, to Ned Porpustone (I scorn extortion), and you and the fair young dame may breakfast at home to-morrow, unless the captain or his favourite lieutenant is taken prisoner; and then, you see, they will buy off their necks by letting you out of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could be made for anything not so entered. Even if the agent made no profit he was bound to return double what he had received, if he made poor profit he had to make up the deficiency; but he was not responsible for loss by robbery or extortion on his travels. On his return, the principal must give a receipt for what was handed over to him. Any false entry or claim on the agent's part was penalised three-fold, on the principal's part six-fold. In normal cases profits were divided according ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when this failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in discharge of debts that they declared to have been previously contracted. Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to advance 82l. from his private means, so as to save his people from this extortion; but he afterwards thought it best to remove them from these dangerous neighbours to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to raise wigwams and prepare the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... regard to it until my ignorance has lost something of its density. Liverpool impressed me unfavorably, but I scarcely saw it. The working class seemed exceedingly ill dressed, stolid, abject and hopeless. Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. I must look over that city again if I ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... official position.'[126] It was not to be expected that such people should discharge their duties with intelligence and scrupulous equity. Pius V., himself an incorruptible Inquisitor, had to condemn one of his lieutenants for corruption or extortion of money by menaces.[127] There was still another source of peril and annoyance to which scholars were exposed. Their comrades, engaged in similar pursuits, not unfrequently wreaked private spite by denouncing them to the Congregation.[128] Van Linden indicated heresies in Osorius, Giovius, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... some of whom turned their offices to commodity in a manner which would have excited the admiration of Falstaff himself. "The shop-keepers," writes Mr. Jackson, "are Justices of Peace. They have the means of extortion, and the power of enforcing payments. They are first the criminals, then the judges; and the court of appeal seems to be so constructed as to prevent an honest verdict from passing into effect. The practice of the court is unjust, oppressive, and influenced. Favourite attorneys were made deputy ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... plausible manners of venal justice; the shewy, ostentatious parade of hardened opulence. Never be tempted to increase the number of sycophants to an ambitious despot; to swell the catalogue of slaves to an unjust tyrant; never suffer thyself to be allured to infamy, to the practice of extortion, to the commission of outrage, by the fatal privilege of oppressing thy fellows; always recollect it will be at the expence of the most bitter remorse thou wilt acquire this baneful advantage. Never be the mercenary accomplice of the spoilers of thy country; they ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the offering of public worship ceased. The restriction was in time removed, and the king acknowledged the bishop's plea that he should endeavour to replenish the coffers of his poor see, so that the injured cathedral might be repaired, rather than reduce it to poverty by extortion. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... bagatelle, and a white corduroy sport blouse and a couple of imported evening gowns they robbed me on—but I didn't mind. You expect to be robbed for anything really good in New York, only the imitation stuff that's worn by the idle poor being cheaper than elsewhere. And I was so busy in this whirl of extortion that I forgot all about the boys and their troubles till I got back to ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... publishing his unfinished work in the Revue Etrangere, he should be permitted to send the novel in book form to a publisher at once, instead of waiting the three months stipulated in the agreement. MM. Buloz and Bonnaire refused this arrangement, declaring that it would be extortion; and after giving them twenty-four hours for reflection, Balzac announced his intention of writing no longer for the Revue de Paris, and prepared to bring ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerous and some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and some that cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that a guide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are you allowed to be a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay. The guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man who is to take your life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is his turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for some ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves. Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. "Who will ever be found guilty," exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, "if it be enough to deny?" "And who," replied Julian, "will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?" In the general administration of peace and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... times, and far into the republican, the chief domestic incidents turn on the strife of the upper caste or patricians with the lower or plebeians, manifesting itself by the latter asserting their right to a share in the lands conquered by their valour; by the extortion of the Valerian law; by the admission of the Latins and Hernicans to conditions of equality; by the transference of the election of tribunes from the centuries to the tribes; by the repeal of the law prohibiting the marriage of plebeians with patricians and ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... seizure, expropriation, abduction, ablation; subtraction, withdrawal &c 38; abstraction, ademption^; adrolepsy^. dispossession; deprivation, deprivement^; bereavement; divestment; disherison^; distraint, distress; sequestration, confiscation; eviction &c 297. rapacity, rapaciousness, extortion, vampirism; theft &c 791. resumption; reprise, reprisal; recovery &c 775. clutch, swoop, wrench; grip &c (retention) 781; haul, take, catch; scramble. taker, captor. [Descent of one of the earth's crustal plates ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... all this were too little, they would needs make all the realm tributary to them, and exacted thence yearly most unjust and wrongful taxes. So dear cost us the friendship of the city of Rome. Wherefore, if they have gotten these things of us by extortion, through their fraud and subtle sleights, we see no reason why we may not pluck away the same from them again by lawful ways and just means. And if our kings in that darkness and blindness of former times, gave them these things of their own accord and liberality ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... unwilling to meet the Houses. Lawless and desperate as their counsels were, the boldest of them had too much value for his neck to think of resorting to benevolences, privy-seals, ship-money, or any of the other unlawful modes of extortion which had been familiar to the preceding age. The audacious fraud of shutting up the Exchequer furnished them with about twelve hundred thousand pounds, a sum which, even in better hands than theirs, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... necessity subjugated his will, his contempt, his rage, and he inwardly decided that the attorney's extortion must be submitted to, his wife—whom he never made any account of in the transaction, whom he reckoned carelessly on turning about as he pleased, by a few compliments and cajoleries—should have started up, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... American colonists frightened the natives, who soon began to oppress the new-comers. The Roman Catholic priesthood were also bitterly opposed to this new Protestant element; and, by their advice, oppressive taxation of every kind was practiced, especially, the extortion of money for titles to land which had been guaranteed to the colonists by the Mexican government. Austin went to Mexico to remonstrate. He was thrown into a filthy dungeon, where for many a month he never saw a ray of light, nor even the ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... under circumstances that would have stopped the publication of the paper, and inflicted on him the most serious injury, he determined to run all risks, rather than submit to what now appeared to him in the light of an extortion. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... not to let money raised by indulgences leave Germany, but to use it against the Turks. Another long list of grievances relating to the tyranny and extortion of Rome was presented in 1510. The acts of the Diet of Augsburg in the summer of 1518 are eloquent testimony to the state of popular feeling when Luther had just begun his career. To this Diet Leo X sent as special legate ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the disappointed governor could say nothing in his own vindication, but that they were debauched by their intercourse with the inhabitants of Dover. His pupil, however, was so much offended at their extortion, that he absolutely refused to employ them, even when they abated one half in their demand, and swore he would stay on board till the packet should be able to enter the harbour, rather ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... blackmail, it's not extortion. If I came to you and said out and out, flat, tear up that account of mine or I'll boycott you—that, Al, that would be all ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... power and gas supply of Salt Lake City; and its franchises left it free to extort whatever it could from the people of the whole country side, by virtue of a partnership with the Church authorities whereby extortion was given the protection of ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... him, "Now ye the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... not expected this, and he also had not expected that the Isvostchick would demand eight roubles for his fare to the "France." Henry knew that this was the barest extortion, and he had sworn to himself long ago that he would allow nobody to "do" him. He looked at the rain and submitted. "After all, it's war time," ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... thought concerning planting or pruning. I feast on the fish, without so much as the trouble of catching them; and still less of constructing the pond. By the provision he makes, that is, by avarice and extortion, he nurtures a brood of sycophants and slaves. Wife, children, friends, servants, all have the same character, only differently shaded: except that, if any of them can become his tyrants and tormentors, they