"Larceny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never knew before that a lad who stole apples was called a philosopher—we calls it petty larceny in the indictments: and as for your rights of man, I cannot see how they can be ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... between a Sunday-school text and petty larceny?" retorted Jack Benson, sternly. "What do you mean by taking the submarine ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... simple and apparently effective way, it would seem, of stopping brigandage, but one which, in fact, increases it, because, in order to find the money to pay the fines, the natives are driven to the road, each successive larceny going towards part payment of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... as I know, that Cox's story is a falsification. Mr. Cox says I am a political thief; don't think he charges me with stealing sheep, he only means to say I stole squatter sovereignty. It is petty larceny at best. But I did not steal Douglas ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a "Disdar Aga" (who, by the way, is not an Aga), the most impolite of petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny Athens ever saw (except Lord E[lgin]), and the unworthy occupant of the Acropolis, on a handsome stipend of 150 piastres (L8 sterling), out of which he has to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... was shot back yonder. You came to me red-handed from a deed of violence, and I took you in and became your protector, asking no questions. It's the basest ingratitude for you to whimper over a small larceny when you have added assault or murder to the liabilities of our partnership! But don't forget for a moment that we're pals and pledged to see each ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... ever had. Mere man may not understand the enormity of this offence; but every woman knows there is no crime more heinous, more despicable, more unforgivable. She might find it in her heart to condone larceny, think lightly of arson, or even excuse murder; but there is not one who would extend even a deathbed pardon to the person who had robbed her of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... loving care. To hoist the Briton with his own petard is particularly sweet to the German mind.... But here it is that military genius comes in. Some gifted spirit on our side procured (probably by larceny) a length of mine fuse, the rapid sort, and spent a laborious day removing the red thread and making it into the likeness of its slow brother. Then bits of it were attached to tin-bombs and shied—unlit of course—into the German trenches. A long but happy pause followed. I can see the chaps holding ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... How about the discrimination in the courts as between the whites and blacks?—A. That is principally in matters of larceny. In such cases the presumption is reversed as to the Negro. A white man can't be convicted without the fullest proof, and with the Negroes, in matters between themselves, such as assault and battery, they get as fair a trial as the whites. At the January term of our court Judge Avery presided. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... poems and translations, in a volume of "Miscellanies" published by Tonson's rival, Lintot. Its motif was the theft by a certain Lord Petre of one of the tresses of Miss Arabella or "Belle" Fermor, and this venial larceny having somewhat strained the relations of the two families concerned, Pope was invited to compose matters by invocation of the Muse. The poem in its first "Miscellany" form consisted of no more than two cantos; but Pope, confident ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... a great leveller—a fact of which no living man has had proof and reproof administered to him more frequently and severely that Mr Cobden himself. As culprits, however, harden in heart with each repetition of crime, until from petty larceny, the initiating offence, they ascend unscrupulously to the perpetration of felony without benefit of clergy; so he, with effrontery only the more deeply burnt in, and conscience the more callous from each conviction, will still lie on, so long as lungs are left, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions, and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of assault and battery ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... States soldiers on Bear River, about fifteen miles from Marysville, known as "Camp Far West." One day an application was made to me to issue a warrant for the arrest of one of the soldiers for a larceny he had committed. It was stated that a complaint had been laid before the local Alcalde near the camp; but that the officer in charge had refused to give up the soldier unless a warrant for that purpose were issued by me, it being ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... does the dismal deed, women who are your peers in art, science, and literature—already close upon your heels in the whole world of thought—are thrust outside the pale of political consideration with traitors, idiots, minors, with those guilty of bribery, larceny, and infamous crime. What a category is this in which to place your mothers, wives, and daughters. I ask you, men of the Empire State, where on the footstool do you find such a class of citizens politically so ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... she was arrested, charged with grand larceny. She raised her hand to her mouth as the detective tapped her shoulder, and a few minutes later was taken to the Polyclinic Hospital, to be later transferred to Bellevue. She will recover from the poison and will have to face in court in four or five days the charges which ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... poverty of Mechenmal's relatives than with the fact that he was clearly unbearable. For a while he wandered about homeless, since his family no longer took any interest in him. He supported himself mostly by petty larceny. Once the police picked him up and he was brought to a home for neglected children. In the home he was trained as a locksmith. He knew how to ingratiate himself with his superiors by showing unusual dexterity and willingness. He secretly tormented his younger, weaker comrades, or he set the ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields. He is most abundant in mixed oak, chestnut, and hemlock woods, from which he makes excursions to the fields and orchards, spinning along the tops of the fences, which afford not only convenient lines of communication, but a safe retreat ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... 'Was your trouble something about the'—I was going to say the ladies, but that seemed too mawkish, and I boldly outed with—'women?' 'Oh no,' he said, meekly; 'it was just cloth, a piece of cloth,' 'Breaking and entering?' I led on. 'Well, not exactly, but—it came to grand larceny,' and I might have fancied a touch of mounting self-respect in his confession of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... might well be pardoned, even if Martial had greater claims to be taken seriously. As it is, his freedom in borrowing need scarcely be taken into account in the consideration of our verdict. At the worst his crime is no more than petty larceny. With all his faults, he has gifts such as few poets have possessed, a perfect facility and a perfect finish. Alone of poets of the period he rarely gives the impression of labouring a point. Compared with Martial, Seneca and Lucan, Statius and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... weaknesses, however amiable, of his nature should be allowed to interfere. It is no mercy to pardon and let loose upon the community one who, having already been convicted of manifold delinquencies, only waits a convenient season for adding to the catalogue of his crimes; and what is larceny, or felony, or even treason, compared with the perpetration of the outrages above attempted to be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves, within, are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief; here, stores ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... entreat you, the many false keys, bribes to the lacqueys of authors that can keep them, and collusions with the booksellers of authors that cannot, which were required in the prosecution of this arduous undertaking. Imagine to yourselves how often I have shuddered upon the verge of petty larceny, and how repeatedly my slumbers have been disturbed with visions of the King's-Bench Prison and Clerkenwell Bridewell. You, gentlemen, sit in your easy chair, and with the majesty of a Minos or an Aeacus, summon the trembling culprits to your bar. But though you never knew what fear ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... general doctrine had been annunciated that where a person parts with his money for an unlawful or dishonest purpose, even though he is tricked into so doing by false pretences, a prosecution for the crime of larceny cannot be maintained. ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... hosts upon the highway cry out with open mouth upon you, for supporting plafery in your train; which, though, as you are the god of petty larceny, you might protect, yet you know it is directly against the new orders, and oppose the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... of the cases aforesaid, to break the public peace, or with intent, in any of the cases-aforesaid, to excite the alarm of the queen; I propose that any party so offending—that is, intending to hurt the queen, or to alarm the queen, shall be subject to the same penalties which apply to cases of larceny; that is, he be subject to transportation not exceeding seven years. I propose, also, another punishment, more suitable to the offence, and more calculated to repress it, that there be a discretionary power of imprisonment for a certain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Fogarty was the cop. He ordered 'Cease firing!' and the shower stopped, and I let him capture me. He took me to the calaboose, and this morning, early, he had me before the judge, and I'm held for the grand jury, and the charge is burglary and petit larceny. Now what ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... tinged with tedium vitae. This emotional mental atmosphere is entered at an earlier age than is commonly imagined; and when such a girl's own personal interests are in any way affected by the occurrences under examination, we are never secure from gross exaggeration and misstatement. Petty larceny becomes robbery with violence; a trifling incivility, a serious assault; a harmless pleasantry, an interesting proposal for elopement; and the foolish prattle of ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... that the Cop who spent most of his time asleep spent less of his time clubbing people who wouldn't whack up with him on the profits of their business. Every ossifer who has been convicted of petty larceny in the past, the records show, has been a fellow who stayed awake most of the time, and no ossifer has ever yet been known to go in for graft or get a record for clubbing innocent highwaymen over the ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... disgust. He had all the contempt for a petty-larceny thief that the skilled safe-breaker has for the common purse-snatcher. The line between pilfering and legitimate stealing was very clear in his mind. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... organization of the court, the court-house had not been built, and the first session was held in Murray's store, which had just been built. The first business was the finding of a bill by the grand jury for petit larceny, and several for the offence of selling whisky to Indians, and selling foreign ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... oppose some of the worst passions of our nature—to plunder and to oppress is to gratify them all. They wanted the huzzas of mobs, and they have for ever blasted the fame of England to obtain them. Were the fleets of Holland, France, and Spain destroyed by larceny? You resisted the power of 150 sail of the line by sheer courage, and violated every principle of morals from the dread of fifteen hulks, while the expedition itself cost you three times more than the value of the larcenous matter brought away. The French trample on the laws ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... the son of an unknown father; his mother followed the camp, and her offspring was early initiated in the mysteries of military petty larceny. As he grew up he became the most skilful plunderer that ever rifled the dying of both sides. Before he was twenty he followed the army as a petty chapman, and amassed an excellent fortune by re-acquiring after a battle the very goods and trinkets which he had sold at an ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Howsoever honest may be the intention toward these, the limitations render the task hopeless, for all efforts to level the scales to a nicety may be foiled by the shears of the managing editor if perchance another petit larceny should require ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... at one time supported in America, in addition to countless republications of particular articles; such, for instance, as the tales of "Ten Thousand a-Year," and "Caleb Stukeley"! I think I hear you exclaim at such wholesale grand-larceny; but though not inclined to take up the cudgels for Reprint and Co., it is but justice to tell you what they would say in self-defence. The truth is, they would not have known what you meant, had you told them, when their republication was established, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... this by, turn a deaf ear upon the siren present, and condescend once more, naked, into the ring with fortune - Macaire, how few would do it! But you, Macaire, you are compacted of more subtile clay. No cheap immediate pilfering: no retail trade of petty larceny; but swoop at the heart of the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... value of twelve pence; but the criminal was permitted to redeem his life by a pecuniary ransom, as among their ancestors, the Germans, by a stated number of cattle. Bit in the ninth year of Henry the First (1109,) this power of redemption was taken away, and all persons guilty of larceny above the value off twelve pence were directed to be hanged, which law continues in force to this ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... is the citizen's right to vote, that the constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says: "Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or any ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... adding insult to petit larceny. "Well, why don't you call a policeman? I took it. Your umbrella! Why don't you call a cop? There stands ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the precinct in which she has lived for years show that she is a woman of very bad character, and that she has been under arrest nine times for drunkenness, larceny, creating disturbance, and misdemeanors ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... at different times in these assemblies, were compiled into a code under the sanction of the junta general at Tordelaguna, in 1485. [2] The penalties for theft, which are literally written in blood, are specified in this code with singular precision. The most petty larceny was punished with stripes, the loss of a member, or of life itself; and the law was administered with an unsparing rigor, which nothing but the extreme necessity of the case could justify. Capital executions were conducted by shooting the criminal with arrows. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... come in with the first batch, and a couple of crooks who had been working the 'elevated'; and a woman, a shoplifter. Got away with a piece of lace—a mantilla, they called it, whatever that is. She's just gone down to wait for the four o'clock delivery. It's a case of grand larceny. They say the lace is worth ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pounds!" said Camperdown Senior, to whom the magnitude of the larceny almost ennobled the otherwise mean duty of catching the thief. Then Mr. Camperdown rose, and slowly walked across the New Square, Lincoln's Inn, under the low archway, by the entrance to the old court in which Lord Eldon used to sit, to the Old Square, in which the Turtle Dove had built his legal ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England—as it had been since the time of Henry I.—Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... One paper deemed its terms to be a series of studied insults added to a long inventory of injuries. Said another, Germany's mood is still that of a madman. A third comment on the note described it as "a disingenuous effort to have international petty larceny put on the same plane as international murder and visited with the same punishment." A fourth paper remarked: "If an American can read the note without his temples getting hot then his blood is poor or his understanding dense." The weight of American press opinion was against ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... exclusively applied to petty larceny. "Stealing" is as well known to be a poetical term as it is to be an indictable offense; the Zephyr and the Vesper Hymn, cum multis aliis, are very prone to this practice. 2. "Swigging," drinking copiously—of malt ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... little more than a glance to a subject on which the public mind of England is at present so much engaged. In Russia corporal punishment is much in use; but criminals are seldom put to death. They are marched off to Siberia for every kind of offence, from the highest political crime to petty larceny. The most heinous offenders are sent to the mines; those guilty of minor delinquencies are settled in villages, or on farms; and those guilty of having opinions different from those of the government—statesmen, authors, and soldiers—are generally suffered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... in high spirits till he got in sight of Huntercombe Hall; and then it suddenly occurred to his mercurial mind that he should probably not be received with an ovation, petty larceny being a novelty in that ancient ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... he, as we were proceeding thither, "confined my collection to objects connected with capital offenders only; it comprehends relics of every grade of crime, from murder to petty larceny. In that respect I am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... goods had been first filched from him. Mr. Ball is phenomenal, but is a legislative assembly the place for this sort of curiosity? If he is of sound mind, he is guilty of a very cruel and shameless wrong, meriting expulsion from any body that makes laws against larceny. If sane, let him go be elected to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... of the Heptarchy is one of murder, arson, rapine, assault and battery, breach of the peace, petty larceny, and the embezzlement of the ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... and there you could see the familiar faces of those who had served as jurors for years and yet had never lost a case. Wealthy delinquents began to subpoena large detachments of witnesses at the expense of the county, and the poor petty larceny people in the jail began to wonder why their witnesses didn't show up. Slowly the wheels of Justice began to revolve. Ever and anon could be heard the strident notes which came from the room where the counsel for the defense was filing his objections, while now and then the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... to the year 1827 'grand larceny', that is to say, stealing to a value exceeding twelve pence, was punishable with death. The Act 7 George IV, cap. 28, abolished the distinction of grand and petty larceny. In 1837, the first year of Queen ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... bother you, Mr. Indiman, but I want that man with you. Charged with larceny of a package consigned to Oceanic Express Company. I've been waiting ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... these names were also found. Well knowing that consanguinity was prevalent in the district, the judge began his address to the jury with the significant remark: "Of course, gentlemen, you will acquit your own relatives." In another case of larceny of pantaloons which was clearly proved, but in which the thief got a good character for honesty, he began: "Gentlemen, the prisoner was an honest boy, but ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... tolerably numerous class, that is quaintly described as being "law honest;" that is to say, he neither committed murder nor petty larceny. When he was guilty of moral slander, he took great care that it should not be legal slander; and, although his whole life was a tissue of mean and baneful vices, he was quite innocent of all those enormities that ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ''Tis larceny that wicked ould laady manes,' says t' Irishman, ' 'tis felony she is sejuicin' ye into, my frind Learoyd, but I'll purtect your innocince. I'll save ye from the wicked wiles av that wealthy ould woman, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... upon the Road. Wat Dreary, alias Brown Will, an irregular Dog, who hath an underhand way of disposing of his Goods. I'll try him only for a Sessions or two longer upon his Good-behaviour. Harry Paddington, a poor petty-larceny Rascal, without the least Genius; that Fellow, though he were to live these six Months, will never come to the Gallows with any Credit. Slippery Sam; he goes off the next Sessions, for the Villain hath the Impudence to have Views of following his Trade as a Tailor, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... since it had happened we had discussed the great adventure so unceasingly that, as Berry had remarked at breakfast, it was more than likely that, unless we were to take an immediate and firm line with ourselves, we should presently get Grand Larceny on the brain, and run into some danger of qualifying, not only for admission to Broadmoor, but for detention in that institution till His Majesty's pleasure should be known. For the first hour or two which ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there came to hand information with regard both to Chichikov's purchase of dead souls and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service in the Customs Department. In short, every possible item of evidence was exhumed, and the whole of his previous history ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... not long in becoming an efficient in the arts these men practiced on the unwary. We used to meet at the 'Subterranean,' in Church street, and there concoct our mode of operations. And from this centre went forth, daily, men who lived by gambling, larceny, picking pockets, counterfeiting, and passing counterfeit money. I kept Anna ignorant of my associations. Nevertheless I was forced to get money, for I found her affections becoming perverted. At times her manner ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... belabored me in his feeble way. But one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough, and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "'Tis larceny that wicked ould laady manes," says t' Irishman, "'tis felony she is sejuicin' ye into, my frind Learoyd, but I'll purtect your innocince. I'll save ye from the wicked wiles av that wealthy ould woman, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... father shook his head sadly, moved his plate further off, and returned to his eating, not, however, without watching the movements of the enemy from the corner of his eye. In vain he kept guard; in spite of his precautions,—a new attack, a new larceny—and fresh caperings of joy by the monkey. Father Alexis at last lost patience, and the monkey received a vigorous blow full in the muzzle, which drew from him a sharp shriek; but at the same instant the priest felt two rows of teeth bury themselves ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... license to plunder, letters of marque, letters of mark and reprisal. filibustering, filibusterism^; burglary; housebreaking; badger game [Slang]. robbery, highway robbery, hold-up [U.S.], mugging. peculation, embezzlement; fraud &c 545; larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia^, den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,—used to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and ginger-bread, when a boy, with the money he stole? Of course you see ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... divinity! It was the beautiful young lady who had once taken his part in a fight with Skeeter Sheeley over a whip handle; it was the young lady who always smiled at him when she rode by Billy-goat Hill; it was she who had changed his life ambition from grand larceny to plumbing! Heedless of warning he snatched at the picture, and as he did so it slipped from his fingers and the frame shattered ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... to work, slowly at first, then faster and still faster, bringing in true bills; and after every one making a mark in our lists so that we might know where we were. We brought in true bills for burglary, and false pretences, larceny, and fraud; we brought them in for manslaughter, rape, and arson. When we had ten or so, two of us would get up and bear them away down to the Court below and lay them before the Judge. "Thank you, gentlemen!" he would say, or words to that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... on account of insufficient evidence. In the notorious case of the "Wanderer," she was arrested on suspicion, released, and soon after she landed a cargo of slaves in Georgia; some who attempted to seize the Negroes were arrested for larceny, and in spite of the efforts of Congress the captain was never punished. The yacht was afterwards started on another voyage, and being brought back to Boston was sold to her former owner for about one ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... was up at Ossining this morning, didn't you?" he asked, lazily for him. He went there occasionally to visit a friend in the state prison who had once served him well in a gambling raid and was now doing a short larceny ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a breach of one of the commands of God, and they shuddered at the very thought.—They had besides, had two officers put over them, by the British commander, Amos Gaskens and John Hamilton; the first they despised on account of his petty larceny tricks, and the last they hated because of his profanity. About this time, news of the approach of Gates having arrived, a public meeting of this people was called, and it was unanimously resolved to ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... Cliff was meant to be Minister of Treasury. He's got wholesale larceny in his soul, none of this picayunish stuff such as robbing nomads ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... "it is the only thief that Sheridan has to fear. His present condition defies all the skill of larceny. He is completely in the position of Horace's traveller—he might sing in a forest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... not consider it one of the finest attributes of power, no utopian theorist who does not place it in the front rank as a means of organizing happiness. Now, government is by nature so incapable of directing labor that every reward bestowed by it is a veritable larceny from the common treasury. M. Reybaud shall furnish us the text ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... protesting so strongly that he would not commit such an act, that Tantaine perceived at once that some such trifling act of larceny ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... purse and the purloined kerans has aroused all the latent cupidity of his soul, and he wants me to ride ahead, so that he can straggle along in the rear and investigate the contents of the purse at his leisure. While winking at the amusing little act of petty larceny already detected, I do not propose to give his kleptomaniac tendencies full