"Peculation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, and he and his friend Melville were left in a minority upon his own dunghill. This was too much for his haughty, stubborn spirit to bear. To be handed down to posterity, so deservedly covered with the infamous charge of having connived at peculation; for the Heaven-born Minister to have been defeated, and convicted of having winked at the plundering of the people, and betraying his sovereign, who had confided to his hands the guardianship of their treasure, was too much even for his impudent, overbearing ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... hearts of the soldiers. While quaestor in Baetica[100] he had promptly joined Galba's party, and in spite of his youth had been given command of a legion. Later he was convicted of misappropriating public funds, and, on Galba's orders, prosecuted for peculation. Highly indignant, Caecina determined to embroil the world and bury his own disgrace in the ruins of his country. Nor were the seeds of dissension lacking in the army. The entire force had taken part in the war against ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... energetic measures which the new Quaestor took fully met the emergency. He was liberal to the tenants of the State, courteous and accessible to all, upright in his administration, and, above all, he kept his hands clean from bribes and peculation. The provincials were as much astonished as delighted: for Rome was not in the habit of sending them such officers. They invented honours for him such as had never been bestowed on ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... that Rigby redeemed by many private virtues the unblushing effrontery of his public career. It was given to few men to be as bad as Dashwood, and Rigby was not one of the few. But his gross and brutal disregard of all decency in his acts of public plunder—for even peculation may be done with distinction—was accompanied by a gross and brutal disregard of all decency in his tastes and pleasures with his intimate associates. Richard Rigby sprang from the trading class. He was the son of a linen-draper ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... become loud enough to occasion no little disquiet to some of the officials who had most reason to dread enquiry and investigation. The abuses were greater in some branches of the service than in others, but peculation prevailed to a greater or less extent almost everywhere. The Indian department was notorious for the corruption of its officials. A sum of sixty thousand pounds sterling was annually granted by the Imperial Government for distribution among the various tribes, and for the payment ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... rebellion bequeathed to the nation. It has been the prime cause of more misgovernment in the South than any other one cause, not even the insatiable rapacity of the carpet-bag adventurers taking precedence of it. It has not only served as a provocation to peculation and chicanery, but it has nerved the courage of the assassin and made merry the midnight ride of armed mobs bent upon righting wrongs by committing crimes before which the atrocities of savage warfare ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... ranks,—the Commune, the ministers, the Cordeliers, Hebert, Hanriot. Proclamations were issued for a new insurrection. But Paris was getting weary of insurrections, wearier still of the obvious blackguardism and peculation of the Hebertists, weariest of the perpetual drip of blood from the guillotine. No insurrection could be organized. For some days the opponents remained at arm's length. Finally on the 17th of March the Committee of Public Safety ordered the arrest of Hebert, Pache, Chaumette ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... that these donations from the people have been diverted to private gain and corrupt uses, and thus public indignation has been aroused and suspicion engendered. Our great nation does not begrudge its generosity, but it abhors peculation and fraud; and the favorable regard of our people for the great corporations to which these grants were made can only be revived by a restoration of confidence, to be secured by their constant, unequivocal, and clearly ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... University, and that they were expected to exceed in value the amount of the loan is shown by the terms of ordinances, in some of which the guardians are required to submit to the auditors an account of the capital and increase. In spite of precaution, however, cases of peculation were not unknown, for, on more than one occasion, guardians were accused of embezzlement, and there are statutes complaining of the "marvellous disappearance" of funds, the property of the University, and ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... passively upon the riches centered in their soil, and rocked themselves to sleep in their hammocks. The commerce carried on scarcely deserved that name. The few wants of the people were supplied by a contraband trade with St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. In the island's finances a system of fraud and peculation prevailed, and the amount of public revenue was so inadequate to meet the expenses of maintaining the garrison that the officers' and soldiers' pay was reduced to one-fourth of its just amount, and they often received ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... maze of affairs into which a man who had hitherto been absolutely honest was led by his passions—one of the best administrative officials under Napoleon—peculation to pay the money-lenders, and borrowing of the money-lenders to gratify his passions and provide for his daughter. All