all are ready for the task. I have studied the noble ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... three dollars the bushel, and vegetables not to be had at any price. The appearance of the agents for taking the census of New-Mexico had occasioned great alarm among the pueblos or villages. They feared that the account of their property was taken by the Government for the purpose of extortion and seizure. The Apaches have committed no depredations of late, but the Navajoes have broken their treaty by stealing several thousand sheep from the settlements on the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... extortion and monopoly prevailed among the monied men, and a hollow magnificence among the gentry, bribery had tainted even the lords. All were hurrying on in a stream of venality, dissipation, and want; and the nation, amid the prosperity of the kingdom in a long reign of peace, was ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... The strain that the extortion of the promise had put upon her feelings had exhausted the girl; she then pressed her hands to her eyes and dropped on the ottoman. For a long while father and daughter sat opposite each other without speaking. At ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Chicago stockyards would come down along the trails into the Indian Nations to meet the northbound herds and to try to divert them to this or that market as a shipping-point. The Kiowas and Comanches, not yet wholly confined to their reservations, sometimes took tribute, whether in theft or in open extortion, of the herds laboring upward through the long slow season. Trail-cutters and herd-combers, licensed or unlicensed hangers-on to the northbound throngs of cattle, appeared along the lower trails—with some reason, occasionally; ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... issued by Felipe IV for the protection of the Chinese. One (dated June 8, 1628) orders the governor of the Philippines to protect them from extortion and oppression in the matter of tributes and that of permissions granted them to travel in the islands; another (August 17) refers to him the demand that all Chinese except the married Christians be strictly confined within the Parian. On March 7, 1629, the king orders him to ascertain whether ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... Evelyn (Diary, 11 June, 1696) writes of him as having been formerly a "mean goldsmith" and become rich by extortion. He had purchased an estate at Helmsley, co. York, once the property of the Duke of Buckingham, a transaction which drew forth the following lines from Pope (Imitation of Bk. ii, Satire ii, of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... "What extortion!" cried Isabel, with an indignation that secretly unnerved him. He trembled upon the verge of confession; but he had finally the moral force to resist. He suffered her to compute the cost of their stay at Niagara without allowing those three dollars ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... genius of the place, and I could almost wish that I had paid the ten pesetas extra which the custodian demanded for showing his apartment in the palace. On the ground the demand of two dollars seemed a gross extortion; yet it was not too much for a devotion so rich as mine to have paid, and I advise other travelers to buy themselves off from a vain regret by giving it. If ever a memory merited the right to levy tribute on all comers to the place it haunts, Washington Irving's is that memory. ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... subject employers have generally remained silent, offering few rebuttals to these charges of cruelty, extortion, and robbery. The sewing-women and their friends have remonstrated, but the oppressors have rarely condescended to reply. Even those of the same sex, who have large establishments and employ numbers of women, have seldom done so. This silence has been significant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... odious or vile: and when ever he shall avoid this, he shall fully have plaid his part, and in the other disgraces he shall find no danger at all. There is nothing makes him so odious, as I said, as his extortion of his subjects goods, and abuse of their women, from which he ought to forbear; and so long as he wrongs not his whole people, neither in their goods, nor honors, they live content, and he hath only to strive with the Ambition of some few: which many waies and easily too, is restrain'd. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... proportion as it is easier for the state to influence the value of paper money as compared with specie, and as its influence is more irresistible.(938) The compulsory circulation of paper money is a much more powerful and yet a much more simple screw by means of which to practice extortion than is the most burdensome taxation or forced loan, and at the same time the most comprehensive power which a government can possess to carry out both these measures. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... hearing this defense, understood that the cat had been a pretext for extortion, and decided that the two claims offset each other, so that no payment was ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... inspired by democratic and communistic ideals. Wiclif was by far the greatest doctrinal reformer before the reformation; but his eyes, too, were first opened to the doctrinal errors of the Roman Church by joining in a great national and patriotic movement against the alien domination and extortion of the Church. The Bohemian revolt, made famous by the name of John Huss, was quite as much political and social as religious. Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a religious prophet. In his famous interview with ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare and occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they were made perpetual: four praetors were annually empowered to sit in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion, peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new praetors and new questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his extensive jurisdiction in the Highlands. Whether James designed, as his enemies suspected, to commit murder, or only, as his friends affirmed, to commit extortion by threatening to commit murder, cannot now be ascertained. "I know nothing of the Scotch law," said Halifax to King Charles; "but this I know, that we should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle has been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Rome. Even the clemency of Caesar had made him enemies, for there were many who hoped to profit by proscription. His justice made foes among those who wished to grow rich through extortion and oppression. He secluded himself while engaged on his reforms, and this lost him popularity. A conspiracy was organized against him by a soldier named Caius Cassius and others of the discontented. For leader they selected Marcus Junius Brutus, ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... civil discord was composed, he preferred a charge of extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, a man of consular dignity, who had obtained the honour of a triumph. On the acquittal of the accused, he resolved to retire to Rhodes [13], with the view not only of avoiding the public ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... thieves, and has been the burial-pit of many a promising young fellow's hopes. There are two tariffs for everything—one for natives, the other for the British subaltern and the British tourist; and the British subaltern and the British tourist are foolish enough to submit to the extortion in most cases. With some half-dozen honourable exceptions, the traders are what is popularly known as "Jews" in their mode of dealing. They cozen on principle, sell articles that will not last, and charge preposterous prices for them; they ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... regret that you should yourself have yielded to the temptation of expressing opinions which you have had no leisure either to sound or to test. My assertion, however, that the rich lived mainly by robbing the poor, referred not to Usury, but to Rent; and the facts respecting both these methods of extortion are perfectly and indubitably ascertainable by any person who himself wishes to ascertain them, and is able to take the necessary time and pains. I see no sign, throughout the whole of these letters, of any wish whatever, on the part of one of their writers, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... account as I am able. Under the consulship of Lucius Tullus and Marcus Lepidus, Publius Autronius and Publius Sylla,[109] having been tried for bribery under the laws against it,[110] had paid the penalty of the offense. Shortly after Catiline, being brought to trial for extortion,[111] had been prevented from standing for the consulship, because he had been unable to declare himself a candidate within the legitimate number of days.[112] There was at that time, too, a young patrician of the most daring spirit, needy and discontented, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... destitute, the members of the council of finance were practicing gross extortion, and living in extravagance. The king was naturally light-hearted and gay, but the deplorable condition of the kingdom occasionally plunged him into the deepest of melancholy. A lady of the court one day remarked to ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... never.[137] We have plenty of great oaths, And cloth enough in our clothes, But charity many men loathes, Worse was it never. Alas, now is lechery called love indeed, And murder named manhood in every need, Extortion is called law, so God me speed; Worse was it never. Youth walketh by night with swords and knives, And ever among true men leseth their lives, Like heretics we occupy other men's wives, Now-a-days in England: Bawds be the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... important divisions. An unprincipled minister eagerly accepted the services of these mercenaries. An honest minister reluctantly submitted, for the sake of the commonwealth, to what he considered as a shameful and odious extortion. But during many years every minister, whatever his personal character might be, consented, willingly or unwillingly, to manage the Parliament in the only way in which the Parliament could then be managed. It at length ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... poor. If a tax is so collected, as to leave opportunities to procure the commodity, without paying it; the hope of gain will always surmount the fear of punishment. If, when the veteran has served you at the risque of life, you withold his hire; it will be in vain to threaten usury and extortion with imprisonment and fines. If, in your armies, you suffer it to be any man's interest, rather to preserve the life of a horse than a man; be assured, that your own sword is drawn for your enemy: for there will always ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... that little millennium by talking about foul play as though it were all on one side and the