swing, and so I meet his proposal to sowar and go ahead by peremptorily ordering him to take ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... well-known and of evil repute in the City. Bold, daring, and unscrupulous, his hand was ever ready to execute the plans of villainy which his fertile brain had conceived. Sentenced in New York to imprisonment for grand larceny in the State Prison at Sing Sing for the term of two years, and discharged when that term had nearly expired; he soon after sailed for California. Shortly after his arrival, he was chosen Inspector of Elections in the Sixth Ward of San Francisco. Here ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... note the classes of crime during a few months for which the local papers and the Associated Press say that lynching has been inflicted. They include "murder," "rioting," "incendiarism," "robbery," "larceny," "self-defence," "insulting women," "alleged stock-poisoning," "malpractice," "alleged barn-burning," "suspected robbery," "race prejudice," "attempted murder," ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... he would be supported by the rest. Then I had offended my tutor, all my predilections in whose favour had returned with double force, since I had satisfied myself that he was not addicted to the commission of petty larceny; offended him by allowing him to suppose that I had practised a mean deception upon him. Moreover, it was impossible to explain my conduct to him without showing up Coleman, an extreme measure for which I was by no means prepared. Besides, every one would think, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to the courts for redress; they own the courts. We know them for what they are,—ruffians in politics, ruffians in finance, ruffians in law, ruffians in trade, bribers, swindlers, and tricksters. No outrage too great to daunt them, no petty larceny too small to shame them; despoiling a government treasury of a million dollars, yet picking the pockets of a farm hand of the price ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... letters of marque, letters of mark and reprisal. filibustering, filibusterism[obs3]; burglary; housebreaking; badger game*. robbery, highway robbery, hold-up* [U.S.], mugging. peculation, embezzlement; fraud &c. 545; larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia[obs3], den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c. 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sat on the jury during the day acted as guards at night, where they boasted of their murders, thefts, etc., to the prisoners. This trial resulted in the brethren being held for "murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... with death grand larceny, but as for petty thefts, such as that of a sheep, so long has one has not repeatedly been taken in the act, they beat him cruelly, and if they administer an hundred blows they must use an hundred sticks." (Rockhill, Rubruck, p. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... AIDS TO LARCENY.—(By an "Outside Croaker.")—I find that since I started off shopping this morning, I have lost my purse, my handkerchief, the keys of all my boxes and drawers, a silver-mounted scent-bottle, my season-ticket, and a pocket-book containing priceless materials ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... days later, to the amount of 60. One thing was manifest, and that was that an incredible amount of superstition appeared to prevail amongst families in that neighbourhood when the loss of such a sum as this could be attributed to anything but larceny, and it could for a moment be suggested that it was due to spiritual intervention to indicate that a certain course ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... who, though nominally under fifteen, are sometimes a good deal older when admitted. Young persons, as these are termed in the Summary Jurisdiction Acts of 1879, are of a much more hardened character than before, and in addition to having been guilty of acts of petty larceny, have frequently been prostitutes for some time anterior to their admission. This being so, it can hardly be wondered at if the success of reformatories is not so marked as it was when ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... I'm sorry; but the fact is I'm in jail for six months for larceny—sentenced last December. I don't mind it much, only they don't act honest with me up at the jail. The first week I was there Mrs. Murphy—she's the keeper's wife—wanted to clean up, and so she turned me out, and I had to hang round homeless for more'n a week. Then, just as I was ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... sentence, but not until he had been conveyed to Fitzwalter's court and within his franchise. The nature of the sentence, to which the latter's assent was required, varied with the gravity of the offence. If the person were condemned for simple larceny, he was conducted to the Elms, near Smithfield—the usual place of execution before Tyburn was adopted for the purpose—and there "suffered his judgment," i.e., was hanged like other common thieves. If, on the other hand, the theft ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... worthy of remembrance; and Lord Pitsligo has just title to be called the last of the old Scottish Cavaliers. I trust that, in adapting the words of the following little ballad to a well-known English air, I have committed no unpardonable larceny. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... stuff as Yankee pork and salt horse. The very sight of the two sides of the heifer suspended at the flagstaff was an unendurable insult and mockery to the carnivorous whalers, and an incitement to larceny. Davy Fermaner was steering one of the boats, and he exclaimed: "There, they are flashing the fresh meat to us. They would look foolish ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... practice of taking the severity of the penalty into consideration, when the question is about the mode of procedure and the rules of evidence, is no doubt sufficiently common. We often see a man convicted of a simple larceny on evidence on which he would not be convicted of a burglary. It sometimes happens that a jury, when there is strong suspicion, but not absolute demonstration, that an act, unquestionably amounting to murder, was committed by the prisoner ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... MASC. Some larceny of my heart; some massacre of liberty. I behold here a pair of eyes that seem to be very naughty boys, that insult liberty, and use a heart most barbarously. Why the deuce do they put themselves on their guard, in order to kill any one who comes near them? ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... commit a trespass* only, or larceny, or other unlawful deed, and doing an act from which involuntary homicide hath ensued, have heretofore been adjudged guilty of manslaughter, or of murder, by transferring such their unlawful intention to an act much more penal than they ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a woman," I said, "when it comes to devising new and ingenious methods of perpetrating petty larceny. There's only one small fly in the ointment, so far as I can see. How do we convince some racehorse owner he should become a ...
— Lighter Than You Think • Nelson Bond
... help you to do anything you wish," answered Green, "provided it doesn't amount to treason or petty larceny." ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Wheeler were nominated in the summer of 1876, and so close was the fight against Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks that friends of the latter to this day refer to the selection of Hayes and Wheeler by a joint Electoral Commission to whom the contested election was referred, as a fraud and larceny on the part of the Republican party. It is not the part of an historian, who is absolutely destitute of political principles, to pass judgment. Facts have crept into this history, it is true, but no one could regret it more than the author; yet there ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... the lady. Anthony found himself mirrored in two dew-burning stars. To deck her favourite, Nature had robbed the firmament. To see such larceny, it is not surprising that ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Mr. 'Frobisher,'" he said, in a low tone, "what do you mean by mixing me up in your petty-larceny frauds?" ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... person. As Ireland is the hotbed of all crimes, do we not want a Lord Lieutenant who shall be able to assess the true value of every indiscretion, from simple murder to compound larceny? As every Irishman may in a few months be in prison, I want a Lord Lieutenant who shall be emphatically ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... punishments, all irreclaimable thieves or murderers are killed and disposed of in the same manner as these sorcerers; whilst on minor thieves a penalty equivalent to the extent of the depredation is levied. Illicit intercourse being treated as petty larceny, a value is fixed according to the value of the woman—for it must be remembered all women are property. Indeed, marriages are considered a very profitable speculation, the girl's hand being in the father's gift, who marries her to any one who will pay her price. This arrangement, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... is remarkable," stated the hunchback. "But—please—do not look so shocked. I assure you I do not commonly pick young gentlemen's pockets. It is a vulgar pastime, and I am an accomplished villain. Why, once upon a time, I wrote an epic poem. What mere larceny can compare with that fell deed! Besides, this particular outrage upon the sanctity of your overcoat was not without justification. Observe: Ichi, the beast, picks Little Billy's pocket, and the way to Fire Mountain is lost; Little Billy picks Mr. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... that both would quit the brig the moment an opportunity offered; and the mate even went so far as to propose an attempt to escape in one of the boats, although he might incur the hazards of a double accusation, those of mutiny and larceny, for making the experiment. Unfortunately, neither Rose, nor her aunt, nor Biddy, nor Jack Tier had seen the barrel of powder, and neither could testify as to the true character of Spike's connection with the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... instigation of the Comstocks, raided White's premises at 10 Courtlandt Street and seized the books, accounts, and correspondence carried away by White and Moore on January 1. Simultaneously, the Comstocks succeeded in having White and Moore arrested on a charge of larceny "for stealing on last New Year's Day a large number of notes and receipts," and in September White was arrested on a charge of forgery. Since the alleged offense took place in Pennsylvania, he was extradited back to that state. Neither the circumstances nor the ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... never can get those busts out of your head. After all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It is the murder that we are really investigating, and I tell you that I am gathering all ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forth together, and as we walked he told me the number of prisoners, the sort of crimes for which they were detained—ranging from man-slaughter to petty larceny—and finally, details of his own career. He was an intelligent man, and when we came to the prison door insisted on ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... Common Law, all women were denied the benefit of clergy; and till the 3 and 4 W. and M., c. 9 [William and Mary] they received sentence of death and might have been executed for the first offence in simple larceny, bigamy, manslaughter, etc., however learned they were, merely because their sex precluded the possibility of their taking holy orders; though a man who could read was for the same crime subject only to burning in the hand and a ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... translated by Palmet into yawns and sighs of a profoundly fraternal sympathy. Her face quickened on the rising of Beauchamp to speak. She kept eye on him all the while, as Palmet, with the skill of an adept in disguising his petty larceny of the optics, did on her. Twice or thrice she looked pained: Beauchamp was hesitating for the word. Once she looked startled and shut her eyes: a hiss had sounded; Beauchamp sprang on it as if enlivened by hostility, and dominated the factious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mercy during the whole of his career as an officer, and as commissioner he had exclusive jurisdiction over the petty court of Ballarat, and fined and sentenced miners, who were brought before him for drunkenness and petty larceny, without mercy. He was an ambitious man, and had striven for a long time to get a seat upon one of the benches of the upper courts in Melbourne, but owing to the want of influence, he had never ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... feathers. White-necked storks often begin nest-building about the middle of May, but eggs are rarely laid earlier than the second week of June. House-crows nest at the same time of year, and they often worry the storks considerably by their impudent attempts to commit larceny of building material. ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... honourable behaviour as a matter of course, and he would no more have thought of praising other people or himself for having a strict sense of honour in their conduct of a newspaper than he would of praising them or himself for not committing petty larceny, perjury, or fraud. He took, indeed, a very hopeful view of mankind and did not the least believe they were really bad, even if they did show themselves to be tigers on occasion. For instance, I remember his saying to me once, with that ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of Northern and Baltimore policemen have made their appearance in Richmond. Some of these, if not indeed all of them, have been employed by Gen. Winder. These men, by their own confessions, have been heretofore in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, merely petty larceny detectives, dwelling in bar-rooms, ten-pin alleys, and such places. How can they detect political offenders, when they are too ignorant to comprehend what constitutes a political offense? They are illiterate men, of low instincts and desperate characters. But their low cunning ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... instant forgot Loraine Haswell, the prize of his brother's grand larceny for his pleasure, forgot that this woman was no more than his Platonic friend and remembered only that her chin rested in his hand and that his arm encircled her, as he bent his head and pressed his lips against the mouth ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... propose marriage and then to commence her action. That disposes of Miss Paines, and you now know why she is worrying you. Our friend 'Waxy' has another name—Thomas Cobbler—and he has been three times convicted of larceny." ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... don't know, pop," answered that young hopeful. "You'll have to get somebody who knows the rules of grand larceny to tell you that. The rules for percentage ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... detecting it, and while waiting till I could profit by my larceny, I improvised a trick. After juggling away Bou- Allem's rosary, I made it pass into one of the numerous slippers left at the door by the guests; this shoe was next found to be full of coins, and to end this little scene comically, I made five-franc pieces come out of the noses of the spectators. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... heard from a supernatural voice, and also from Criton's reports, of the sacrilegious larceny M. Coignard committed by which he flattered himself to find out the art by which Salamanders, Sylphs, and Gnomes ripen the morning dew and insensibly change it into ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... grand jury filing in to be "charged" by this judicial dignitary. Imagine his charge, his well-chosen sentences in anticipation of the one to come at the end of the sitting. Think of his eloquent disquisition on the law of larceny! It was all there! ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... father built up to wage wars of conquest, seize territory that did not belong to him, and in consequence made himself a great German hero. [5] He may be said to have laid the foundations of modern militarized, socialized, obediently educated, and subject Germany, and also to have begun the "grand-larceny" and "scrap-of-paper" policy which has characterized Prussian international relationships ever since. Frederick William II, who reigned from 1786 to 1797, continued in large measure the enlightened policies ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY |
