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Highway robbery   /hˈaɪwˌeɪ rˈɑbəri/   Listen
Highway robbery

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






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Highway robbery" Quotes from Famous Books



... they turned a corner of the shrubbery leading up to the house, and found themselves suddenly face to face with Mrs Rimbolt with a gentleman and two or three of her lady guests. Jeffreys flushed up as guiltily as if he had been detected in a highway robbery, and absolutely forgot to salute. Even Raby, who was not at all sure that her aunt had not overheard their last words, was taken aback and looked confused. Mrs Rimbolt bridled up like a cat going into action. She took in the situation at a glance, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

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

... south,' in which the negro is deprived, substantially, of all his political rights, by open violence or by frauds as mean as any that have been committed by penitentiary convicts, and as openly and boldly done as any highway robbery. By this system, and by the acquiescence of a few northern states, the men who led in the Civil War have been restored to power, and hope, practically, to reverse all the results of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... various important circumstances were brought to light. The fact that his watch and purse remained made it plain that it was not a case of common highway robbery, and the loss of the pocket-book showed that the deed was prompted by a desire for something more than ordinary plunder. Proceeding from this, various circumstances arose which, in addition to the terrible accusation ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... to this sentimental deception, and began to think that she really was a more exquisitely aggrieved woman than she had imagined. At times, when this vague load of iniquity put upon her dead husband assumed, through the mystery of her friends, the rumor of murder and highway robbery, and even an attempt upon her own life, she went to her room, a little frightened, and had "a good cry," reappearing more mournful and pathetic than ever, and corroborating the suspicions of her friends. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

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

... went badly with him. Success made him abominably conceited, and being without any morality self-confidence drove him to disastrous lengths. Now once more he was very near destruction and he knew it, very near things like forging and highway robbery, and other things worse than they. He knew that he was very near; he peered over into the pit and did not wish to descend. He was not a bad man, and had he not believed himself to be a clever one all might yet ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

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

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

... raise herself, but she felt sharp pain. She heard some one leaping over the fence near her, and wondered, without moving her head, if it could be a tramp bent on highway robbery. The next instant, a man was leaning over her. "It's not a tramp," she thought, before he had ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... memory for the sale-price of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors,—multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring out its effective amount in current coin. Dog-cheap, it must be owned, for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of mutiny, injustice, anarchy and highway robbery; a purchase that might have proved dear enough to another man ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

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

... adjusting, instead of inflaming, these squalid quarrels, and by "refusing to take a shilling from a man who must undoubtedly would not have had another left," he reduced a supposed income of L500 a year to L300. And if the picture of the poor wretch, driven to highway robbery by the sight of his starving family, whom Tom Jones relieved from his own scanty purse, be not proof enough of the compassion that tempered Justice Fielding's sternness, we have his own express pleading for these unhappy victims ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... chose a very inappropriate place for my purpose. 'The Old Homestead' there is furnished with a telephone, a livery-stable, and all the modern protections against highway robbery. Besides, there is a cold chicken and a bottle of choice claret in the basket with which to supplement the larder of our host of the inn. We will take luncheon while my chauffeur is placing us on an even keel again, and no ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... tables on the jail and invaded it bodily. For now nearly five years the Public Education Association has kept school in the Tombs, for the boys locked up there awaiting trial. Of thirty-one pupils on this school register, when I examined it one day, twelve were charged with burglary, four with highway robbery, and three with murder. That was the gang run to earth at last. Better late than never. The windows of their prison overlooked the spot where the gallows used to stand that cut short many a career such as they pursued. They were soberly attentive to their studies, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

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

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

... spirits, or ropes, or instruments of escape to be concealed about the person, to strip them to ascertain the fact. A melancholy detection took place a few days ago. A poor woman had a rope found upon her, concealed for the purpose of liberating her husband, who was then sentenced to death for highway robbery, which sentence was to be put into execution in a few days. She was, of course, taken before a magistrate, and ordered into Newgate to await her trial. She was a young and pretty little Irish woman, with an infant in ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... the foot of Gunnerby Hill, and is intersected with patches of copse and with swampy spots. The extensive commons on the north road, most of which are now enclosed, and in general a relaxed state of police, exposed the traveller to a highway robbery in a degree which is now unknown, except in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. Aware of this circumstance, Jeanie mended her pace when she heard the trampling of a horse behind, and instinctively drew to one side of the road, as if to allow as much room for the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

