"Misdemeanour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Weymouth made a complaint in the upper house, regarding a breach of privilege, in publishing his letter sent to the magistrates of Surrey, with an inflammatory preface. A conference between the two houses had been held, and Wilkes was charged with this misdemeanour before the bar of the commons. But at that bar Wilkes not only avowed himself the author of the publication, but claimed the thanks of his country for having exposed Weymouth's "bloody scroll." It was immediately resolved by the commons that he was guilty of a seditious libel, calculated "to inflame ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... enough) got punished for this atrocious misdemeanour—except the planton; who was punished for not shooting us, although God knows he had done his ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... 28th of December 1756. He was shot on the 14th of March 1757. There is something at once diverting and provoking in the cool and authoritative manner in which Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. We do not suspect him of intentionally falsifying history. But of this high literary misdemeanour we do without hesitation accuse him that he has no adequate sense of the obligation which a writer, who professes to relate facts, owes to the public. We accuse him of a negligence and an ignorance analogous to that crassa ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... disordering his head." I have no doubt that the United Kingdom Alliance, if it knew this dreadful sentence (but probably the study of the United Kingdom Alliance is not much in Peacock), would like to burn all the copies of Gryll Grange by the hands of Mr. Berry, and make the reprinting of it a misdemeanour, if not a felony. But it is not necessary to follow Sir Wilfrid Lawson, or to be a believer in education, or in telegraphs, or in majorities, in order to feel the repulsion which some people evidently feel for the manner of Peacock. With one sense absent and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... brute our governess is!" said Marian to a school-fellow one afternoon, because she had corrected her rather sharply for some misdemeanour. ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... stage, which in the Old World characterized the upper period of barbarism. Slavery had, however, made a beginning among the Aztecs. The nucleus of the small slave-population of Mexico consisted of outcasts, persons expelled from the clan for some misdemeanour. The simplest case was that in which a member of a clan failed for two years to cultivate his garden-plot.[134] The delinquent member was deprived, not only of his right of user, but of all his rights as a clansman, and the only way to escape starvation was to work upon some ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... now threatens to pursue his career, by repeating that same absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament, which, some twenty and odd years ago, a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... stile and got into the fields, where he habitually took her to stroll. But the grass was high in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she were there, except by a close search that would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood's crop. Still, that misdemeanour must be committed; and poor Silas, after peering all round the hedgerows, traversed the grass, beginning with perturbed vision to see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and to see her moving always farther ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... importance. What right or power had a usurping military officer to suspend from clerical duties one of the two or three clergymen who were then in the settlement, and that without any crime alleged, any trial, or proof of his misdemeanour? Would not a bishop, to stand between the mighty major and the poor chaplain on this occasion, have been a guardian of "civil and ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... perfect; and Disraeli's eye was favoured with such extraordinary perceptions of the remote that it proved a little uncertain in its view of matters not quite without importance nearer home. He thought the attempt to establish Italian independence a misdemeanour; he listened to Bismarck's ideas on the future of Germany, and described them as the vapourings of a German baron. For a quarter of a century Disraeli had dazzled and amused the House of Commons without, as it seemed, drawing inspiration from any one great cause or discerning any ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... even of his most decided actions in after life, and which at the same time raises grave doubts in my mind whether there may not have been an actual taint of insanity in this extraordinary being, is the incident of his having submitted, rather than give in after some misdemeanour, to being confined to his room in the Academy for nearly three months at a stretch. Alfieri was fifteen; he might have been let loose for the asking, since there was no real severity in the school. He slept nearly all day long, rose in the evening, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... commonest thing to hear hon. Gentlemen say that all this secrecy on the part of the Foreign Office and the Board of Control is a cause of the greatest mischief. Assume for a moment that the publication of this despatch was injudicious—after all, it was no high crime and misdemeanour. We on this side of the House, and hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, ought to look with kindness on this failing, which, if a failing, leans to virtue's side. Then, Sir, with regard to the language of the despatch, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... any circumstance appear to support the suspicion of robbery; for, to constitute robbery, there must be something taken; but here nothing was taken but blows, and they were upon compulsion. Even an attempt to rob, without any taking, is not felony, but a misdemeanour. To be sure, there is a taking in deed, and a taking in law. But still the robber must be in possession of a thing stolen; and we attempted to steal ourselves away. My uncle, indeed, would have released the young lady vi et armis, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... flushed faces and heaving shirt-fronts of the diners, the Duke forgot Marraby's misdemeanour. What mattered far more to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of Zuleika. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his influence was in the University. He knew also how strong was Zuleika's. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... perhapsing those sort of melancholy things," said Fritz; "we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some misdemeanour." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... Act of Parliament against the wilful defacing and demolition of public monuments; and, perhaps the Kilkenny Archaeological Association were right when they threatened to indite with the penalties of "misdemeanour" under that statute, any person who should wantonly and needlessly destroy the old monumental and architectural relics of his country. Many of these relics might have brought only a small price indeed in the money-market, while yet they were of a national ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... privileges of their mayoralty owing to a financial dispute in 1320, which necessitated the intervention of the King. The second epoch in the history of the commune began, and penalties were adjudged for all cases of misdemeanour or of shirking office. The equal, in Court-precedence, to a Count, the Mayor of Rouen was not merely the head of the Town Council, but sovereign-judge in matters of goods or of inheritance, with his own court and guards and prisons. On Christmas Day, to the sound of "Rouvel's" welcome, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Nothing is more unreasonable than that a poor man, who comes to fill his bag from a coal mountain, should be torn to pieces by wild beasts. There is absolutely no reasonable relation between such a trifling misdemeanour and so ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... transactions should be published, than that any of these individuals should be convicted." This was a sentiment which does honour to the memory of a great man. He had been urged by his fellow counsel, and probably by others, to bring the accused to trial only for a misdemeanour, in the expectation of thus being sure of a verdict. But he determined to bring the case before the jury in its true shape, be the result what it might. It has been rumoured that this, too, was the opinion of Pitt, in contradiction to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Beatty in her cot. Outside the door of the night-nursery he waited a moment to listen. Was she snoozling among her blankets?—the darling! She still sucked her thumb, sometimes, poor baby, to send her to sleep, and it was another reason for discontent with Miss Farmer that she would make a misdemeanour of it. Really, that ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... laws were passed against betting. It was enacted that adultery should be punished with death. The illicit intercourse of the sexes, even where neither violence nor seduction was imputed, where no public scandal was given, where no conjugal right was violated, was made a misdemeanour. Public amusements, from the masques which were exhibited at the mansions of the great down to the wrestling matches and grinning matches on village greens, were vigorously attacked. One ordinance directed that all the Maypoles in England should forthwith ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... my protection in it. You will give me leave therefore, in a matter that concerns us in the Poetical World, to make you my judge whether I am not injured in the highest manner! for with men of your taste and delicacy, it is a high crime and misdemeanour to be guilty of anything that is disingenuous. But I will ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... a military history. And this same military history had vaguely worried him all the time, and now that he could think clearly, worried him with a very definite worry. In leaving his firing-party he had been guilty of a crime. Every misdemeanour in the Army is termed a crime—from murder to appearing buttonless on parade. Was it desertion? If so, he might be shot. He had not thought of that when he started on his quest. It had seemed so simple to account for half an hour's absence by saying that ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... takest thou scorn to answer my demand? Thy proud behaviour very well deserves This misdemeanour at the worst be construed. Why doest thou neither know, nor hast thou heard, That in the absence of the Saxon Duke Demarch is his especial Substitute To punish those that shall ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... that; the place was far out in the wilds, many miles from either priest or Lensmand; natural enough, surely, to let it sleep the eternal sleep in a neat grave in the woods. And if it were a crime to have buried it thus, then the accused was not more guilty than the father of the child—as it was, the misdemeanour was surely slight enough to be overlooked. Modern practice was growing more and more disposed to lay more stress on reforming the criminal than on punishing the crime. It was an antiquated system which sought ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... or person without property and character, carries off a woman (though with her own consent) and can neither pay the jujur, nor adat semando, the marriage shall not take place, but the man be fined five dollars and a goat for misdemeanour. If she be under age, his fine ten ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... CHILDREN is dealt with under DESERTION, and the abandonment or exposure of a young child under the age of two, which is an indictable misdemeanour, is dealt with under ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
