"Extortion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advantage; and even though, at that period, strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of bribes, such inquiry failed to alarm him—nay, he actually turned it to account and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which never fails to attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His method of working was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into his pocket, to extract thence the necessary letters of recommendation for signature, Chichikov would smilingly ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... half-a-crown, "Since we have nothing to expect," cried he, "from the favour of Christians, let us have recourse to the descendants of Judah. Though they lie under the general reproach of nations, as a people dead to virtue and benevolence, and wholly devoted to avarice, fraud, and extortion, the most savage of their tribe cannot treat me with more barbarity of indifference, than I have experienced among those who are the authors ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... pursuit, and in possessing broad domains and "the cattle on a thousand hills," yet all this will not afford you one throb of genuine enjoyment. There would be that in the manner of obtaining these possessions, which would utterly deprive them of all power to impart happiness. Wealth secured by extortion, fraud, or any practice or business of a corrupting nature, injurious to the morals, and destructive to the well-being of community, will be of no more value to him who thus obtains it, as far as his happiness is concerned, than so much ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... no wise to blame, if you considered that what you asked was your right, though to my mind it savoured of extortion. It is my unhappy son whom I cannot excuse. Had he but come to me, and told me what was in his heart, it would have gone hard but I would have provided for him in some honest career. But to let himself be enticed away by pirates, as there is little doubt they were, and to dissemble his flight ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... King of France for succor. Philip, who was then on the throne, entered into his quarrel. Nor was William, on his side, backward; though prodigal to the highest degree, the resources of his tyranny and extortion were inexhaustible. He was enabled to enter Normandy once more with a considerable army. But the opposition, too, was considerable; and the war had probably been spun out to a great length, and had drawn on very bloody consequences, if one of the most extraordinary events which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... peasants Bishops of England, instead of men appointed to that sacred office solely because they were the needy scions of a factitious aristocracy; men of gross ignorance, profligate habits, and grinding extortion, who have disgraced the episcopal ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... manufacture of oleomargarine artificially colored to look like butter.[1] Also to invade the police power of the States in respect of the regulation of the sale and use of narcotic drugs.[2] Also to check speculation and extortion in the sale of theatre tickets![3] The power to borrow money and create fiscal agencies was utilized to facilitate the making of loans upon farm security at low rates of interest through the incorporation of Federal land banks or Joint Stock ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... Well, I am living at enormous expense, and am wonderfully pleased with my way of life. My strict abstinence from all extortion, based on your counsels, is such that I shall probably have to raise a loan to pay off what you lent me. My predecessor, Appius, has left open wounds in the province; I refrain from irritating them. I am writing on the eve of starting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Revenue Committee a bill entitled 'An Act for the Taxing of Personal Incomes, and for the Levying of a Withholding Tax.' Fellow citizens, words fail me to express my horror of this diabolic proposition, this proposed instrument of tyrannical extortion, borrowed from the Dark Ages of the Twentieth Century! Why, if this young nobleman had not taken his blade in hand, I'd ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... taking no advantage of any technicality; congress would remit duties on building material for a time, and thus protect the city-builders from the extortions of the material men; the material men roundly asserted that there should be no extortion, no advance in prices, but, on the contrary, all other work should be set aside and precedence given to San Francisco orders; eastern capitalists were to cooperate with the government in placing at the portal of the ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... that he might turn it to his own advantage, could he but obtain the co-operation of the Surgeon and one or two of his brother officers. This he soon effected, so great a favourite as he was could not be refused, besides, was it not a glorious thing to outwit those native dealers in extortion? ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... acts," said the baron, "shall be clear and plain enough, as you shall see. Could you believe it possible that I was the sort of person to submit tamely to any amount of extortion you chose to practise upon me. There was a time when I thought you possessed great sense and judgment when I thought that you were a man who weighed well the chances of what you were about; but now I know to the contrary; and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... they may govern themselves from within. Until they have reached this point they cannot have self-government. I will never advocate self-government for a people so long as their self-government means crime, violence, and extortion, corruption within, lawlessness among themselves and towards others. If that is what self-government means to any people then they ought to be governed by others until they ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... his oath. In plain and decent garb array'd, With the prim Quaker, Fraud, came Trade; Connivance, to improve the plan, Habited like a juryman, Judging as interest prevails, Came next, with measures, weights, and scales; Extortion next, of hellish race A cub most damn'd, to show his face 1650 Forbid by fear, but not by shame, Turn'd to a Jew, like Gideon[273] came; Corruption, Midas-like, behold Turning whate'er she touch'd ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... power of Rome prevailed, not nominally only, but really and effectually. Those who immediately exercised it were Roman; the tone and tendency of its administration, Roman. Rome herself continued to be the heart and centre of the great system which she had established. Extortion and rapacity, finding a wide and often rich field of action in the provinces, looked nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the scene in which their ill-gotten treasures should be displayed; or, if a spirit ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... ages these questions were rare and occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they were made perpetual: four praetors were annually empowered to sit in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion, peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new praetors and new questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of the majority ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... countries; despite improved legislation, vulnerable to money laundering due to nascent enforcement capabilities and comparatively weak regulation of offshore companies and the gaming industry; CIS organized crime (including counterfeiting, corruption, extortion, stolen cars, and prostitution) accounts for most ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... are regarded with reverence by the people, the Vladika was respected by neither the one nor the other. At present the office is vacant, none having been appointed since the demise of the last who occupied the episcopal chair. That event occurred in the commencement of 1861, and his attempts at extortion were so frequent and undisguised, that his death must have been felt as a great relief by the people. Petitions