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

... a reason, rivalry in business is not a reason, need of expansion is not a reason. These are excuses only, not causes of war. There is no money in war. There is no chance of highway robbery in the byways of history which can repay anything tangible of the expense of the expedition. The gray old strategists do not care for this. It is fair to them to say they are not sordid. They care no more for the financial exhaustion of a nation ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... and the culture which then prevailed, were made possible solely through the facilities which were given to inter-migration. Good roads connected the ends and dissected the width and breadth of the great Roman Empire. Travel was well protected. A well-drilled army suppressed highway robbery, and an excellent navy put down piracy. A resident of Gaul could with ease settle in Syria, while the Syrian, if he so desired, could find with ease a home in Gaul. The residents of Brittania and Greece could with comparative ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

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

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

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

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

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

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

... "The garroting system of highway robbery, which has been so fashionable for some time past in New York, and which has so much alarmed the people of that city, has been introduced in Boston, and was practised on Thomas W. Steamburg, barber, on Thursday night. While crossing the Common to his home, he was attacked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

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

... of highway robbery so well that it deceived even my ears." Lord Farquhart spoke somewhat stiffly. "I had not realized that you were ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... discontent and repining generally prevails in a colony. People who have lived miserably in England, who have long doubtfully hovered between suicide and highway robbery, determine at length to adopt the still more melancholy alternative of emigration. After bequeathing a few tender sighs to the country which they have hitherto regarded rather as a step-mother than a parent; and having ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

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

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

... but highway robbery, I call it. We poor peasants had little to lose, but with you, ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

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

... believe that at worst the dashing outlaw could never have been a very bad fellow. Certainly the author has carefully kept him from participation in the grosser acts of lawlessness of which his revengeful old partner Ben Marston, the more typical bushranger, is guilty. Cattle-stealing and highway robbery as supervised by Starlight are allowable, and even meritorious, in so far as they afford him opportunities to practise some facetious deception on the police. Such raids ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... deserving of a slight whipping. For I am not apprehensive, that you should correct with the rod one that deserves to suffer severer stripes: since you assert that pilfering is an equal crime with highway robbery, and threaten that you would prune off with an undistinguishing hook little and great vices, if mankind were to give you the sovereignty over them. If he be rich, who is wise, and a good shoemaker, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... Brennan referred to these deputy marshals in an official report to the Council of Chicago as "thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts," and in his testimony before the Commission itself he said: "Some of the deputy marshals who are now over in the county jail ... were arrested while deputy marshals for highway robbery."[26] Several newspaper men, when asked to testify regarding the character of these United States deputies, referred to them variously as "drunkards," "loafers," "bums," and "criminals." The now well-known journalist, Ray Stannard Baker, was at that time reporting the strike ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... escapes without punishment. Some examples have occurred recently which show that the judges of the superior courts are alive to their duty and that they can perform it when the occasion arises. A man named John H. Wood, a former soldier, was convicted of highway robbery, and he was speedily sentenced to imprisonment for life in Folsom Penitentiary. Judge Cook who passed sentence on him took the position that a man who used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime should receive the ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

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

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

... mourning over his ruined fortunes, and feebly said something about taking some mules off my hands at a fair price, I shut him off firmly. Whenever that old crook talks about taking anything off your hands he's plotting as near highway robbery as they'll let him stay out of jail for. He was sad when I refused two hundred and fifty dollars a span for my ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

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

... whereabouts; but Mr. Michael Chalmette, an officer detailed by the U.S. Marshal in New Orleans to arrest Leon Sangrado, at the request of the Republic of Chili, on the charge of repeatedly committing murder and highway robbery in that country, was entirely sure that the missing person was sitting beside him, handcuffed to his left wrist, and that both were speeding toward New Orleans as fast as a railway-car could ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