the efforts of this elaborate prodigality were directed at making a display before Madame Marneffe, and to playing Jupiter to this middle-class ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... newspaper and take upon himself the editorial charge of it. For such an undertaking, his large experience in business, his resolute spirit, his sound judgment, his keen insight into character, his lofty scorn and detestation of meanness, profligacy, peculation and fraud, eminently fitted him. The paper, the Evening Bulletin, was first issued on the eighth day of October, 1855. From that day to the day of his death, he devoted all his faculties most faithfully and conscientiously to the exposure of guilt, the laying bare gigantic schemes for defrauding ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... disciple did not heed the warning. Perhaps it was at this stage that he commenced to steal from the bag which he carried. He felt that he must have some tangible reward for following Christ, and he justified his peculation by saying to himself that what he was taking was infinitely less than he had been led to expect. He regarded himself ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... built up Barcelona and enriched Captain-Generals, and in less degree other public servants, the rebellions would have been put down. The Spanish armies in Cuba, however, were rather managed for official speculation and peculation, were more promenaders than in military enterprise and the stern business of war. With Weyler for an opponent, Gomez, as a guerilla, could have dragged on a series of skirmishes indefinitely. The story of the alleged war in Cuba between ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... profit, putting the duke to the heavy expense of importing fresh supplies for the nourishment of the people. The seriousness of the charge will be appreciated when it is considered that, had a famine resulted from this peculation, grave disorder might have ensued and perhaps even a rebellion against a government which could ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... and Character. Canadian Society. Official Festivities. A Party of Pleasure. Hospitalities of Bigot. Desperate Gambling. Chateau Bigot. Canadian Ladies. Cadet. La Friponne. Official Rascality. Methods of Peculation. Cruel Frauds on the Acadians. Military Corruption. Pean. Love and Knavery. Varin and his Partners. Vaudreuil and the Peculators. He defends Bigot; praises Cadet and Pean. Canadian Finances. Peril of Bigot. Threats of the Minister. Evidence ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... trail. The lady was sent to her estates; this satisfied Vasquez, and Perez and he were bound over to keep the peace. But suspicion hung about Perez, and Philip preferred that it should be so. The secretary was accused of peculation, he had taken bribes on all hands, and he was sentenced to heavy fines and imprisonment (January 1585). Now Enriquez confessed, and a kind of secret inquiry, of which the records survive, dragged its slow course along. Perez was under ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... With the service he lost all touch save in one degrading particular. His pay was better than his reputation, but his position was isolated, his duties and his actions subject to little official supervision. With opportunity came peculiar temptations to bribery and peculation, and to these he often succumbed. The absence of congenial society frequently weighed heavy upon him and drove him to immoderate drinking. Had he lived a generation or so later the average impress officer ashore ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... ascertained by a jury of merchants, amounted to L8,269. They recommended the defaulter to the lenient consideration of the government, as the victim of others. Dr. Bromley had been subject to the daily peculation of servants, and robbed of cash and plate, to the value of L500, at once. His integrity was not impeached: the public business, however, had been conducted without check. The per centage was abolished, and the offices of treasurer and collector separated, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Calonne, first in these Seven Bureaus, and then on the outside of them, awakened by them, spreading wider and wider over all France, threatens to become unappeasable. A Deficit so enormous! Mismanagement, profusion is too clear. Peculation itself is hinted at; nay, Lafayette and others go so far as to speak it out, with attempts at proof. The blame of his Deficit our brave Calonne, as was natural, had endeavoured to shift from himself on his predecessors; not excepting even Necker. But ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... if that address is begun, and if you are going to be as wise and prudent as I was at Liverpool. When I think of the temptation I resisted on that occasion, like Clive when he was charged with peculation, "I marvel at my own forbearance!" Let my example be a burning and a shining light to you. I declare I have horrid misgivings of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... as Cleon is satirized in the play[615] as having "his hands among the AEtolians, but his soul in Peculation-town," so the soul of the curious man is at once in the mansions of the rich, and the cottages of the poor, and the courts of kings, and the bridal chambers of the newly married; he pries into everything, the affairs of foreigners, the affairs of princes, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... his back, and he had a frilled shirt on; and there was a sort of autumnal ripeness and brightness about him. His shrill voice, and his quick, authoritative 'right! right!' and the chuckle with which he translated 'rerum repetundarum' as 'peculation, a very common vice in governors of all ages,' after which he took a turn round the sofa—all struck me amazingly; his readiness astonished us all, and even himself, as he afterwards told me; for, during the time he was at the school, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... of the duchy of Cornwall have grown under the admirable management instituted by the late prince-consort, who discovered that peculation and negligence were combining to dissipate his eldest son's splendid heritage, the following will show. In 1824 the gross revenue had fallen to L22,000: in 1872 it was nearly L70,000! Loud were the howls of the peculators against "that beastly German" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... forgot all thought of herself; and when he had told his tale, so kind was her comforting, so unselfish her sympathy, that his heart smote him for his old parsimony, for his hard resentment at her single act of peculation. Had not she the right to all he made? But remorse and grief alike soon vanished in the fever that now seized him; for several days he was insensible; and when he recovered sufficiently to be made aware of what was around him, he saw the widow seated beside him, within four bare walls. Everything, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... printer of the Times be summoned to the bar for printing their resolution, but his motion was rejected. In 1838 Mr. Lawson was fined L200 for accusing Sir John Conroy, treasurer of the household of the Duchess of Kent, of peculation. In 1840 an angry member brought a breach of privilege motion against the Times, and advised every one who was attacked in that ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... no evidence of peculation, and the order for an increasing daily supply to the Caddles' nursery was issued. Scarcely had the first instalment gone, when Caddles was back again at the great house in ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... duty of commanding Indians had fallen to the lot of an officer named Villieu, who had been ordered by the court to raise a war-party and attack the English. He had lately been sent to replace Portneuf, who had been charged with debauchery and peculation. Villebon, angry at his brother's removal, was on ill terms with his successor; and, though he declares that he did his best to aid in raising the war-party, Villieu says, on the contrary, that he was worse than indifferent. The new lieutenant spent the winter at Naxouat, and on the first of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... bruised, and stung my fervent country's love day by day, session after session. Like thousands of others, I have been a greyhound in the leash, a bolt in the bow, longing to take my turn on the arena: eager as any Shrovetide 'prentice for a fling at negligence, peculation and injustice, and other the long black catalogue of British injuries. Socialism, Chartism, Ribandism; Spain, Canada, China; freed criminals, and imprisoned poverty; penny wisdom, and pound folly; the universal centralizing system, corrupting ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... which they had enjoyed, with only a temporary cessation, since the time of C. Gracchus. The Equites had abused their power, as the Senate had done before them. They were the capitalists who farmed the public revenues in the provinces, where they committed peculation and extortion with habitual impunity. When accused, they were tried by accomplices and partisans. Their unjust condemnation of Rutilius Rufus had shown how unfit they were to be intrusted with judicial duties. Rutilius was a man of spotless integrity, and while acting ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... characteristick; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts, (as too frequently in our publick conveyances,) it becomes a positive crime, when it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason to the best Government that ever existed as something with which a gentleman may shake hands without soiling his fingers. I do not think the gallows-tree the most profitable member of our Sylva; but, since it continues to be planted, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... only in view: namely, to keep the revenue well up to the mark, and to enrich himself as speedily as possible. The princely salary he receives—fifty thousand dollars per annum, with a palace and household attendants supplied—is but a portion of the income which, by a system of peculation, he is enabled to divert to his private coffers. As a rule, the Captain-General comes out to Cuba a poor man, and returns a rich one, however brief ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... for whom he procured differential favors, and by whose government he was rewarded by gold chains and presents of hard cash, bestowed as secretly as the equivalent was conveyed adroitly. Nevertheless, although his venality was already more than suspected, and although his peculation, during his long career became so extensive that he was eventually prosecuted by government, and died before the process was terminated, the lord of Grobbendonck was often employed in most delicate negotiations, and, at the present epoch, was a man of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rich do not involve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses. But the poor like to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them a little introductory peculation with the public money, their minds might be reconciled to the conditions. Meantime, here are the facts: we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... assist in finishing the building. Whether from this cause or another, a certain suspicion of the Company began to rise in Florence, and Matteo Villani roundly accuses the Capitani della Compagnia of peculation and corruption. However this may be, by 1355 Andrea Orcagna had been chosen to build the shrine of Madonna, which is still to-day one of the wonders of the city. It seems to have been in a sort of recognition of the splendour and beauty of Orcagna's work that the Signoria, between ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... prostitution during his command in Philadelphia, which the late seizure of his papers has unfolded, the history of his command at West Point is a history of little as well as great villainies. He practiced every dirty act of peculation, and even stooped to connections with the sutlers to defraud ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... invite admiration, however much one may regret the absence of general civilization and education. These men are for the most part honest, if not hard working, and they are by no means unpleasant neighbors. Right near them are the homes of smaller Indians, who have reduced peculation to a fine art, and who steal on general principles. We have all heard of the little boy who prefers to steal poor apples from his neighbor's tree to picking up good ones in his father's orchard. Much the same idea seems to prevail ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... may get a new angle of her view. I don't think there's much use in bringing her down here. And, by-the-way, Tarling, all the accounts of Lyne's Stores have been placed in the hands of a clever firm of chartered accountants—Dashwood and Solomon, of St. Mary Axe. If you suspect there has been any peculation on the part of Lyne's employees, and if that peculation is behind the murder, we shall probably learn something which will give you ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... said as he drank. "And that reminds me, Tresco—you're wanted in Timber Town, very badly indeed—a little matter in connection with the mails. 'Seems there's been peculation of some sort, and for reasons which are as mad as the usual police tactics, the entire force is searching for you, most worthy Benjamin. The yarn goes that you're a forger in disguise, a counterfeiter of our sovereign's sacred image ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Parliament on its last legs—ever showed such pitiful inadequacy as our own during the past two months. Helpless beyond measure in all the duties of practical statesmanship, its members or their dependants have given proof of remarkable energy in the single department of peculation; and there, not content with the slow methods of the old-fashioned defaulter, who helped himself only to what there was, they have contrived to steal what there was going to be, and have peculated in advance by a kind of official post-obit. So thoroughly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... iniquity on principle, and to those who would like to share the profits of it. But this was not the worst. The governors of the provinces, being chosen from those who had been consuls or praetors, were necessarily members of the Senate. Peculation and extortion in these high functions were offences, in theory, of the gravest kind; but the offender could only be tried before a limited number of his peers, and a governor who had plundered a subject state, sold justice, pillaged temples, and stolen all that he could lay hands on, was safe ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... influenced the sailor not to write. There were motives that may tax the credulity of the reader, but they existed, nevertheless. I have served in vessels myself where a large proportion of the crew would not trust the captain to post any letters for them owing to the habit of mean peculation that was commonly practised by some captains in those days of grossly overcharging postage and putting the proceeds into their own pockets. But that was not the only method of pilfering from the poor creatures whose wages ranged from L2 15s. to L3 10s. per month, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... permitted." The Senate having refused to confirm a certain appointee, he declared that the opposition had "its rise in an overwhelming greed for the patronage which may attach to the place," and that the practical effect of such opposition was to perpetuate "the practice of unblushing peculation." What he said was quite true and it was the kind of truth that hurt. The brusqueness of his official style and the censoriousness of his language infused even more personal bitterness into the opposition which developed within his own party than in ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... for whom Pope seems to have entertained an especially warm regard was James Craggs, Addison's successor as Secretary of State, who died whilst under suspicion of peculation in the South Sea business (1721). The Whig connexion might have been turned to account. Craggs during his brief tenure of office offered Pope a pension of 300l. a year (from the secret service money), which Pope declined, whilst saying ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... outward appearance of the Northern army; I have endeavored to learn something of the manner in which it was brought together, and of its cost as it now stands; and I have learned—as any man in the States may learn, without much trouble or personal investigation—how terrible has been the peculation of the contractors and officers by whom that army has been supplied. Of these things, writing of the States at this moment, I must say something. In what I shall say as to that matter of peculation, I trust that I may be ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... never more than the