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Kidnapping   Listen
noun
kidnapping  n.  The unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person against their will and holding them in false imprisonment.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Kidnapping" Quotes from Famous Books



... the waiting period was ended, but they did collect information and set up their organization ready to move into high speed at the instant of legal time. But then no ransom letter came; no evidence of the crime of kidnapping. This did not close the case; there were other cases on record where a child was stolen by adults for purposes other than ransom. It was not very likely that a child of six would be stolen by a neurotic adult to replace ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... affinity to the Gipsies of Europe." ["Travels in Beloochistan and Scinde," p. 153.] "They speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, have a king to each troupe, and are notorious for kidnapping and pilfering. Their principal pastimes are drinking, dancing, and music. . . . They are invariably attended by half a dozen of bears and monkeys that are broken in to perform all manner of grotesque tricks. In each company there are always two or three members who profess . . ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... little better than kidnapping, and there's a law for kidnapping children at all events. I shall send my lawyer to you, that you ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... boy," who, reaching York, published an account of the infamous traffic, in a pamphlet which excited extraordinary interest at the time, and met with a rapid and extensive circulation. But his exposure of kidnapping gave very great offence to the magistrates, who dragged him before their tribunal as having "published a scurrilous and infamous libel on the corporation," and he was sentenced to be imprisoned until he should sign a denial of the truth of his statements. He brought ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... sternly replied, "the loyal service you have done us is considerable, whereas your excuse for kidnapping Davie is a farce. Hey, Almerigo, do you and Chandos avoid the chamber! I have something in private with this fellow." When they had gone, the King sat down and composedly said, "Now tell ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... submitted to the worst bit of kidnapping since the days of the old press gang with that delightful amiability which made him so popular among his fellows and such a cypher in his home. At an early date in his married life his position had been clearly defined beyond possibility of mistake. It was his business to make money, and, when ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... mentioning two authors usually reckoned among them. One, John Dickenson, left two works of a pastoral nature. His short romance entitled Arisbas appeared in 1594, and may have supplied Daniel with a hint for the kidnapping of Silvia in Hymen's Triumph. Another yet shorter work, entitled the Shepherd's Complaint, which is undated, but was probably printed in the same year, is remarkable for being composed more than half in verse, largely hexameters. In it the author falls ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... Ragnvald's ally, of Ragnvald's landing in Westray, of his suppression of all opposition to him, of the spies at Paul's Thing, of Sweyn's junction of forces with Ragnvald, of Sweyn's visit to Margret at Athole, and his dramatic kidnapping of Jarl Paul while hunting otters near Westness[13] in the Isle of Rousay, in Orkney, and of the jarl's deportation by Sweyn first to Dufeyra and thence via Ekkjals-bakki[14] to Athole to his sister Margret, who receives him with the utmost show of cordiality, and finally of ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray

... the alarm; and there was the rank and file of the machine to reckon with. And for weapons, the ring controlled the police power of the State and of the city. Let the word be passed that the employees of the Trans-Western were kidnapping their receiver and the governor, and many things might happen before "Red" Callahan should finish his long ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... rent, as happened in Scotland even during the eighteenth century; they were deluded to take ship by the flaming promises which the captains of vessels issued in the ports of different countries, to recruit their crews, or with the wickeder purpose of kidnapping simple rustics and hangers-on of cities; they sometimes came to a vessel's side in poverty, and sold their liberty for three years for the sake of a passage to the fabled Ind; press-gangs sometimes stole and smuggled them aboard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... they lived partly on supplies from the 1 market, partly on the fruit of raids into Paphlagonia. The Paphlagonians, on their side, showed much skill in kidnapping stragglers, wherever they could lay hands on them, and in the night time tried to do mischief to those whose quarters were at a distance from the camp. The result was that their relations to one another were exceedingly hostile, so much so that Corylas, who was the chief ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... In Fairhairn's Crests of Great Britain and Ireland, where it is figured, it is described, not as a negro, but as a "naked man." In Burke's Landed Gentry, it is said that Sir John obtained it in honor of a great victory over the Moors! His only African victories were in kidnapping raids on negro villages. In Letters on Certain Passages in the Life of Sir John Hawkins, the coat is engraved in detail. The "demi-Moor" has the thick lips, the flat nose, and the wool of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama—Bill Driscoll and myself—when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... story is mediaeval Germany in the time of the feuds and robber barons and romance. The kidnapping of Otto, his adventures among rough soldiers and his daring rescue make up a spirited ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... still living who remember what a disorderly place Brooklyn once was. Gangs of