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

... scheme, that was all. Selpdorf forgot that Sagan is a wild beast who can only be fed with blood!' Counsellor paused. 'The highway robbery with violence to which I have been subjected is Sagan's bull-headed translation of Selpdorf's hint to detain me. Thus, according to their calculations, before I can get to Revonde the Duke will have been induced ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... going to assess you half a million dollars for my wife—money which justly belongs to her—and another half million for my services as your attorney, wherein I agree to prevail upon my wife not to prosecute you for murder and highway robbery, but to permit you to live on and await the retributive justice that is bound to overtake you. I think this is perfectly fair and square. You have used your money and your power for evil. I am going to use mine for good. Have the kindness, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

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

... constant reference to the guidance and protection of God, mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher, preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled, speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard turned carrier." ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

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

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

... could go off on leave or lounge idly about the barracks, so long as they paid the centurion his fee, nor was there any one to control either the amount of this impost or the means by which the soldiers raised the money: highway robbery or menial service was the usual resort whereby they purchased leisure. Then, again, a soldier who had money was savagely burdened with work until he should buy exemption. Thus he soon became impoverished and enervated by idleness, and returned to his company no longer a man of means and energy ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

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

... crimes of stealth, such as cattle and horse stealing and forgery, of which crimes corresponding statistics show likewise a corresponding decrease, but for the crimes of violence too, tending to murder, such as are many of the incendiary offences, and such as are highway robbery and burglary. But another return, laid before the House at the same time, bears upon our argument, if possible, still more conclusively. In table 11 we have only the years which have occurred since ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... slave-holders of the southern States. When hunted from every other quarter of the globe by the inexorable spirit of abolition, when even Cuba and Brazil cease to afford them an asylum—when slave-holding shall be every where else as odious and detestable as midnight larceny, or highway robbery,—Texas alone, uninfected and secure, is to open its gates of refuge to the persecuted Calhouns and McDuffies, and their northern allies in church and state—the San Marino of slavery, dissevered from the world's fanaticism—isolated ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... that I can remove a gentleman's watch or pocket-book as gracefully as could my venerated sire himself, whose career was rather abruptly terminated one fine morning in consequence of a temporary valet having tied his neckcloth too tightly: he was hung in front of Newgate jail, for a highway robbery, in which he acquired but little glory and less profit,—for he only shot an old woman's poodle dog, and stole a leather purse full of halfpence. My mother was a very pretty waiting woman at an ordinary tavern; ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

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

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

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

... Hindu eats food or drinks water touched by them." According to the Ain-i-Akbari [386] a thousand men of the sept guarded the environs of the palace of Akbar, and Abul Fazl says of them: "The caste to which they belong was notorious for highway robbery, and former rulers were not able to keep them in check. The effective orders of His Majesty have led them to honesty; they are now famous for their trustworthiness. They were formerly called Mawis. Their chief has received the title ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

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

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

... a highway robbery was committed on the supercargo of the American, who was attacked in the dusk of the evening, close by one of the barracks, by two men, who, in the moment of striking him, seized hold of his watch, and with a violent jerk wrenched off the seals, the watch falling on ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... its uses and was not a piece of senseless tyranny. In order to keep up an armed force for all emergencies the Baron took under his protection as men-at-arms the most desperate ruffians, outlaws and outcasts whom he could collect, mostly men under sentence of banishment or death for highway robbery and murder, whose only chance of escaping torture and death lay in risking life and limb for a master strong enough to defy the law, the 'bargello' and the executioner, in his own house or castle, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

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

... her small towns are the shabbiest in Christendom, that her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, that she has not yet learned to distinguish enterprise from highway robbery, nor reform from blackmail,—all these statements, and others even more unpleasant, the Californian may admit in discussion, or may say for himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They may be ...
— California and the Californians • David Starr Jordan