hunting-lodge of the king's Intendant, Bigot, a man whose sins claim for him a lordly consideration in the history of Quebec, He was the last Intendant before the British conquest, and in that time of general distress he grew rich by oppression of the citizens, and by peculation from the soldiers. He built this pleasure-house here in the woods, and hither he rode out from Quebec to enjoy himself in the chase and the carouses that succeed the chase. Here, too, it is said, dwelt in secret ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... particularly to this purpose. The Commissioners having agreed to retain some articles out of the public account, in order to be divided among themselves, had entered into an indenture for ascertaining their share in the peculation, which they hid in a bow-pot for security. Now, when an assembly of divines, aided by the most strict religious characters in the neighbourhood of Woodstock, were assembled to conjure down the supposed demon, Trusty Joe had contrived ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... approached with safety, like the Maelstrom at the turn of tide. His profusion was indulged to an extent hazardous to his popularity, for the populace are jealous of a lavish expenditure, as raising their favourites too much above their own degree; and the charge of peculation finds always ready credit with them, when brought ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... hear of your return, but I do not know how to congratulate you—unless you think differently of Venice from what I think now, and you thought always. I am, besides, about to renew your troubles by requesting you to be judge between Mr. E * * * and myself in a small matter of imputed peculation and irregular accounts on the part of that phoenix of secretaries. As I knew that you had not parted friends, at the same time that I refused for my own part any judgment but yours, I offered him his choice of any person, the least scoundrel native to be found in Venice, as his own umpire; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... great piles there that you call Pyramids and such like, but because things happen here which in Rome would be as impossible as moonshine at mid-day, or a horse with his tail at the end of his nose! Before a complaint could be laid against Eulaeus he had accused my father of the peculation, and before the Epistates and the assessor of the district had even looked at the indictment, their judgment on the falsely accused man was already recorded, for Eulaeus had simply bought their verdict just as a man buys a fish or a cabbage in the market. In olden times the goddess of justice was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... escaped from prison in England, and applied for relief, fell. I lay this general state before Congress, to convince them how very far I was from being prodigal of the public monies, and that the accounts delivered, general as they are, are sufficient to exculpate me from every charge of peculation or extravagance. My future reputation and fortune depend much on my mercantile character in these transactions, and I rely on the justice of Congress to prevent its being any longer undeservedly sported ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... necessitous; the affluence or the prodigality, the indolence or indulgence; or indifference of their masters, affords them every possible facility for being dishonest; and, beginning with the more venial kinds of peculation, their conscience has an opportunity of making an easy descent through the various gradations of larceny, till the misdemeanant passes into the felon. In the meantime, the master, taking no blame to himself, nor considering that servants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... fleet was in a great measure owing to the misconduct of the admirals, and the neglect of the victualling-office; but they were screened by a majority. Mr. Harley, one of the commissioners for taking and stating the public accounts, delivered a report, which contained a charge of peculation against lord Falkland. Rainsford, receiver of the rights and perquisites of the navy, confessed that he had received and paid more money than that which was charged in the accounts; and, in particular, that he had paid four thousand pounds to lord Falkland by his majesty's order. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... cast a popular odium on their names, exciting even the envy of their equals—in the erection of palaces for themselves, which outvied those of their sovereign; and which, to the eyes of the populace, appeared as a perpetual and insolent exhibition of what they deemed the ill-earned wages of peculation, oppression, and court-favour. We discover the seduction of this passion for ostentation, this haughty sense of their power, and this self-idolatry, even among the most prudent and the wisest of our ministers; and not one but lived to lament over this vain act of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was his, and ministers in league with foreign governments to keep him out of it. "Him," said the doctor, "I discovered to have been for years guilty of conduct entirely incompatible with the hypothesis of undisordered mental functions. He had accused his domestics of peculation, and had initiated legal proceedings with a view of prosecuting in a court of law one of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... under the surveillance of the police-magistrate. They were obliged to show that they were working for a living, and had some honestly-acquired means of existence. All who could not do so were placed upon public works at low wages, and thus were kept from the temptation to peculation or other crimes, which the excitement