loafers hung around our street corners, insulting and threatening men and women. Carriages were held up in the streets, the occupants robbed, and the vehicles stolen. Kidnapping was known. Behind all this outrage of civil rights was political outrage. The politicians were afraid to offend the criminals, because they might need their votes in future elections. They were immune, because they were useful material in case of a new governor ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... Margaret. She shall answer to me for kidnapping my guests like this." And he went ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... that I had heard or read of the kidnapping of girls came pouring into my mind, till my blood boiled and my knees trembled. Imagination was stinging me to life's very core. Every few minutes I would pass the theatre, and look ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... new difficulty has lately been caused by the traders from Sydney and elsewhere, who have taken many people to work in the plantations at Brisbane, Mimea, (New Caledonia), and the Fiji Islands, actual kidnapping, and this is a sad hindrance to us. I know of no case of actual violence in the Banks Islands; but in every case, they took people away under false pretences, asserting that "the Bishop is ill and can't come; he has sent us to bring you ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... It became a fixed idea with him, and he warned her again and again. When she laughed and said she didn't see how he could stop her unless he kidnapped her, he really pitied her for not perceiving, beneath his ominous pleasantries, the firmness of his resolution. He felt almost capable of kidnapping her. It was palpably in the air that she would become "widely popular," and that idea simply sickened him. He felt as differently as possible about it from ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... humorous result of all this was the issue of a communication from government to the people, entitled, "Warning to the People on kidnapping Air-balloons." This document, duly signed and approved of, describes the ascents at Annonay and at Paris, explains the nature and the causes of the phenomena, and warns the people not to be alarmed when they see something like a "black moon" in the sky, nor ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... "but he might have an excellent motive for hiding him away—kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where my argument—if I can call it an argument—is weak. But the fellow may be biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone with him. I'll tell ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... assure us, contains more religion and morality than any other of the same number of inhabitants; nay, more, our governor has proclaimed it to the world over, as being the very "bulwark of the religion we profess." If cruelty to prisoners, cruelty to their own soldiers, if kidnapping their mechanics, by press gangs, if shocking barbarity be exercised towards prisoners, and if open, shameless lewdness, mark and disgrace their sea-ports, their capital, and all their large cities, are the modest and correct people, inhabiting ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... kidnapping—for, in Heideck's opinion, this was the only explanation, because she would otherwise have left a message for him—fell upon ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... tales of single-handed terrorism, these in Ireland did nursery duty to alarm imaginative children, just as the adventures of Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard or the kidnapping of heirs by gipsies serve as stories ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... he demanded. "You would get yourself into all sorts of trouble. There is no kidnapping of young women in this ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of things—from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" native, up to rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these things could never be made public, because Native Princes never err officially, and their States are, officially, as well administered as Our territories. Also, the private allowances ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... ask me questions, if you please!) and the girl said that there are only two acceptable ways: to be released by the will of the people, or taken against their will, a kidnapping staged. Other methods will meet with a refusal. That is why the Emperor refused a formal foreign intervention, for it would place them in a position of parasites with the "ex" title. After everything is through—all of your Kerenskys—a parasite could not be popular and desirable.... Well, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... amiss, else how should I be aware of them at all—I, who had only arrived that evening in Damascus? But it puzzled him to know why I should make him write the letter, or, since his plan must have failed, why I should let him share in the kidnapping. He smelt the obvious rat. Why didn't I sign the letter myself, and get all the credit afterward, as ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... ashamed. Some women sobbed on seeing them, others cursed their guards, others plundered a flower shop and showered flowers upon them. At last two stalwart workmen shouldered away the escort, and, helped by the crowd, which paralysed the movements of the Germans, succeeded in kidnapping the prisoners, and getting them away to the neighbouring streets. They could never be discovered, and it was the last display of the kind which the Governor ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts

... horrid crime upon the late tenants of Derncleugh. They were known to have resented highly the conduct of the Laird of Ellangowan towards them, and to have used threatening expressions, which every one supposed them capable of carrying into effect. The kidnapping the child was a crime much more consistent with their habits than with those of smugglers, and his temporary guardian might have fallen in an attempt to protect him. Besides, it was remembered that Kennedy ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... and it would be cheaper for England to indemnify the loyalists herself than to pay the war bills for a single month. Franklin added that, if the loyalists were to be indemnified, it would be necessary also to reckon up the damage they had done in burning houses and kidnapping slaves, and then strike a balance between the two accounts; and he gravely suggested that a special commission might be appointed for this purpose. At the prospect of endless discussion which this suggestion involved, the British commissioners ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... and to escape to the castle of the good Alhahuza, and ultimately into the kingdom of Oozoff, where Ochihatou's magic has no power over her. During her stay there she listens to much political theorizing of a republican trend. Ochihatou succeeds in kidnapping her, and she is only saved from his loathed embraces by discovering one of his former mistresses in the form of a monkey whom she manages to change back into human shape and substitutes in her stead. While the statesman is employed as a lover, the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... There came back such a record as none of the detectives had ever seen or heard of before. All of them were notorious criminals, who had been charged with every conceivable crime, from burglary to kidnapping and "maiming," and some not to be conceived of by the American mind. Five of them together had been sixty-three times in jail, and one no less than twenty-one times. Yet, though they were all "under special surveillance," they had come here without ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... that he would call in question. A lawsuit is always expensive, and a family lawsuit always scandalous; besides which, if any of your doings with your friend Mr. Thomson were to come out, we might find that we had burned our fingers. The kidnapping, to be sure, would be a court card upon our side, if we could only prove it. But it may be difficult to prove; and my advice (upon the whole) is to make a very easy bargain with your uncle, perhaps even leaving him at Shaws where he has taken root for a ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to be done. The flitter's "memory" should deposit them at the Queen. Dane wondered at what his silent companion was now thinking. The Medic had accepted his kidnapping with such docility that the very ease of their departure began to bother Dane. Was the other expecting a trailer? Had exploration into the Big Burn from the seaside villages been ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... good thing,' she thought: 'wherever they may be, their light cannot be hid any more than that of a city that is set on a hill. There will be plenty of traces of their journey, for once seen they are never forgotten. Nobody but a hero would think of kidnapping them, and nobody but an idiot would expect a ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... which also occurs in Bengal (Day, xi.); the theft of the horse occurs in Brittany, Norway, Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell, 40), Flanders, in Basque and Catalan, Russia and Servia. The third test of kidnapping the priest occurs in Brittany, Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away are ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... moreover, minutely instructed as to his method of proceeding in this memorable case of kidnapping. He was to present the letter to the young Count in presence of his tutor. He was to invite him to Spain in the name of his Majesty. He was to assure him that his Majesty's commands were solely with a view, to his own good, and that he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and some few disconnected mutterings of terror rewarded him. He knew now, however, with positive certainty that the smith was responsible for the kidnapping ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... careful, just the same. Don't go around alone at night—though you'll be safe enough in the city, I guess, unless some of those people that were mixed up in that kidnapping case get after you." ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... of a selected victim was in the nature of a kidnapping. At dead of night her apartment had been opened. She had been ordered to dress. Nothing could be written, no arrangements made. She was already considered as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... Mendoza had succeeded in getting his car out of town without attracting the attention of anyone but his dish-washing compatriot. When it leaked out that there was a kidnapping involved, the chivalrous instincts of Chula Vista were aroused. Horses were eagerly offered and a posse was to be formed as soon as Sam Penhallow could be located. Unfortunately, the only machine in town, owned by the sheriff, had been loaned ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... occasioned the imprecation of Lamh Laudher. She was reported to have maintained an intercourse with the fairies, to be capable of communicating the blight of an evil eye, and to have carried on a traffic which is said to have been rather prevalent in Ireland at the time we speak of—namely, that of kidnapping. The speculations with reference to her object in perpetrating the crimes were strongly calculated to exhibit the degraded state of the people at that period. Some said that she disposed of the children to a certain class of persons in the metropolis, who subsequently ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more friend in the world beside Bran the mastiff; and therefore one more trouble—seeing that friends always expect a due return of affection and good offices and what not. I wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants my patronage to help her out of it.... Three-quarters of a mile of roasting sun between me and home!.... I must hire a gig, or a litter, or some-thing, off the next stand .... with a driver who has ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... such importance as to influence the election of a constable or poormaster; now the Irish adopted citizen, by the power he exercises in his vote, is solicited by candidates, from a town officer to the president; and whoever would attempt to