were sent at that time to Constantinople, praying for the appointment of a Slavish Metropolitan; but, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... partially true; but to hear you profess sentiments of feeling and justice reminds me of our advertising money-lenders who, while they practise usury and extortion on the world, assure them that "the strictest honor and liberality may be relied on;" and now, sir once ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Extortion and Discrimination; Forestalling, Regrating, Engrossing; The Statute of Bakers; Origin of Law of Conspiracy; The Law of Combination; The Modern Definition; Combinations Against Individuals; Intent Makes the Guilt; Conspiracy More Heinous than the Act Committed; Combinations ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... fee-seeking clerk, thrusting in your face an itching palm: to the poor, these things are more than a mere annoyance; they amount to a hardship and a hindrance; for such demands at such seasons are often nothing less than a bitter extortion upon ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... silver wrung from reluctant and indignant passengers. Smollett characterized the chambers as cold and comfortless, the beds as "paultry" (with "frowsy," a favourite word), the cookery as execrable, wine poison, attendance bad, publicans insolent, and bills extortion, concluding with the grand climax that there was not a drop of tolerable malt liquor to be had from London to Dover. Smollett finds a good deal to be said for the designation of "a den of thieves" as applied to that famous port (where, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... to deny that, in the great art of inspiring large masses of human beings with confidence and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he had made himself popular with the English by giving up the Bengalese to extortion and oppression, or if, on the other hand, he had conciliated the Bengalese and alienated the English, there would have been no cause for wonder. What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief of a small band of strangers who exercised boundless power over a great indigenous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... accumulated from poor people, that I was doing precisely that which was done by some landed proprietors who made some of their serfs wait on others. I saw that every use of money, whether for making purchases, or for giving away without an equivalent to another, is handing over a note for extortion from the poor, or its transfer to another man for extortion from the poor. I saw that money in itself was not only not good, but evidently evil, and that it deprives us of our highest good,—labor, and thereby of the enjoyment of our ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... prohibited from laying such floors with anything but "mellow earth," that greater facility might be given them. This power, in the hands of men likely to be appointed to fulfil such duties, was no doubt subject to much abuse for the purposes of extortion, making, as Lord Coke states, "simple people believe that Lee (the salt-peter-man) will, without their leave, breake up the floore of their dwelling-house, unless they will compound with him to the contrary." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... life: not that it is dull to me, a curious spectator, but how the men with nothing to do can endure it is a wonder. I went yesterday to call on a Turk at Karnac; he is a gentlemanly man, the son of a former Moudir, who was murdered, I believe, for his cruelty and extortion. He has 1,000 feddans (acres, or a little more) of land, and lives in a mud house, larger but no better than any fellahs, with two wives and the brother of one of them. He leaves the farm to his fellaheen altogether, I fancy. There was one book, a Turkish ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... hospitality, had borrowed at sundry times of the said abbot: for the abbots and the bishops were the chief usurers of those days, and, as the end sanctifies the means, were not in the least scrupulous of employing what would have been extortion in the profane, to accomplish the pious purpose of bringing a blessing on the land by rescuing it from the frail hold of carnal and temporal into the firmer grasp of ghostly and spiritual possessors. But the earl, confident in the number and attachment of his retainers, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... Matthew Paris) might yet find out the foundation of the hall, which he had purposed to build, stretching from the Thames side vnto the common street. But though those his buildings were great ornaments to the realme, yet bicause he tooke vp monie by extortion of his subiects towards the charges of the same, he was euill spoken of; [Sidenote: Polydor.] the report being spred, that he should take them in hand but onelie vnder a colour to spoile his subiects, in gathering a farre greater ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed
... They all enjoy the spectacle with approval, and take the drama au grand serieux, uttering none of the gibes which sometimes attend efforts to please in our own country. Even when the hat, or other instrument of extortion, is passed round, and they give nothing, and when the manager, in an excess of fury and disappointment, calls out, "Ah! sons of dogs! I play no more to you!" and closes the theatre, they quietly and unresentfully disperse. Though, indeed, fioi de ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... money-lenders and tax-farmers ('negotiatores,' and 'publicani'), who cleared off what was left by those stronger creatures of prey, the proconsuls. Thus the misery caused by a meddlesome and nerveless national policy was enhanced by a domestic administration based on turpitude and extortion. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... or of knight-errantry which inspired the bosoms of the citizens whose acclamations now rent the air on her approach. They beheld in the princess whom they welcomed the daughter of that Henry who had redeemed the land from papal tyranny and extortion; the sister of that young and godly Edward,—the Josiah of English story,—whose pious hand had reared again the altars of pure and primitive religion; and they had bodied forth for her instruction and admonition, in a series of solemn pageants, the maxims by which they hoped to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me and to all men—the only good thing in thee is thy body—and for that ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... senatorial rank. He was expelled from the Senate for his profligacy, but restored again to his rank through the influence of Caesar, whose party he espoused. He accompanied his patron in the African war, and was made governor of Numidia. While in that capacity, he accumulated by rapacity and extortion enormous wealth, which he lavished in expensive but tasteful luxury. The gardens on the Quirinal which bore his name were celebrated for their beauty; and there, surrounded by the choicest works of art, he devoted his retirement ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... no difficulty about their entrance into the country, with the proviso that we paid five hundred dollars of "Alcavala" tax upon each waggon. This was a greater extortion than usual; but the traders were compelled ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... days since the papers had reported the strange kidnapping of Gennaro's five-year-old daughter Adelina, his only child, and the sending of a demand for ten thousand dollars ransom, signed, as usual, with the mystic Black Hand—a name to conjure with in blackmail and extortion. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... receive by the proposed marriage. Thus we find one woman in Ipswich giving a large fee for the privilege of "not being married except to her own good liking." In the collection of these "aids" and "reliefs," great extortion was often practiced both by the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... a vast Jacob's ladder towering upwards to the clouds, mile after mile, league after league; and myself running up and down this ladder, like any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, to the top of any Babel which my wretched admirer might choose to build. But I nipped the abominable system of extortion in the very bud, by refusing to take the first step. The man could have no pretence, you know, for expecting me to climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... all the crueltyes by great ones done, Of Edward's youths, and Clarence hapless son, O Jane, why didst thou dye in flow'ring prime? Because of royal stem, that was thy crime. For bribery, Adultery and lyes, Where is the nation I can't parallize? With usury, extortion and oppression, These be the Hydraes of my stout transgression. These be the bitter fountains, heads and roots, Whence flowed the source, the sprigs, the boughs, and fruits, Of more than thou canst hear or I relate, That with high hand I still did perpetrate; For these ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... here was Warren Hastings, who long years afterwards, as governor of India, was convicted of cruelty and extortion. Cowper showed the loyalty of his nature by refusing utterly to believe in the guilt of his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... prominent in our literary authorities." They show cases of strong conjugal affection between slave spouses, and of affection between master and slave.[782] In the first century the waste of the fortunes won by extortion from the provinces, and the opening of industrial opportunities by commerce, with security, gave great stimulus to free industry. The inscriptions "show the enormous and flourishing development of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... eager to avoid it) I would deprecate by clandestine means. You will therefore retain the manuscript in your own care, or, if it must needs be shown, send it to another. Though not very patient of censure, I would fain obtain fairly any little praise my rhymes might deserve, at all events not by extortion, and the humble solicitations of a bandied about MS. I am sure a little consideration will convince you it ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... accurate account as I am able. Under the consulship of Lucius Tullus and Marcus Lepidus, Publius Autronius and Publius Sylla,[109] having been tried for bribery under the laws against it,[110] had paid the penalty of the offense. Shortly after Catiline, being brought to trial for extortion,[111] had been prevented from standing for the consulship, because he had been unable to declare himself a candidate within the legitimate number of days.[112] There was at that time, too, a young patrician of the most ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... pitched our tent under a chestnut grove, considerably hot and tired by our first march, after all the ease and comparative idleness we had of late been enjoying in the valley. Here we saw the first of the system of extortion which goes on among the government authorities and the people; for after the paymaster to the forces had settled with the seven coolies who were not in our permanent employ, not being able to take all as ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... during the course of the great emergency and after it was over, the Office of Works perhaps, upon the whole, took precedence over all rivals. Its prodigality was, to do it justice, tempered by extortion. Did the system of commandeering hotels and mammoth blocks of offices create new Departments of State? Or did the creation of new Departments of State precede the commandeering of the hotels and blocks ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... separated the families from one another that the exercise of any mutual control was impossible. Shame is stronger than conscience. I need not tell you of all the bonds of infamy that united masters and slaves. Debauchery, extortion, and fraud were both precept and example for my youth, and life went on merrily. All notions of justice were scoffed at; creditors were defrauded of both interest and capital; any law officer who ventured to serve a summons received a sound thrashing, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... to the trusts were social or political. In a social way they were believed to check individualism and to create too large a proportion of subordinates to independent producers. As monopolies, they were believed to threaten extortion through high price. It was strongly suspected of the largest trusts that having destroyed all competition they could fix prices at pleasure. Economists pointed out that such price could hardly be ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... buying a rope for his own neck, as of displaying his wealth in the presence of a pasha; but Djeylany has not yet laid aside the customs which the Mekkawys learned under their old government, particularly that of Sherif Ghaleb, who seldom exercised extortion upon single individuals; and they now rely on the promises of Mohammed Aly, that he will respect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... is to get from the parishioners what the parson would be ashamed to demand, and so enable the parson to absent himself from his duty. The powers of the tithe-farmer are summary laws and ecclesiastical courts; his livelihood is extortion; his rank in society is generally the lowest; and his occupation is to pounce on the poor in the name of the Lord! He is a species of wolf left by the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence.' A single tithe-proctor had on one occasion processed 1,100 persons for tithes, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... which she once encircled the globe. More than 7,000,000 people—a peace-loving, kindly, intelligent race—are there ruled by the Spaniards, and as the rule was of the characteristic Spanish kind, with all the accompaniments of slaughter, dishonor, and extortion, the natives—as in Cuba—were in a chronic state of rebellion. One uprising, which had assumed very considerable proportions, was reported by the Spaniards as suppressed just before our declaration of war. That event, however, aroused the revolutionists ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... from distant provinces, and heavy impositions were laid upon the richest of the inhabitants of Delhi. The great misery caused by these impositions was considerably augmented by the corrupt and base character of the Indian agents employed, who actually farmed the right of extortion of the different quarters of the city to wretches who made immense fortunes by the inhuman speculation, and who collected, for every ten thousand rupees they paid into Nadir's treasury, forty and fifty thousand from the unhappy inhabitants, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the entire romance. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Carpzov and his successors, see authorities already given. The best account of James's share in the extortion of confessions may be found in the collection of Curious Tracts published at Edinburgh in 1820. See also King James's own Demonologie, and Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland, vol. i, part ii, pp. 213-223. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... within their power; and thus the Jews, who were unable to hold even land in their possession, became the money-makers; and, consequently, moneylenders of the world—and, as they were frequently pillaged and deprived by extortion of their wealth, they naturally endeavoured to regain, by every means left to them, that of ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... shown in Bernard's controversy with the monks of Cluny, an abbey of pre-eminent power and moral authority, so that Louis had called it the "noblest member of his kingdom." Pontius, its abbot, having fallen into ways of pride and extortion, had been induced from Rome to resign his abbacy, and to promise a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; but soon afterwards he fell upon the monastery with an armed force, and ruled there like a robber chieftain. This scandalous outrage was soon reported ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... to be levied. And as to the conduct of the officers of the revenue, the provision in favor of trial by jury in criminal cases, will afford the security aimed at. Wilful abuses of a public authority, to the oppression of the subject, and every species of official extortion, are offenses against the government, for which the persons who commit them may be indicted and punished according to the circumstances of the case. The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to depend on circumstances foreign to ...
— The Federalist Papers
... told them how the miners' shirts were wet through and through in the struggle for gold; he told them how the little boys demanded a dollar apiece for washing these same garments; and how the miners to escape this extortion sent their linen to China in ships on Monday morning, and China sent them back on Saturday, only it ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... for extortion: what moisture is drawn out of the sea, when foul weather comes, pours down, and runs into the ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... Here have we, in our time, been compelled to give the patronage of our countenance to all sorts of rascality—have been forced to support robbery, swindling, extortion—but it won't do to think of—give me the pot. Oh! dear, it had suited better with my conscience, had I been doomed to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... cunning of the school-boy. Well aware that the safety of their own precious carcasses depends on their returning to Khorassan with a receipt from the Khan of Ghalakua for my safe delivery, there is little reason to fear actual violence from them, and their childish attempts at extortion by other methods will furnish an amusing and instructive study of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... great insecurity to navigation prevailed on both the African and Indian shores, at the entrance of the Red Sea; and one particular instance was adduced, in which the crew of a Muscat vessel, wrecked on the coast near Aden, were subjected to such inordinate extortion by Sultan Mahassan, that "the master, in anger or despair, burned his vessel. The Bombay government could only give general instructions, that in case of any outrage being offered to a vessel under British colours, redress should be peremptorily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... unhappiness in a measure canceled his guilt—so, at least, said the code under which Lorelei lived. What concerned her far more than the moral complexion of the liaison, was her brother's connection with the unlawful scheme of extortion. Jim, she saw, had gone wrong with a vengeance, and the consequences to him troubled her, for in spite of all that he might be or do she cherished a sisterly affection for him. Family ties were very real and very strong to her—strong enough to keep her loyal to her kin even after the demoralizing ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... city does not trouble himself about this robbery of his employes, but allows it to go on with his indirect approval, at least. General Dix has the honor of being the only Postmaster who ever had the moral courage to protect his subordinates from this extortion. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... to disrupt the Jewish communal organization and rob the Kahal of all its authority by degrading it to a kind of posse for the capture of recruits and extortion of taxes. But while the Jewish masses hated the Kahal elders, they retained their faith in their spiritual leaders, the rabbis and Tzaddiks. [1] Heeding the command of these leaders, they closed their ranks, and ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... first demand with which he had to comply was to give bills for the great sums promised by the Envoy to the chiefs for their services in furthering and supporting his treaty. This imposition had to be submitted to, since the Afghans stopped the supplies until the extortion was complied with. The next concession required was the surrender of the artillery of the force, with the exception of six field and three mule guns; and the military chiefs endured this humiliation, against which even the demoralised soldiery chafed. Then the demand for hostages had to be complied ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... person can only trust to the intervention of good spirits; if, therefore, you will permit this unworthy individual to wear, while making the venture, the ring which he perceives upon your finger, and which he recognizes as a very powerful charm against evil, misunderstandings, and extortion, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... his neighbour in the pursuit of sensual gratifications. Here iniquity abounds, and those outward gross sins which in Europe would render a person contemptible in the public eye, and obnoxious to the civil law, are become fashionable and familiar—adultery, fornication, theft, drunkenness, extortion, violence, and uncleanness of every kind, the natural concomitants of deism and infidelity, which have boldly thrown off the mask, and stalk through the colony in the open face of the sun, so that it is no uncommon thing to hear ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... prefer it, he might pay in money or in labor: the relative price of rice to money or labor being previously fixed at as low a rate as possible. That the officers, viz., Patingi, Bandar, and Tumangong, were to receive stated salaries out of this revenue, in order to prevent any extortion, either by themselves or in their name; and that they were to be answerable for the whole revenue under my superintendence. That the Dyaks were to be treated the same as the Malays, their property protected, their taxes fixed, and their labor free. At the same time, I represented ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... which this money was to flow. His exhausted personal fortune, his costly tastes, his attachment to a seductive woman, Madame de Beauvert, sister to Rivarol; his intimacy with men of unprincipled character and irregular habits,—reports of extortion charged on his ministry, and falling, if not on him on those he trusted, tarnished his character in the eyes of Madame Roland and her husband. Probity is the virtue of democrats, for the people look first at the hands of those who govern them. The Girondists, pure as men ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... "Extortion was the source of this scoundrel's delicacy. We were still too near the Hospital to make any noise. 'Silence!' said I to him, 'you shall have a louis d'or for the job': for less than that he would have helped me to ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... but Englishmen as a rule pay the exorbitant prices charged, contenting themselves with a hearty growl at the same on departure. I told the landlord plainly myself, that the English seldom objected to pay liberally, but hated extortion. The charge of two francs a day for attendance is a snare and a delusion, for it is well known that this does not in the least exonerate one from feeing the waiter, chambermaid, porter, boots, and even the omnibus tout. It is a system ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... the city for a thousand Rhenish gulden, but that Master Ulrich Rummel, whose it was, would not part with it. And we were now required to pay the price of two dozen such strongholds! It was indeed an unheard-of and devilish extortion; and when Kubbeling came to hear of it he turned his wild-cat-skin pocket inside out, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... make but, at the place he went to on this occasion, the headman had been behaving as in the old times; and Stanley had to listen to a long series of complaints on behalf of the villagers. The case was fully proved, both as to extortion and ill treatment. Stanley at once deprived the man of his office, and called upon the villagers to assemble and elect another in ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... Courcyites when away from Courcy, excellent shops in the place; but they were not the less accustomed, when at home among themselves, to complain to each other of the vile extortion with which they were treated by their neighbours. The ironmonger, therefore, though he loudly asserted that he could beat Bristol in the quality of his wares in one direction, and undersell Gloucester in another, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... selfish may well escape our censure in comparison with those who not only close their purses to the poor but shamelessly and forcibly deprive and rob their needy neighbor of his own by overreaching, by fraud, oppression and extortion; who take from the Church the property rightfully hers and especially reserved for her, snatching the bread from her mouth, so to speak. Not only is the papistical rabble today guilty of such sin, but many who would be known as evangelical practice the same fraud with ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law-breaker, partly because the word "black-mail" stood for what he did not dare suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was genuine; there were certain things which he didn't want to commit, and extortion was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try to scare her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, "borrow" from such men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had never attempted to black-mail ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... "What extortion!" cried Isabel, with an indignation that secretly unnerved him. He trembled upon the verge of confession; but he had finally the moral force to resist. He suffered her to compute the cost of their stay at Niagara without allowing those three dollars to enter into her calculation; he even began ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... usefulness to others. To-day, over in England, they are quarrelling with bitter acrimony concerning forms and outward symbols of religion, thus fulfilling the words of the Lord, 'Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within ye are full of extortion and excess.' Now, if the Spirit of Christ were at all in these men who thus argue, there would be no trouble about forms or symbols of faith,—there would be too much of the faith itself for any such petty disputation. Monseigneur, I swear to you, I say ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... loomed high. His house in Moscow was magnificent, his banquets were gorgeous with gold and silver plate, and the ambassadors of the powers of Europe figured among his guests. Such was the bright side of the picture. The dark side was one of extortion and robbery, in which the favorite of the czar out-did in peculation all the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of life have learned how to build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion. The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... property being rendered secure they would rapidly acquire new wants and new tastes, and become large consumers of European goods. This would be a far surer source of profit to their rulers than imposts and extortion, and would be at the same time more likely to produce peace and obedience than the mock-military rule which has hitherto proved most ineffective. To inaugurate such a system would however require an immediate ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... personal comfort. The people were not allowed to be employed on works pernicious to their health, nor to pine— a sad contrast to their subsequent destiny—under the imposition of tasks too heavy for their powers. They were never made the victims of public or private extortion; and a benevolent forecast watched carefully over their necessities, and provided for their relief in seasons of infirmity, and for their sustenance in health. The government of the Incas, however arbitrary in form, was in its spirit ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 1798. The treasure of Berne, amounting to about L800,000, accumulated by ages of thrift and good management, was seized in order to provide for Bonaparte's next campaign, and for a host of voracious soldiers and contractors. A system of robbery and extortion, more shameless even than that practised in Italy, was put in force against the cantonal governments, against the monasteries, and against private individuals. In compensation for the material losses inflicted upon the country, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... years, indeed, he had been concerting schemes with the French at Pondicherry, and improving and increasing his army, with a design of overturning the Anglo-Indian government at Madras, if not in all India. To enable him to raise forces, he had recourse to a system of extortion from his subjects, and plunder from his neighbours, by which means the treasury of Mysore was full even to overflowing. The Madras government was warned of its danger by Mohammed Ali, the Nabob of the Carnatic; but his voice was disregarded, and no preparations were made ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... ever heard; so that, though no doubt he said many excellent things, it was nearly impossible to comprehend any of them; but he talked with interest of our King's health, of the antiquities, and Vescovali, of Lucien Buonaparte and his extortion (for his curiosities), said when he was Cardinal he used to go often to Vescovali. He is, in fact, a connoisseur. Talked of quieting religious dissensions in England and the Catholic question; and when I said, 'Tres-Saint Pere, le Roi mon maitre ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... stupid method of extortion, since no one believed that he had lost the money, and at all events he had no business to have the greenbacks, as the Rebel laws imposed severe penalties upon any citizen, and still more upon any soldier dealing with, or having in his possession any of "the money of the enemy." We did without ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... officers, the silent chagrin of the endlessly patient Bering. One can easily believe that the God-speed from the Siberians was sincere; for the local governors used the orders for tribute to enrich themselves; and the country-side groaned under a heavy burden of extortion. The second winter was passed at Yakutsk, where the ships that were to chart the Arctic coast of Siberia were built and launched with crews ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... apart, and visibly weigh the worthiness thereof, is that sovereign, tried medicine that quencheth the daily digested poison of self-love, worldly pleasure, fleshly felicity. It is the only worthy poison of ambition, covetousness, extortion, uncleanness, licentiousness, wrath, strife, sedition, sects, malice, and such other wayward worms: it is the hard hammer that breaketh off the rust from the anchor of a Christian faith. O profitable instrument! O excellent exercise, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... appropriation of the four millions and a half, the result of the extortion inflicted on the Senate of Hamburg, in the affair of Napper ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... what she herself describes as the most priest-ridden country in Europe by never going to church, though and while she actually lived in a disestablished and disendowed monastery. To punish them for which (the non sequitur is intentional) she does little but talk of dirt, discomfort, bad food, extortion, foul-smelling oil and garlic, varying the talk only to foul-smelling oil and garlic, extortion, bad food, discomfort, or dirt. The book no doubt yields some of her finest passages of descriptive prose, both as regards landscape, and in the famous record of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the jury to find the latter guilty of the capital charge brought against him. Many of the lawyers, indeed, were of opinion, that the man's last story was true, that he had found the clothes, and, being a desperate character and in needy circumstances, had written the letter for purposes of extortion. Of this offence only was he found guilty, and condemned, as a vagrant and impostor, to a few months' imprisonment. By the American laws no severer punishment could be awarded. The one, however, was far from satisfying the public. There was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... not finde out a minde, a heart For blood and causelesse death to harbour in; They all are bent with vertuous gainefull trade, To get their needmentes for this mortall life, And will not soile their well-addicted harts With rape, extortion, murther, or the death Of friend or foe, to gaine an Empery. I cannot glut my blood-delighted eye With mangled bodies which do gaspe and grone, Readie to passe to faire Elizium, Nor bath my greedie handes in reeking blood Of fathers by their children murthered: When all ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only alternative—extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous justice upon the land agent, with ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... aspects they are regarded. Those who consider these business "combines" as arbitrary and high-handed interferences with freedom of commerce, undertaken in order to place in the hands of a few persons a power to rob and oppress the consuming public by legalised extortion, regard the motive of combination to be monopoly. On the other hand, the combining firms represent themselves as the victims of circumstances, bound in self-protection to combine. Our analysis of the operations of commercial competition enables us to see that these ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... sixpence to drink my health, saying that it might be a very long time before he saw me again. Now I happened only to have one and fourpence left in the world, and suspecting that I had already overpaid him, I resisted further extortion, upon which he became more and more clamorous for money, and finding that I was as obstinate as he, rested on his oars and declared that, burn him—with many other execrations too unseemly to transcribe—he would not pull a stroke further. This it seems was ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... valuation of merchandise taken to Nueva Espana from Filipinas shall be made at Mexico, according to certain regulations. The officers of the trading ships shall be paid for four months only, each voyage; and the ships must leave Acapulco by December, and reach the islands by March. Extortion from the sailors by the royal officials at Acapulco is strictly forbidden. The official appointed to inspect the Chinese ships at Manila must be chosen, not by the governor alone, but by him and the Audiencia jointly. The shipment of money from New Mexico to Filipinas ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... In some cases it would seem as if the parents actually educated themselves in some degree from their own children, questioning them as to what they have been told. But, on the other hand, the labourer objects to paying for the teaching, and thinks the few coppers he is charged a terrible extortion. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the first place," said Mr. Fox, thinking to begin with the least important exaction, and gradually reach, a climax in his extortion, "I wish permission to pay my addresses to your daughter ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... sums were raised by the contributions levied from the lower German provinces, where no distinction was made between friend and foe; and the territories of all princes were subjected to the same system of marching and quartering, of extortion and outrage. If credit is to be given to an extravagant contemporary statement, Wallenstein, during his seven years command, had exacted not less than sixty thousand millions of dollars from one half of Germany. The greater his extortions, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 1. Composita seditione civili, i.e. after the abortive attempt of Lepidus to make himself master of the state 77 B.C. C. Dolabellam, impeached for illegal extortion during his government of Macedonia. Repetundarum (sc. pecuniarum), post-Aug. for de repetundis (pecuniis), used i. of money extorted by an official and to be returned, ii. of money extorted as a bribe. Caesar lost his case, ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... voracious blood-suckers, whom the French government was wont to fasten upon the newly formed republics which it created, and upon which it bestowed the derisive title of independent." General Macdonald succeeded Championnet; the commissary, maintained in his functions, had full scope for extortion, and the Republican government, unable, for want of money, to organise an army that might have given permanence to its existence, became daily more unpopular, and visibly tottered to its downfal. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast of Sicily, Ferdinand, his adherents and allies, were any thing but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... fatherless children—to take his part, and breed up a fresh race of tyrants to our misery. Let the extortioner consume all he hath, and the stranger spoil his labour—for what he has is itself taken by extortion, and he has spoiled the labour of thousands. Let his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation his name be clean put out. Let the wickedness of his father and the sin of his mother be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord; that he may root out the memorial of them ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... for three years. Cicero seldom prosecuted, but it was the custom at Rome for a rising politician to win his spurs by attacking a notable offender (pro Caelio, 73). In the following year he defended Marcus (or Manius) Fonteius on a charge of extortion in Gaul, using various arguments which might equally well have been advanced on behalf ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... everything in readiness to go with the first ship. As to his money, he always kept that locked up by him, unless he sometimes lent it to a friend without interest, for he had a mortal hatred to all sorts of usury or extortion. His books, of which he had a considerable quantity, and some of them very good ones, together with his other equipage, he got packed up, that nothing might be wanting against ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... was not in my power to upbraid him as he deserved; therefore, I contented myself with saying I was sure he did not learn to be an extortioner from Horace. He answered, I was but a young man and did not know the world, or I would not tax him with extortion, whose only aim was to live contentus parvo, and keep off importuna pauperies. My fellow traveller could not so easily put up with this imposition; but swore he should either take one-third of the money or go without. While ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... sagacity, and therefore, perhaps, with less than his usual energy. He held himself backward and aloof, allowing either party to interpret, as it best pleased, ambiguous and oracular phrases, obnoxious to none, for he had the advantage of being rich without the odium of extortion, and popular without the degradation of poverty. "Phanias the Lesbian" (so states the biographer of Solon) "asserts, that to save the state he intrigued with both parties, promising to the poor a division of the lands, to the rich a confirmation of their claims;" an assertion ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stood looking down in silence at the baby in his arms, but with his mind far away upon other things. At last he roused himself with a start. "And thou," said he to the Baron Conrad—"hath not thy heart been chastened and softened by this? Surely thou wilt not go back to thy old life of rapine and extortion?" ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... of another for his own benefit, which may be done by a variety of tricks. To "defraud in any matter" is to seek gain at the expense of a neighbor. On this latter subject much has been written elsewhere, particularly in the little treatise on Merchants and Usury, showing the great extent to which extortion is practiced and how charity is rarely observed. It is on this topic that Paul here would ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... the realm tributary to them, and exacted thence yearly most unjust and wrongful taxes. So dear cost us the friendship of the city of Rome. Wherefore, if they have gotten these things of us by extortion, through their fraud and subtle sleights, we see no reason why we may not pluck away the same from them again by lawful ways and just means. And if our kings in that darkness and blindness of former times, gave them ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... fond of using great words, but at the bottom of his heart he was convinced that everything bad originated in want and misery. Distrust and selfishness came from misusage; they were man's defence against extortion. And the extortion came from insecure conditions, from reminders of want or unconscious fear of it. Most crimes could easily be traced back to the distressing conditions, and even where the connection was not perceptible he was sure that it nevertheless existed. It was his experience that every ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... per cent; the income tax is not merely, as one would suppose, levied on a legitimate income derived from a man's possessions, but is levied on salaries, ranging from ten to twenty per cent of these, and also, not content with this unheard-of extortion, the tax is levied on the nature and source of his salary, and even the smallest wage is thus subject to an income tax. Again, there is a most absurd tax on salt, which, like sugar and tobacco, is held as a government monopoly. No poor person living on the seacoast ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... "When this system of extortion was successfully launched the Trust determined to reward its patrons, as a means of pacifying them for ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... p. 