foulest of the foul not on yours. You will only retard the business of the court. You are indicted with extortion and sharp practice in all your dealings, with cheating and misleading your customers, attempting to cheat and betray your friends, and breaking all the rules of civilised crime. You are not invited to plead either way, because this court would not attach the slightest value to your ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... rank when other difficulties are to come: drunkenness is pretty much the same thing in all parts of the world, and gathers misery around it as easily in an African village as in an English city. Had the cortege submitted to extortion and insult, they felt that their night by the river would have been a precarious one—even if they had been in a humour to sleep in a swamp when a town was at hand. These things gave occasion to them to resort to force. The desperate nature of their whole enterprise in starting for Zanzibar ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... given at times to the use of bhang, which does more than anything else to dull the faculties and deaden the conscience of the unfortunate who surrenders himself to its seductive spells. The inevitable results were for him the premature loss of health and strength, and for his people misrule, extortion and widespread unhappiness. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... allowed to occupy this field. Unreasonable restrictions upon the borrowing power of cities by placing obstacles in the way of municipal ownership of public utilities tend to deprive the people of the most effective safeguard against the extortion of private monopolies. ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides! which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but within, they are full of extortion and excess.—Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... gave the verdict, Mr. Martin! Guilty all the way down the line—conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, and all the others. The only 'not guilty' verdict was a minor one. They decided that Hedgepeth wasn't involved in the actual kidnapping itself, and therefore wasn't guilty of the physical assault of ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... this a life, to break thy sleep, To rise as soon as day doth peep? To tire thy patient ox or ass By noon, and let thy good days pass, Not knowing this, that Jove decrees Some mirth t' adulce man's miseries? No; 'tis a life to have thine oil Without extortion from thy soil; Thy faithful fields to yield thee grain, Although with some, yet little, pain; To have thy mind, and nuptial bed, With fears and cares uncumbered; A pleasing wife, that by thy side Lies softly panting like a bride. This is to live, and to endear Those minutes Time ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... appropriation of the four millions and a half, the result of the extortion inflicted on the Senate of Hamburg, in the affair of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... incapacitated for any exertion whatever, either bodily or mental. The affairs of his realm were neglected, and his bailiffs and feudal chiefs, left with irresponsible power, were guilty of such acts of extortion and tyranny, that, in the province of Suabia the barons combined, and a fierce insurrection broke out. Forty important towns united in the confederacy, and secured the co-operation of Strasburg, Mentz and other large cities on the Rhine. Other of the Swiss provinces were on the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... statutes which give rise to such prosecutions are the lex Iulia on bribery, and three others, which are similarly entitled, and which relate to judicial extortion, to illegal combinations for raising the price of corn, and to negligence in the charge of public moneys. These deal with special varieties of crime, and the penalties which they inflict on those who infringe them ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... And thus dividing of my fatal hours, The payments of my love I read and cross; Subtracting, set my sweets unto my sours, My joys' arrearage leads me to my loss. And thus mine eyes a debtor to thine eye, Which by extortion gaineth all their looks, My heart hath paid such grievous usury, That all their wealth lies in thy beauty's books. And all is thine which hath been due to me, And I a bankrupt, quite undone ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... prouinces Hee passed through, perceiuing his princes, Lords, and others of the commontee, Who was oppressour, and who to pouertee Was drawen and brought, and who was clene in life, And was by mischiefe and by strife With ouer leding and extortion: And good and badde of eche condition Hee aspied: and his ministers als, Who did trought, and which of hem was fals: Howe the right and lawes of the land Were execute, and who durst take in hand To disobey his statutes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... where interest is permitted, the law in order to prevent the extortion of usury, generally fixes the highest rate which can be taken without incurring a penalty. This rate ought always to be somewhat above the lowest market price, or the price which is commonly paid for the use of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... expenditures subject to control. He was able to keep ambassadors regularly abroad, for the first time, and in many other ways to support a more expensive administration, though often by unpopular and illegal means of extortion from the people. He formed foreign political and commercial treaties in all directions, and encouraged the voyages of the Cabots to America. He brought a great deal of business constantly before the Royal ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... had been caused in Perth and its neighborhood, by the exposure of an anonymous attempt at extortion, of which a lady of distinction had lately been made the object. As her name had already been publicly mentioned in an application to the magistrates, there could be no impropriety in stating that the lady in question was Mrs. Glenarm—whose approaching union with the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... good office the State Children's Department fills is that of advice gratis. One of the most striking chapters in Gen. Booth's "Darkest England" dealt with the helplessness of the poor and the ignorant in the face of difficulties, of injustice, and of extortion. When I was in Chicago in 1893 I saw that the first university settlement, that of Hull House, presided over by Miss Jane Addams (St. Jane some of her friends call her) was the centre to is which the poor American, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... north-east. Yussuf rode behind Rupert and Edgar by turns, so as to divide the labour between the two heiries. A few villages were passed, but the inhabitants fled into their houses or into the fields on seeing the approach of the party, the arrival of strangers meaning extortion and demands for tribute. So they journeyed for several days, until one afternoon they came to a large village, which was evidently inhabited. They alighted and knocked at the door of the principal house. No answer was at first returned, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... cruelty brought against Priscus were too serious to be heard by a panel of judges, inasmuch as he was accused of having received bribes to condemn and even put to death innocent persons. Fronto Catius spoke in reply, and urged that the prosecution should be confined within the law dealing with extortion: he is wonderfully skilled at drawing tears, and throughout his speech he filled his sails with a breeze of pathos. Then a hubbub arose, and there were loud exclamations of applause and dissent; some held that a trial of the case by the Senate was barred by law; others declared that the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... glassware, ironware, boots and shoes, china and crockery, women's tawdry finery, children's toys, furniture, pictures, succeeding one another indiscriminately, old and new, and cried off with an incessant jargon of bargaining, pierced with shrill screams of extortion and expostulation. A few mild, slim, young London policemen sauntered, apparently unseeing, unhearing, among the fevered, nervous Semitic crowd, in which the Oriental types were by no means so marked as in New ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... their passage-money at once from Suez to Alexandria; and it is described as the wiser mode to pay only to Cairo, and then take the choice of the several conveyances which are sure to be found there. The Arab drivers and carriers seem to have fully acquired those arts of extortion, which flourish in such abundance wherever English money is to be found. They cheat, and lie, and cajole, with extraordinary assiduity; and the majority of the passengers on this occasion seem to have been detained unnecessarily on the road, and treated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... such meetings is but a just reproach for their failures in this kind; but the melancholy relations of the great necessities tradesmen are driven to, who support their credit in spite of the faithless promises which are made them, and the abatement which they suffer when paid by the extortion of upper servants, is what would stop the most thoughtless man in the career of his pleasures, if rightly represented ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... handwriting. Mr. Mason had informed him, that Mr. Masters had lately read a paper at the Antiquarian Society against some mistake of Mr. Walpole's respective a Duchess of Norfolk; and he adds, "This I informed Mr. Walpole of in my letter, and said something to him of Masters' extortion in making me pay forty pounds towards the repairing his vicarage-house at Waterbeche, which he pretended he had fitted up ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... century a Governor of Yloilo is said to have absconded in a sailing-ship with a large sum of the public funds. A local Governor was then also ex-officio administrator; and, although the system was afterwards reformed, official extortion was rife throughout the whole Spanish administration of the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Garral!" said Torres, for the last time, for he could scarcely believe that his ignoble attempt at extortion had collapsed. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... hive, Profusion of honey; Pinguinalis[38] brought butter, And with wax Cereana[39] came all in a flutter. These presents the Emperor gladly accepted, Save Galleria's theft, which with scorn was rejected, So little do moths of great minds patronise The base who by fraud or extortion would rise. In the mean time the Empress her Swifts[40] had sent out To deliver the cards for this elegant rout. Puss[41] sent an excuse, with the Kitten[42] engaged, And the Eggar,[43] poor lady, ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... Finance and Revenue Committee a bill entitled 'An Act for the Taxing of Personal Incomes, and for the Levying of a Withholding Tax.' Fellow citizens, words fail me to express my horror of this diabolic proposition, this proposed instrument of tyrannical extortion, borrowed from the Dark Ages of the Twentieth Century! Why, if this young nobleman had not taken his blade in hand, I'd ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... at Mexico, according to certain regulations. The officers of the trading ships shall be paid for four months only, each voyage; and the ships must leave Acapulco by December, and reach the islands by March. Extortion from the sailors by the royal officials at Acapulco is strictly forbidden. The official appointed to inspect the Chinese ships at Manila must be chosen, not by the governor alone, but by him and the Audiencia jointly. The shipment of money ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... spectator, but how the men with nothing to do can endure it is a wonder. I went yesterday to call on a Turk at Karnac; he is a gentlemanly man, the son of a former Moudir, who was murdered, I believe, for his cruelty and extortion. He has 1,000 feddans (acres, or a little more) of land, and lives in a mud house, larger but no better than any fellahs, with two wives and the brother of one of them. He leaves the farm to his fellaheen altogether, I fancy. There was one book, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... announced. In stepped two men bearing a huge tray filled with melons, apricots, sugar, rock-candy, nuts, pistachios, etc., all of which we must, of course, turn over to the khan-keeper and his servants, and pay double their value to the bearers, as a present. This polite method of extortion was followed the next morning by one of a bolder and more peremptory nature. Notwithstanding the feast of the night before at our expense, and in addition to furnishing us with bedclothes which we really ought to have been paid to sleep in, our oily host ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... that of others. In the first case he ought to be sparing, in the second he ought not to neglect any opportunity for liberality. And to the prince who goes forth with his army, supporting it by pillage, sack, and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this liberality is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor your subjects' you can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander; ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... anise and cummin and omit the weightier matters of the Law,—judgment, mercy and faith. Ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess! Woe, woe unto you! Ye are like whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men's bones! Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye build tombs for the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous while ye yourselves be children ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... effects of the meeting of each civil court, which, for the public accommodation, he from time to time had occasion to assemble. The vast load of debt with which they so frequently felt themselves burdened, through the imposition and extortion of the multitude of petty dealers by whom the colony was so much troubled, with the difficulties under which the industrious man laboured for want of some other mode of providing the necessaries which he required, were grievances of which he was determined to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... system of extortion was successfully launched the Trust determined to reward its patrons, as a means of pacifying ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... code of business the words extortion and theft had an unmistakable significance. Business men did not consider it at all dishonorable to oppress their workers; to manufacture and sell goods under false pretenses; to adulterate prepared foods and drugs; to demand ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... subjected to all manner of extortion and annoyance, being repeatedly brought before the authorities on the most absurd charges. The fear that her husband would be put to death so haunted her, that she was willing to meet the most exorbitant demands, hoping thereby to conciliate ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... Europe, Mazzini gave a higher faith and a watchword that is great as the watchwords of the world. Equal rights mean equal duties. The Rights of Man imply the Duties of Man. He taught the millions of workers in Italy that their life-purpose lay not in the extortion of privileges, but in making themselves worthy of those privileges; that it was not in conquering capitalists that the path of victory lay, but in all classes of Italians striving side by side towards a common end, the beauty and freedom of Italy, by establishing freedom and beauty ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... conciliate the masses. The ruling families deeply resented our endeavours to introduce an equitable determination of rights and assessment of land revenue. They saw that it would put an end to the system of pillage and extortion which had been practised from time immemorial; they felt that their authority was being diminished, and that they would no longer be permitted to govern their estates in the same despotic manner as formerly. On the other hand, although the agricultural ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... more expedient than alive, extortion from a living victim too risky an enterprise. Their plans were carefully prepared. Gabrielle was to hire a ground-floor apartment, so that any noise, such as footsteps or the fall of a body, would not be ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving |
