"Distraint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unrestricted immunity from political responsibility and from personal distraint. The theory of the law has long been that the king can do no wrong, which means that for his public acts the sovereign's ministers must bear complete responsibility and for his private conduct he may not be called to account ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... such poverty produces. The poverty of the normal poor does not approach it; or, rather, the pangs arising from such poverty are altogether of a different sort. To be hungry and have no food, to be cold and have no fuel, to be threatened with distraint for one's few chairs and tables, and with the loss of the roof over one's head,—all these miseries, which, if they do not positively reach, are so frequently near to reaching the normal poor, are, no doubt, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... for his immediate release; and if his crops or stock be distrained for balance, or lands attached, the Resident is called upon to ascertain and explain the reason why, and obtain redress. All such distraint is represented as ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... I was not exactly prepared for—that he would install himself in the new premises as compositor, we decided to take practical steps towards the move. Short informed us that six weeks' rent was owing, and that the landlord threatened a distraint if his claims were not immediately satisfied; and in spite of the advice, "Don't pay rent to robber landlords," which stared us in the face, inscribed in bright red letters on the wall, I and Armitage between us sacrificed the requisite sum to ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... two hundred and fifty millions of property in possession. This odious and unjust tax was stringently exacted from the negro. To make sure that not one should escape, the tax was held as a lien upon his labor, and the employer was under distraint to pay it. In Alabama they devised for the same purpose two dollars on every person between the ages of eighteen and fifty, causing a still larger proportion of the total tax to fall on the negro than the Georgia ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... which he was the chief projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while the little ships ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... convicted of the same before any one Justice of the Peace, he or they shall pay for each his defect five shillings in money, to be for the use of the poor in the town where the person lives; and if refused to be paid down, to be taken by distraint by a warrant to any one Constable, in said town; any ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... on the person of the debtor. Distraint on a debtor's corn was forbidden by the Code; not only must the creditor give it back, but his illegal action forfeited his claim altogether. An unwarranted seizure for debt was fined, as was the distraint of a working ox. The debtor being seized for debt could nominate as mancipium or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... were one of the chief outrages complained of in Africa. Why, then, should we promote them in the West Indies? The confinement on board a slave-ship had been also bitterly complained of; but, under distraint for the debt of a master, the poor slave might linger in a gaol twice or thrice the time ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... grandfather by the birth of Susanna Shakespeare. In 1584 the twins Hamnet and Judith were added to his anxieties. About this time the Stratford Records notice how a John Shakespeare was worried by suits brought against him by John Brown, in whose favour a writ of distraint was issued against Shakespeare in 1586. But the answer was returned that "he ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Rochdale the other day, I heard a very sorrowful example of it. There was a poor woman who kept a shop, and she was threatened with a distraint for her poor-rate. She sold the Sunday clothes of her son to pay the poor-rate, and she received a relief- ticket when she went to leave her rate. That is a sad and sorrowful example, but I am afraid ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... of course, which had to be answered by a personal appearance before city magistrates, thus causing the infliction of a deeper mortification than had yet assailed him. Added to these came the importunities of his landlord, which was met by a response which was deemed insulting, and then came a distraint for rent. The due bill of the father, saved the son this utter ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... to these and many less conspicuous regular duties the sheriff in the early seventeenth century was utilized from time to time by the central government in irregular and somewhat questionable services. When James revived the distraint of knighthood it was the sheriffs who were required to make out lists of all who had 40 Pounds a year of lands or rents and to order them to appear at court and receive knighthood. When Charles I. revived the imposition ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney |