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings, who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of dagobas and other ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... those Bishop's Courts, of which I spoke just now: they were founded for the discipline of morality—they were made the instruments of the most detestable extortion. If an impatient layman spoke a disrespectful word of the clergy, he was cited before the bishop's commissary and fined. If he refused to pay, he was excommunicated, and excommunication was a poisonous disease. When a poor wretch was under the ban of the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... of the Nile. "A little farther on," says the narrative, "near a place called Djebel-Lamoule, the Arab guides practise a curious extortion." This is their plan of proceeding. They halt, descend from their camels, and arrange a little heap of sand and pebbles, in imitation of a Nubian tomb. This they, call "preparing the grave for the traveller" and follow up the demonstration ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... possession he had to pay a "relief," or heriot, to the lord. This soon became a source of oppression in the crown; and enormous sums were exacted from the great vassals. The lord was not more sparing of his men. He had another mode of extortion. He demanded "aid" on many occasions, such as the marriage of his eldest daughter, or when he made his eldest son a knight. The estate of inheritance, which looks so generous and equitable an arrangement, was a perpetual grievance; for the possessor could neither ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... both sons were forced to flee; when the elder was taken and imprisoned; when the most atrocious public extortion was practised; and when ruffianly officials regarded the defenceless widows as their prey. Their house had to be mortgaged, and then first one and then the other of their two vineyards; and finally one of their fields was ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... fleets of herring-busses, and drove them off; and as the Dutch were not strong enough to defend them, they agreed to pay a large sum annually for the right to fish in the seas in question, protesting, however, against it as an extortion, for they maintained that the English had no control over any seas beyond the bays and estuaries of their ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... particularly to the favor of the emperor. In fact, in one instance it had the contrary effect. Caligula assigned to the centurions of his guard, at one period, some duties connected with the collection of taxes. Chaerea, instead of practicing the extortion and cruelty common on such occasions, was merciful and considerate, and governed himself strictly by the rules of law and of justice in his collections. The consequence necessarily was that the amount of money received was somewhat diminished, ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... think that they would prove insuperable. It is probable, however, that it would require a show of force before the Natal natives would consent to budge. Indeed, it is absurd to suppose, that anything would induce them to leave peaceful Natal, and plunge into the seething cauldron of bloodshed, extortion, and political plots that we have cooked up in Zululand under the name of a settlement. Proper provisions must first be made for the government of the country, and security to life and property made certain. Till this is done, no natives in their ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... support the seid name, estate and dignite, or eny name of estate; and oft time it is sen that when eny lord is called to high estate and have not liffelode conveniently to support the same dignite, it induces gret poverty, indigens, and causes oftymes grete extortion, embracere and mayntenaunce to be had.... Wherfore the kyng, by the advyse ... [&c.] exactith that fro hensfforth the same erection and making of Duke, and all the names of dignite guyffen to the seid George, or the seid John Nevele his fader, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... preserve good humour. Not only did he charge thrice the reasonable sum for the meal I could not eat, but his bill for my driver's colazione contained such astonishing items that I had to question the lad as to what he had really consumed. It proved to be a very ugly case of extortion, and the tone of sullen menace with which my arguments were met did not help to smooth things. Presently the man hit upon a pleasant sort of compromise. Why, he asked, did I not pay the bill as it stood, and then, on dismissing my carriage—he had learnt ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... "Never do that," he said briefly; "private interviews," thought he, acting on past experience, "with women always mean proposals, and with men always mean extortion." ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of thieves, and has been the burial-pit of many a promising young fellow's hopes. There are two tariffs for everything—one for natives, the other for the British subaltern and the British tourist; and the British subaltern and the British tourist are foolish enough to submit to the extortion in most cases. With some half-dozen honourable exceptions, the traders are what is popularly known as "Jews" in their mode of dealing. They cozen on principle, sell articles that will not last, and charge preposterous prices for them; they impose upon the young ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... Rente is at 53—why then was this new loan issued at 42? An attempt has been made to oblige those persons left in charge of houses occupied by foreigners here, to pay the tax upon absents. An energetic protest, however, of Mr. Washburne, has saved Americans from this extortion. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... who once trod the paths of infamy have subsequently reconciled themselves to society by the performance of noble deeds, and have thus thrown a halo of glory round their evil doings—but if this were so, whence comes the monstrous extortion that now oppresses the people with a weight never before known? This I would ask in the name of my fatherland—and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Terracina without accident. The rascally innkeeper there made Mr O——— pay forty franks for each miserable room that he occupied, and fifteen franks a head for his supper; he was very insolent with all. I was rejoiced to find that in one instance he failed in his hopes of extortion. As he is obliged by law to furnish supper and beds at a fixed price to those who travel with vetturini and are spesati, he, whenever a vetturino arrives locks up all his decent chambers and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... and, after going further west, came back to the Superior Court with an army of eleven hundred men, which he had raised in Mecklenburg and Rowan counties. Husbands was acquitted on trial, but three other Regulators were heavily fined and imprisoned. Colonel Fanning was convicted in five cases of extortion in office, and the judges, to their shame, imposed a fine of only ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... north-east. Yussuf rode behind Rupert and Edgar by turns, so as to divide the labour between the two heiries. A few villages were passed, but the inhabitants fled into their houses or into the fields on seeing the approach of the party, the arrival of strangers meaning extortion and demands for tribute. So they journeyed for several days, until one afternoon they came to a large village, which was evidently inhabited. They alighted and knocked at the door of the principal house. No answer was at first returned, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... ago. The plundering of the royal tombs is a typical instance of the lawlessness of the times. The corruption, too, which followed on the disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny. Every Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates by illegal means; and bakshish—that bogie of the Nile Valley—cast its shadow upon ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... clearest and amplest demonstration that men "have gone out of the way," "have together become unprofitable." We see the bitter fruit of the same corruption in robbery, adultery, gluttony, drunkenness, extortion, intolerance, persecution, apostasy, and every evil work—in all false religions; the Jew, obstinately adhering to the carnal ceremonies of an abrogated law; the Mohammedan, honoring an impostor, and receiving a lie for a revelation from God; the papist, worshiping ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... Valley; but there are also a number of sharks, as I know by personal experience. There are men there who will charge a stranger, or even a neighbor, three or four prices for some commodity, and then if he ventures to protest against the extortion, will invariably answer him with that ancient bit of alleged humor, so familiar to the ears of travelers in the far West, to the effect that they are not out ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... Of gleaning all the Lands wealth into one, Into your owne hands (Card'nall) by Extortion: The goodnesse of your intercepted Packets You writ to'th Pope, against the King: your goodnesse Since you prouoke me, shall be most notorious. My Lord of Norfolke, as you are truly Noble, As you respect the common good, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... but all the coins I had were a sixpenny and a threepenny piece—not enough to pay for a night's lodging, I was sure. The cabman's extortion, and a half-crown I had given to the porter at Paddington in my haste, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... spend? This figure that Galbraith indicated as the probable cost of having a first-class brigand in New York design the costumes and a firm of pirates in the same neighborhood execute them, was simply insane. New York managers might be boobs enough to submit to such an extortion, but they, believe them, were not. Many of the costumes could be bought, ready made, on State Street or Michigan Avenue. Some of the fancy things could be executed by a competent wardrobe mistress, if some one would give her the ideas. And ideas—one ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... neglected to pass laws which would have made the Commission effective, or even provide funds for the Commission to carry on its work, even had the Commissioners been so inclined, California has been left helpless to oppose any extortion which the railroad might see fit to exact. The system of charging all that the traffic will bear has governed utterly. For this the Southern Pacific Company can thank, and the People ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... the modern innkeeper, proprietor of a building in the shape of a factory, making up three hundred beds; who necessarily regards his guests in the light of Numbers 1, 2, 3-300, and is too often felt or apprehended by them only as a presiding influence of extortion. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... extend the ecclesiastical power at the expense of the civil. It came from the spontaneous effort of the pastor, the natural and at that time the only protector of the people, trying to save his flock from the extortion and the injustice of their temporal rulers. In addition to this it must be remembered that at that time the office of the bishop was the only one where even the shadow of the democratic idea was preserved, the only one where the lowest of the people, theoretically at least, had a voice ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... meeting of each civil court, which, for the public accommodation, he from time to time had occasion to assemble. The vast load of debt with which they so frequently felt themselves burdened, through the imposition and extortion of the multitude of petty dealers by whom the colony was so much troubled, with the difficulties under which the industrious man laboured for want of some other mode of providing the necessaries which he required, were ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the Peninsula, the Jews, by those habits of trade, and mutual communion, which still make them the lords of commerce, had acquired the chief wealth of the country. The close of the Moorish war in the 15th century had left the Spanish monarch at leisure for extortion; and he grasped at the Jewish gains in the spirit of a robber, as he pursued his plunder with the cruelty of a barbarian. The inquisition was the great machine, the comprehensive torturer, ready to squeeze out alike the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... collected all his people to the religious services we held, and explained his reasons for compelling some Englishmen to pay him a horse. "They would not sell him any powder, though they had plenty; so he compelled them to give it and the horse for nothing. He would not deny the extortion to me; that would be 'boherehere' (swindling)." He thus thought extortion better than swindling. I could not detect any difference in the morality of the two transactions, but Sekomi's ideas of honesty are the lowest I have met with in any Bechuana chief, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... desirable that the Government should undertake the transportation of passengers or freight as a business, there can be no reasonable objection to running boats, temporarily, whenever it may be necessary to put down attempts at extortion, to be discontinued as soon as reasonable contracts ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... Home are anxious that seamen should clearly understand that the institution was designed for their sole benefit, and established with the view of protecting them from the systematic extortion of crimps and other snares, to which their circumstances and calling render them peculiarly liable; and, above all, to promote their moral elevation, social improvement, and religious instruction. The rules by which the institution is governed are, ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the world, except Ireland, has prevented the extortion of the landlords, by institutions, either springing from the nature of society, or established by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... averse to craft and overreaching, abhor extortion and every kind of weakness and wickedness. Help ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... prevented much injustice and extortion in the past, and I cannot doubt that its effect in the future will ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... other nations, let the traveller from taking of it out. Also here in Venice the dames turn their black hair yellow by the sun and art, to be wiser than Him who made them. Ye enter no Italian town without a bill of health, though now is no plague in Europe. This peevishness is for extortion's sake. The innkeepers cringe and fawn, and cheat, and in country places murder you. Yet will they give you clean sheets by paying therefor. Delicate in eating, and abhor from putting their hand in the plate; sooner they will apply a crust ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and not altogether to the satisfaction of the hackney coachman judging by the way he banged his door. Mrs. Fenton stumbled up the stairs to her room rating the extortion of drivers, and after a time ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... few of the more bashful ghosts thrust their hands in their pockets and looked awkwardly another way. The Barbarian felt a momentary relief followed by a slight pang of mortified vanity. He was a little afraid of them. The price was an extortion, certainly, but surely he ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