... he was suffering the pangs of indigestion. For in the first few weeks of his life at the White Farm, before his appetite was satiated, he was wont to eat all the white cat's food as well as his own; and as this highway robbery took place in the retirement of the shed, where Samantha Ann always swept them for their meals, no human being was any the wiser, and only the angels saw the white cat getting whiter and whiter and thinner and thinner, while every day Rags grew more corpulent ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... week. The "intellectualization of the people" must not be neglected: the gallery of the Victoria invites to its instructive benches the young, whose wicked parents have neglected their education—the ignorant, who know nothing of the science of highway robbery, or the more delicate operations of picking pockets. National education is the sole aim of the sole lessee—money is no object; but errand-boys and apprentices must take their Monday night's lessons, even if they rob the till. By this means an endless chain of subjects will be woven, of which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various

... was in authority in 1753, did much to suppress the unbridled license and open highway robbery ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... he said. "But I'll remember you next time. Are you standing guard now, or just doing a little highway robbery on your ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... been often mutilated by over use; the many later editions in octavo are mutilated by design of their editors; and for conveying any idea of the rough truthful descriptiveness of a book compiled in the palmy days of highway robbery, they are worthless. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

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

... by the Potomac. This section has been the hot-bed of lawless bands, who have, from time to time, depredated upon small parties on the line of army communications, on safeguards left at houses, and on all small parties of our troops. Their real object is plunder and highway robbery. To clear the country of these parties that are bringing destruction upon the innocent as well as their guilty supporters by their cowardly acts, you will consume and destroy all forage and subsistence, burn ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

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

... it's highway robbery, no matter how one looks at it," he said to himself. "I wonder what's the matter with me. I must have got started wrong somehow. Money to spend, playing at soldiering, made to believe I'd have a pot of money and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

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

... cost you first price only, and not the profit of the landlord, plus that of the concierge, plus that of the maid, plus several other small but aggravatingly augmentative sums which make your hotel bills seem like highway robbery. No, living in a palace, on the whole, is cheaper than living in a hotel; incidentals are less numerous and not so costly; and then you are so independent. Mine was a particularly handsome structure. I believe I have a picture of ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

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

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

... thing. It batters down the walls of cities, and murders the women and children amid flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayoneted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... might that is mine, of trickery, of highway robbery, clear out of that, you, and make room for me: give me your seat at the banquet! That is the inexorable law in the world of animals and more or less, alas, in our own ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... off as an abuse inconsistent with popular government, and unworthy of a free and civilized nation. If not in origin, is the spoils system essentially American in any other sense? Only in the sense in which murder is American, or small-pox, or highway robbery, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

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

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

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

... seventy-five applicants, but it is a beginning. You ought to see the mothers crowding around, begging and pleading for their children to be taken in, and the little tots weep and wail when they have to go home. I feel to-day as if I would almost resort to highway robbery to get money enough to ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

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

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

... "of the right stripe" might hide either himself or his unlawful or stolen goods. "A raise" was stolen property. "A sight" was a prospect for a robbery, and to commit it was, to "raise the sight," or if it was a burglary or a highway robbery, the man robbed was "raked down." A man killed was "nepoed"—a word which many new settlers in Wisconsin got from ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... unto the breach, dear friends." Our pleasant little game is renewed. The first trick was, I believe, mine; the second yours. The third I trump by lodging an information against you for highway robbery. Tony I shall not implicate, of course, nor Mac-What's-His-Name. Take wings, my Fly-by-night, for the runners are on your heels, and if you don't, as I live, you'll wear hemp. Give my devoted love to the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... impossible to get trustworthy intelligence about any event that has happened a hundred miles away, and stories of murders and robberies that were never committed are widely circulated amongst the credulous people. As far as my experience goes highway robbery is unknown in Nicaragua. Foreigners entrusted with money have stated they have been robbed, but there has always been suspicions that they themselves embezzled the money that they said they lost. Personally I never ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... were certain local liabilities of a public nature. Thus the Code shows that the magistrate and his district were held responsible for highway robbery or brigandage in their midst.(241) It may be assumed that the funds to meet such liabilities were furnished by the city temple, for we note that if an official were captured, and his private means were not sufficient for his ransom, his city temple ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... "If I haven't robbed that poor, innocent young man of a book he bought for himself! Attempted eviction by his room-mate, and bold highway robbery by an unknown woman! No, it's worse than that; it's piracy, for it happened on the high seas." And the girl laughed ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

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



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



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