reenact the kidnapping of Van Stingey, and many other officials of his class, in their days of petty power, would be sure to be compelled to retire forever from public life, and pass into the gloom and infamy of his depraved private circle. There were many exposures and wailings of the children ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... a moment on the difference between love as a sentiment and love as an appetite, he would have realized the error of using the expression "the sentiment of love" in connection with such a story of adulterous kidnapping, in which there is absolutely nothing to indicate whether the kidnapper coveted the other man's wife for any other than the most carnal reasons. It is not unusual for an Australian to risk his life in stealing a woman. He does ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... the paper on his knee, and began to consider the facts of the kidnapping, as he remembered them from the newspaper reports. Her nurse had taken her to Kensington Gardens, where she had foregathered with the little daughters of Sir William Uglow. The children's play had little by little drawn them away from their gossipping nurses, right out of ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... arrested meanwhile, he would have to locate Ringold or Higgins, or some of the others, and prove that he had not run away from punishment. It would be difficult to verify the extravagant story of his kidnapping, of course, but—there was nothing else to do. He rose quickly and entered the hotel, where he bought all the latest New York papers. It was not long before he found the thing he was seeking. There it was, a ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... them anyhow, as you have the others, not long after the births. And that brings up another thing. When you get to Mars City, watch your tongue. You almost revealed to Miss Cara Nome that the government has been kidnapping an expectant mother now and ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... the gag had been removed from Hampton's mouth. Long ago, consequently, Hampton had said his say, had made his promises. When he got out of this—glory to be! wouldn't he square the deal, though! Did Lee know what kidnapping was? That there were such things as laws, such ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... when Georgia sought to lay its official clutches on an offending Georgian, the latter would walk over into Tennessee and argue the case across the line. It was a very convenient spot for law-breakers. To reach across this imaginary line, and draw a man from Tennessee, would be kidnapping, an insult to a sovereign State, and in a States'-rights country such a procedure could not be tolerated. Requisitions from the governors of Tennessee and Georgia might, of course, be procured, but this would take time, ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... theory with a fresh burst of grief, and the idea struck a chill to Patty's heart. She took no stock in the kidnapping theory, for Winnie had left the child with Azalea, who would have fought off a horde of marauders before she let them carry off the little one. No, whatever had happened was doubtless Azalea's doing. But Elise's ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... so terrible a foe, that the great sharks who hover round a gravid cow of the BALAENAE, driving her in terror to some shallow spot where she may hope to protect her young, never dare to approach a sperm cow on kidnapping errands, or any other if they can help it, until their unerring guides inform them that life is extinct. When a sperm whale is in health, nothing that inhabits the sea has any chance with him; neither does he scruple to carry the war into the enemy's country, since all is fish that comes ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... morning's milk for sale. At breakfast my uncle told me not to go into the street without Ephraim, his man; for without a guide, he said, I should get lost. He warned me that there were people in London who made a living by seizing children ("kidnapping" or "trepanning" them, as it was called) to sell to merchant-captains bound for the plantations. "So be very careful, Martin," he said. "Do not talk to strangers." He went for his morning walk after this, telling me that I might run out to play ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids' linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to his father ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... figure, as shiny as though bathed in oil, naked except for a loin-cloth, seemed to squirm forth like a serpent. It was Wu Fang—the watchful eye which, literally as well as figuratively, had been leveled at us in one form or another ever since the kidnapping of Elaine. ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... subject of the lost children was mentioned in his presence, he manifested the greatest astonishment at the mystery which involved their fate, and indignation against those who might be guilty of kidnapping them. Still the world was not wholly deceived; his name became as formidable to young children as that of the devouring ogre in fairy tales; and they were taught to go miles round, rather than pass under the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... this unheard-of Order. No tonnage was required in proportion to the numbers shipped, no amount of provision, no medical assistance; no precautions were taken, or so much as thought of, to prevent kidnapping and fraud, nay, to prevent main force being used in any part of Eastern Africa, or of all Asia, in carrying on board the victims of West Indian avarice; in short, a worse Slave Trade than the African was established, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... a long letter giving the history of all that had happened to him since his kidnapping, and setting forth the entire truth of that and of the deed that had led to it. His chronicler opines that it was a letter that must have moved a stone to tears. And, moreover, it was not a mere matter of passionate protestations of innocence, or of unsupported accusation of his brother. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... Mr. Croyden. "I don't see how you can. The middle of July? That settles it. There must be no more kidnapping Theo for golf or tennis, Madeline. From now on he is to be my ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett

... once into deep and swift thought. And ten minutes later he had abandoned all idea of kidnapping Barbara for the present. Certain dangers of so doing seemed insurmountable. He must possess his soul in patience, and in the meanwhile discount, if possible, the fright that he had given her. To this end he wrote ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... captain Johnson of the militia, came to Bass's, and took lieutenant Charnock aside, and after prattling a great deal to him about the "cursed hardship", as he was pleased to call it, "of kidnapping poor clodhoppers at this rate," he very cavalierly offered him a guinea for himself, and a half joe a-piece for Marion and me to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... war, mostly steamers, now traverse the whole of the Pacific, one of the chief services in which they are engaged being the prevention of the kidnapping system which has been carried on to a great extent to supply the Fiji Islands and Queensland with labourers. Nothing could be more abominable than the system which has been pursued. Small-armed vessels have been fitted ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... be surprised if it couldn't be pretty well matched here," was Shafto's bold declaration. "Not in the way of kidnapping inquisitive young ladies, but there are dens and spiders' webs in Rangoon where people are drawn in like flies—and die ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... controversies had for some years acquired a wider and more absorbing interest in England than in any period since the Commonwealth. But it does not yet appear to have occurred to any class that a national policy, which made it its main object to encourage the kidnapping of tens of thousands of negroes, and their consignment to the most miserable slavery, might be at least as inconsistent with the spirit of the Christian religion as either the establishment of Presbyterianism or the toleration of ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... story is not much more than a fragment, I have given it because of its interesting connections. The chief elements appear to be three: (1) the kidnapping of the hero by a cannibal witch, (2) the friendly horse, (3) the transformation-flight and the escape of the hero. Clearly much is missing. What becomes of the hero is not stated, except that he escapes from the witches. The story is in the form rather ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... many as could be gagged and conveyed away with him, were to be concealed in the event of failure to run them into the confederacy. Owing to his failure to group around him as many men as he desired, Booth abandoned the project of kidnapping; but the house was discovered last week, as represented, ready to be blown up ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... a small speck, so to speak, of the mighty work of kidnapping human beings that was going on—that is still going on in those regions. Yoosoof would have smiled—he never laughed—if you had mentioned such a ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... this system of 'street kidnapping' is carried on is frightful. Young tailors, fresh from the country, are decoyed by the sweaters' wives into their miserable dens, under extravagant promises of employment, to find themselves deceived, imprisoned, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... hour appointed for trial, the captain protested that he had no knowledge of anything wrong in the business, having merely taken care of the boy at the request of a passenger. When he was required to appear at the next court to answer to the charge of kidnapping, he became alarmed, and told where Captain Dana could be arrested. His directions were followed, and the delinquent was seized and taken to Isaac T. Hopper's house. He was in a towering passion, protesting his innocence, and threatening vengeance against everybody who should attempt to detain him. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... of runaway slaves did not always remain quiet when their slaves reached this province. Sometimes they followed them in an attempt to take them back. There are said to have been a few instances of actual kidnapping. There were some of attempted kidnapping. Most of these are merely traditional but at least one is ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... of Knockdunder, who was used to boast that he could put him down or string him up when he had a mind. He resolved to leave the kingdom by means of one of those sloops which were engaged in the traffic of his old kidnapping friends, and which was about to sail for America; but he was desirous first to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Aberdeen, where, at eight years old, when playing on the quay, I was noticed as a strong, active little fellow by two men belonging to a vessel in the harbor. Now, this vessel was in the employ of certain merchants of Aberdeen, who used her for the villanous purpose of kidnapping—that is, stealing young children from their parents and selling them as slaves ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... names. Even the Derwent Jackass, the hypocrite with the shining black coat and piercing whistle, joins in the public outcry, and his character is worse than that of the hawk himself, for he has been caught in the act of kidnapping and devouring the unfledged young of his nearest neighbour. The distracted hawk has at length to retreat dinnerless to the swampy margin of the river where the tallest tea-trees wave their feathery ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... Kidnapping was not infrequent, and the cruel ingenuity displayed by the bandits to keep safely their victim pending the negotiations for a ransom was often blood-curdling. I might fill a small volume with such anecdotes, but the terrible fate of two hacendados, kidnapped in the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... long as personal security does not exist and as long as prisoners are tortured, we cannot hope to deserve the confidence of the other governments. Murders, thefts of carriages and horses, are very frequent here, as is kidnapping,... ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... for he was not so simple-minded as to believe that the child would be given over to him without ado, but the answer that he received, according to his way of thinking, justified his kidnapping his nephew. He knew a Chinese youth, who was a servant at the seminary, and to him he went for help to carry out his plan of getting possession of Peppo. In a nearby tavern he waited for Totu—for that was the youth's name—knowing that while the missioners and their pupils were at table, he ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... kidnapping and murder. The character of the Khartoumers needs no further comment. The amount of ivory brought down from the White Nile is a mere bagatelle as an export, the annual ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... talk concerning individuals, and no violation of the social confidences of private life. The very prevalent practice of kidnapping live ladies and gentlemen, forcing them into cabinets, and labelling and ticketing them whether they will or no, for the gratification of the idle and the curious, is not to my taste. Therefore I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... on laughing, although he was a little afraid the boys were overdoing matters. He knew his wife would never forgive him for this actual kidnapping of Pauline—he certainly had ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... convicts for a certain term, generally from seven to fourteen years, and this right they frequently sold. Labour in those early days was scarce in the new settlements; and before the general adoption of negro slavery there was a keen competition for felon hands. An organized system of kidnapping prevailed along the British coasts; young lads were seized and sold into what was practically white slavery in the American plantations. These malpractices were checked, but the legitimate traffic in convict labour continued, until it was ended peremptorily ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... all else failed, Shalleg tried the desperate plan of kidnapping Joe, but, as he explained, he did not really intend bodily harm. And perhaps he did not. He was a weak and criminally bad man, but perhaps ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... her); they had shared a delightful picnic lunch which he provided in the train; and then, finally, reluctantly, he had left The Trellis House—after a rather silly, tiresome, little scene, during which he had vowed that she should marry him, even if it came to his kidnapping ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... were back at school in Constantinople, shuffling their feet and throwing ink pellets at one another; Raisuli, home again in the old mountains, was working up the kidnapping business, which had fallen off sadly in his absence under the charge of an incompetent locum tenens; and the Chinese, the Bollygollans, and the troops of the Mad Mullah were enduring the miseries of ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... Lord Durie's abduction and captivity is differently told by Chambers in his Domestic Annals of Scotland, as far, at least, as the instigator of the kidnapping and its accomplisher are concerned. It is there recorded that the maker of the plot to kidnap the judge was George Meldrum the Younger of Dumbreck. Accompanied by two Jardines and a Johnston—good Border names—and by some other men, Meldrum ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... portends? What bird of evil omen hovers above the offices of Tutt & Tutt? Spare not an old man bowed down with the sorrows of this world! Has my shrewd associate counseled the robbing of a bank or the kidnapping from a widowed mother ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the devil? Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil kidnapped, he'd roast for ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... Bombay, one day visiting the stupendous cavern temple of Elephanta, discovered a tiger's whelp in one of the obscure recesses of the edifice. Desirous of kidnapping the cub, without encountering the fury of its dam, they took it up hastily and cautiously, and retreated. Being left entirely at liberty, and extremely well fed, the tiger grew rapidly, appeared tame and fondling as a dog, and in every respect entirely domesticated. At length, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... girls and women, 80 children, and 10 men. The governor of Fashoda, whom I thus had caught in the act of kidnapping slaves, was the person who, a few weeks before, had assured me that the slave trade was suppressed, as the traders dared not pass his station of Fashoda. The real fact was, that this excellent example of the Soudan made a considerable ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... learned to wait in amusement for the quick, searching gestures flung at them and the eager face that seemed to drink their words. Gradually they came to understand—the Greek was learning the science of kidnapping—its methods and devices and the probable plan of approach. But the Chief shook his head. "You won't trace these men by any of the old tricks. It's a new deal. We shall only get them by a fluke." And to his own men he said, "Try ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... human bones on shore, and skulls hanging like pots or cups about the houses. They saw few men. The women said that this was because ten canoes had gone on a robbing or kidnapping expedition to other islands. "This people," says Doctor Chanca, "appeared to us more polite than those who live in the other islands we have seen, though they all have straw houses." But he goes on to say that these ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... stopped before the telegraph-office. Carder left the car, and at the mere temporary relief of him Geraldine's heart lightened. A wild wish swept through her that she knew how to drive and could put on all the power and drive away, even kidnapping the shrunken, ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... useless action. He is a firm Pragmatist—anything that is useful is all right, anything that is useless is a crime. More probably yet, he wants you left alive. Of course that is his real reason. He went to the trouble of kidnapping you, so naturally he won't let Perkins or anybody else kill you until he is through with you. Otherwise he would have let Perkins do anything he wanted to with you, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... me intently. Then he put out his hand and gripped mine. "Thank you, McIver," he said, simply. And the three of us sitting down, the boy and the girl told me the whole truth about the kidnapping of the Egyptian princess. Each supplied parts of the narrative. Raymond, I learned, had prized open the case on a visit to the College museum on Friday afternoon and had then secreted himself in the building. When the watchman was in a remote corner, it had taken but a minute ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... eldest daughter of the famous Kisabengo, a name infamous throughout the neighbouring countries of Udoe, Ukami, Ukwere, Kingaru, Ukwenni, and Kiranga-Wanna, for his kidnapping propensities. Kisabengo was another Theodore on a small scale. Sprung from humble ancestry, he acquired distinction for his personal strength, his powers of harangue, and his amusing and versatile address, by which he gained great ascendency over fugitive slaves, and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... me out of here to find Dick Leslie! Then when you go to jail in Holston for stealing lumber I'll say a good word for you and your men. There won't be any charge of kidnapping ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... "the most outrageous kidnapping in history", the affair was conceived as a long-term method of gaining control of Heavy Metals Incorporated, controlled by Moishe BenChaim, the boy's ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Parker for the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855. With the Defence. ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... for his ears. This is only for the lower sort, who might not have thought the worse of you for kidnapping your nephew, vowing his mother should remain unburied till he was in your hands, and carrying off all ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but she says she can't abide folk wanting things at odd times. So she does not like me when I have headaches; and when I have headaches, I do not much like her. She treads so very heavily, it shakes the floor just as ogres in ogre-stories shake the ground when they go out kidnapping; and then the pain jumps in my head till I get frightened, and wonder what happens to people when the pain gets so bad that they cannot ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... and those of the inhabitants who are not slaughtered are sold into slavery.[*] Again, exposed children, whose parents have repudiated them, get into the hands of speculators, who raise them "for market." There is also a good deal of kidnapping in the less civilized parts of Greece like Aetolia. Still the proportion of genuinely GREEK slaves is small. The great majority of them are "Barbarians," men born beyond ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... see, as we waited, that the same idea had flashed over Kennedy's mind as over my own. It was now three or four 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 ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... wouldn't be a Gratitude Discovery Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls' Hotel was a den for kidnapping women and girls to be used as decoys for the purpose of hocussing and robbing bushmen, and the law and retribution might come after me—but I'd fight the thing out. Or they might want to make a K.C.M.G., ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... when he realized what had happened came back even across the years. And as the headlight far up in the mountain above the desert slipped into a tunnel, though it flashed out again in a few seconds, while it was gone, all the details of the kidnapping of the young people in the buggy hurried across his mind. Even the old anxiety that he felt lest Sycamore Ridge would think him a traitor to their cause, when they should find that he was not there to sign the tax levy and save the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... James M. Mason, Senator from Virginia. Before proceeding to the principal object of this tract, it is proper to give a synopsis of the Act itself, which was well called, by the New York Evening Post, "An Act for the Encouragement of Kidnapping." It ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... earlier by the sons of Jacob, and they determined to dispose of Joseph to them, that they might at least not lose the price they had paid, and might escape the danger at the same time of being made captives for the crime of kidnapping a man. And the Ishmaelites bought Joseph from the Midianites, and they paid the same price as his former ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... smiled again. What a time they would have—while it lasted! The worst of it was, it could not last long. To-morrow, he supposed, he would have to take the child back to his home. He could not be a party to this kidnapping raid for any length of time. This must be looked on as a brief holiday, not ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... bordered with rich moss where fairies used to dance and sing in the moonlight. These sprites were the reputed children of Indians that had been stolen from their wigwams and given to eat of fairy bread, that dwarfed and changed them in a moment. Barring their kidnapping practices the elves were an innocent and joyous people, and they sought more distant hiding-places in the wilderness when the stern churchmen and cruel rangers ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... and re-crossed his mind, bringing now an unwonted sting of anger, now the old cruel pain of last night. The thought of the hateful complication introduced into his already sufficiently involved affairs by the involuntary kidnapping of his friend's wife filled him with a sense of impotent irritation, very foreign to his temper; and as certain looks and words of the unwished-for prisoner flashed back upon him, a hot colour rose, even in his solitude, to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... Don Carlos responded, "and let me remind you that El Diablo Cojuelo almost makes a hobby of kidnapping beautiful women. So you will be in danger all the time ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... operative procedures. The Soudan alone furnished, according to reliable statistics, some 3800 eunuchs annually, the material coming from Abyssinia and the neighboring countries, it being gathered by war and kidnapping parties, or by purchase, from among the young male population of those regions. These children are brought to the Soudan frontier and custom duties are there paid for their passage across the border, the duty being about ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... for the purpose of later establishing a fictitious claim would have been an enterprise even more desperate than that already undertaken. We inferred from many signs, made known to us in an investigation, that a daring party of the Sultan's emissaries had made a secret incursion with the object of kidnapping the Voivodin. They must have been bold of heart and strong of resource to enter the Land of the Blue Mountains on any errand, let alone such a desperate one as this. For centuries we have been teaching the Turk through bitter lessons ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... on Foster-father's vigilance—though he knew that cruel brother Kumran's agents were on the lookout for any opportunity of kidnapping the Heir-to-Empire—slackened somewhat, especially when the afternoons drew in, the fire in the big hall was made up, the quilts put down and Baby Akbar, surrounded by his admiring circle, listened to Roy's stories or tumbled about ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... believe the fellow is around yet, and I'll get hold of him and take him to Tom at once. I don't think that Philip Holt has had anything to do with the kidnapping of the little girl, but his whole behavior looks pretty funny. We will make the chauffeur chap tell us where Philip Holt was when he turned over my car to him." Roy was off like ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... Frances, pausing for a moment to recall what she had been doing at the time of the supposed kidnapping. Then turning to the Duchess of York, who stood beside her, and who, she felt sure, would catch the hint and help her out, she asked, "Were we not playing at cards in ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... on every side. The officials at the railway-stations and the customs-barriers were questioned. They had seen nothing on that day which could relate to the kidnapping of a young girl. However, a grocer at Ville-d'Avray stated that he had supplied a closed motor-car, coming from Paris, with petrol. There was a chauffeur on the front seat and a lady with fair hair—exceedingly fair hair, the witness said—inside. The car ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... Benella to go with me to the hyacinth wood by moonlight. Fairies detest a crowd, and I ought to have gone alone; but, to tell the truth, I hardly dared, for they have a way of kidnapping attractive ladies and keeping them for years in the dim kingdom. I would not trust Himself at Glen Ailna for worlds, for gentlemen are not exempt from danger. Connla of the Golden Hair was lured away by a fairy maiden, and taken, in a 'gleaming, straight-gliding, strong, crystal canoe,' to her domain ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... them that," he admitted, "others don't. I suppose, now, you wouldn't care to walk to Brighton with your feet tied together, or your hair in curl papers, and then get on at a music hall? Or would there be any chance of your Legation kidnapping you if it was properly worked? 'Kong Ho, the great Chinese Reformer, tells the Story of his Life,'—there ought to be money in it. Are you a reformer or the leader of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... and a holiday spirit now prevailed among them. Questions upon questions were put to him with reference to the wonders they had heard of the great metropolis—of the murders and robberies committed upon travellers—the kidnapping of strangers from the country—the Lord Lieutenant's Castle, with three hundred and sixty-four windows in it, and all the extraordinary sights and prodigies which it is supposed to contain. In a few minutes after this friendly accession to their numbers had ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... in the park, and the wail of the wind among the chimneys and about the corners of the house were no doubt for something in a Londoner's sleeplessness. But the mysterious disappearance of Major Lashley was at the bottom of it. He thought again of the pond. He imagined a violent kidnapping and his fancies went to work at devising motives. Some quarrel long ago in the crowded city of Tangier and now brought to a tragical finish amongst the oaks and fields of England. Perhaps a Moor had travelled over seas for his vengeance and ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... country where my father was exploring. Surely we can lay our hands upon one or other of his native guides, and they will lead us to the place. Then we can discover whether those people you suspect of kidnapping him are anywhere in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... Christopher Columbus's day that a non-Christian, and especially a savage one, had the same human instincts as a Christian, and that he would have preferred staying in his own land and with his own family. Out of that horrible but common mistake grew up the whole miserable business of kidnapping, buying, and selling human beings. Let us not be too greatly shocked at our fifteenth-century hero for talking so unfeelingly. Remember, it was only about fifty years ago that we saw the last of slavery in these United States, and even then it died hard. Christopher ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley



Words linked to "Kidnapping" :   jurisprudence, capture, law, seizure, kidnap



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