of newly-acquired freedom, and disinclination to labour, might have led ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... chief command of the Union forces, had an immense army which was fast getting properly equipped, month faded into month without his advancing against the enemy. Again the popular cry was raised, "On to Richmond!" It was at this moment of military inactivity and popular restlessness that charges of peculation ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... with a court of justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins, to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage of a suit. The fees had an equally ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Cicero to Atticus, which bear constant testimony to the strong interest which he took in ornamenting his several houses, and mention Cyrus, his Greek architect. At this time immense fortunes were easily made from the spoils of new conquests, or by peculation and maladministration of subject provinces, and the money thus ill and easily acquired was squandered in the most lavish luxury. One favorite mode of indulgence was in splendor of building. Lucius Cassius was the first who ornamented his house with columns of foreign ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... susceptible of abuse, or being turned to means of oppression: how much more exposed, then, must all these functions be where slavery in its popular sway rides triumphant over the common law of the land. Divine laws are with impunity disregarded and abused by anointed teachers of divinity. Peculation, in sumptuous garb, and with modern appliances, finds itself modestly-perhaps unconsciously-gathering dross at the sacred altar. How saint-like in semblance, and how unconscious of wrong, are ye bishops (holy ones, scarce of earth, in holy lawn) in that land of freedom where the slave's ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... uncontrolled propensity for carouses, with all his lively taste for gossip, with all his gallantries and all his petty selfishness, Pepys shows us how manfully he struggled to make his work efficient, how often he strove successfully against profusion, and peculation, and hopeless mismanagement, and how he managed to steer his way safely amidst the jealousies, and corruptions, and gross jobberies of those under whom he served. There is something dramatic in comparing the record of his struggle with details that ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... 'The Innocents Abroad', the irreverence and iconoclasm of that Yankee intruder into the hallowed confines of Camelot. All may rejoice in the spontaneity and refreshment of truth; spiritually co-operate in forthright condemnation of fraud, peculation, and sham; and breathe gladly the fresh and bracing air of sincerity, sanity, and wisdom. The stevedore on the dock, the motor-man on the street car, the newsboy on the street, the riverman on the Mississippi—all speak ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Lord Elcho, in Paris, puts the money taken by Young Glengarry and Lochgarry (an honest man) at 1,200 louis d'or. We have heard the laments of 'Thomas Newton' (Kennedy), who himself is accused of peculation by AEneas Macdonald, and of losing 800l. of the Prince's money at Newmarket. {156} We do not know for certain, then, that Young Glengarry vended his honour when in London in autumn 1749. That he made overtures to England, whether they were accepted or not, will soon be made to seem ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... lasted about twelve months. During that time it visited with deserved punishment several of those who, during the preceding six years, had enriched themselves by peculation and monopoly. Mitchell, one of the grasping patentees who had purchased of the favourite the power of robbing the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mompesson, the original, it is said, of Massinger's Overreach, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and exposing the peculation which was being practised, he closed the mouths of all those who were so loudly commending him as an honest man, but gained the applause of all true and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... attaining their end. One of the least respectable of the French nobles was the Duc d'Aiguillon. As Governor of Brittany, he had behaved with notorious cowardice in the Seven Years' War. He had since been, if possible, still more dishonored by charges of oppression, peculation, and subornation, on which the authorities of the province had prosecuted him, and which the Parisian Parliament had pronounced to be established. But no kind of infamy was a barrier to the favor of Louis XV. He cancelled ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... fine son'. Yet now even this companionship was broken up. The relentless Provost here too brought a sword. There were explosions and recriminations. Monsignor Searle, finding that his power was slipping from him, made scenes and protests, and at last was foolish enough to accuse Manning of peculation to his face; after that it was clear that his day was over; he was forced to slink snarling into the background, while the Cardinal shuddered through all his immensity, and wished many times that he were ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... parts of the island, and that the soil was fit to bear good crops of grain in others. A little prospecting would also have shown them iron, coal, and gypsum. But their official parasites did not want to see smuggling and peculation replaced by industry and trade. Nothing, indeed, better proves how little they thought of making Ile Royale a genuine colony than their utter failure to exploit any one of its teeming natural resources in ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... after the treaty of Tientsin. Men and money were readily provided to the extent suggested, and the men easily learnt the drill. But the foreign instructors had always to superintend the paying of wages in order to prevent peculation by the native officers, and, the moment their vigilant eyes were removed, drill and discipline were voted a nuisance by officers and men alike, arms and accoutrements ceased to be kept in order, and the force rapidly assumed its purely Chinese ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... the country, the revenue of which is misapplied and devoted to objects which keep alive a continuous and well-founded feeling of irritation, without in any way advancing the general interest of the State. Maladministration and peculation of public moneys go hand-in-hand, without any vigorous measures being adopted to put a stop to the scandal. The education of Uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions. The police afford no adequate protection to the lives and ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... than ever. He wrote to Harrison: "If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should in one word say, that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and almost of every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and defeated aspirants for office, in our day, surpass these letters. They show how deeply the writers were stung. They heap maledictions on the Governor, without any of the restraints of courtesy or propriety. They charge him with all sorts of malversation in office, bribery, peculation, extortion, falseness, hypocrisy, and even murder; imputing to him "the guilt of innocent blood," because, many years before, he had, as Chief-justice of New York, presided at the Trial of Leisler and Milburn; and averring ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... much credit for the defeat. Lacretelle mentions that: "Les Bretons qui le considerent comme leur tyran pretendent qu'il l'etait tenu cache pendant le combat" (iii. 345). He was subsequently prosecuted on charges of peculation and subornation, which the Parliament declared to be fully established, but Mme. de Barri persuaded ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "Conte Guillaume," whom Messrs. de Lincy and Montaiglon conjecture to be Furstemberg, though other commentators think that the Queen refers to William Poyet, the dishonest chancellor, who was sent to the Bastille in 1542 for peculation. We share, however, the opinion of Messrs. de Lincy and Montaiglon, as in various contemporary MSS. which we have referred to, we have frequently found Furstemberg alluded to as "Conte" and "Comte Guillaume," without any ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... iniquities of that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over the world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant traveller has ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... returned to France,—the third, the Breton, remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malecontents took the opportunity to send home charges against Laudonniere of peculation, favoritism, and tyranny. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... which tells us of his probable competition for the Consulship; the second informs his friend that a son is born to him—he being then forty-two years old—and that he is thinking to undertake the defence of Catiline, who was to be accused of peculation as Propraetor in Africa. "Should he be acquitted," says Cicero, "I should hope to have him on my side in the matter of my canvass. If he should be convicted, I shall be able to bear that too." There were to be six or seven candidates, of whom two, of course, would be chosen. It would be much to Cicero ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... important manors in Gillingham, co. Kent, East Court and Twidall. Haslewood is somewhat at a loss to account for these possessions. From documents I have discovered and printed in an Appendix, it becomes only too clear, I fear, that Painter's fortune had the same origin as too many private fortunes, in peculation of public funds. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... and legal means of gratifying his longings. It has been conjectured, therefore, that the testator thought, by giving up his trade to a man who was as keenly alive as my ancestor to all its perfections, moral and pecuniary, he provided a sufficient protection against his falling into the sin of peculation, by so amply supplying him with simpler means of enriching himself. Besides, it is fair to presume that the long acquaintance had begotten sufficient confidence to weaken the effect of that saying which some wit has put into the mouth of a wag, "Make me your executor, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sales, and purchases, and other receipts and expenditures being kept; and inventories being taken every year, of all raw materials;—manufactures upon hand;—and other effects, belonging to the establishment; and an annual account of profit and loss, regularly made out; all peculation, and other abuses, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... of secreting a treasure that lies in such a small bulk, that the proprietor of the fishing has had under consideration a suggestion to sell the heaps of shells by auction to the natives, and permit them then to make the best of their bargain. Whether this method of preventing peculation has been actually ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... is—"Let the appetite be obedient to reason." The best answer to the pessimists in whom one suspects the wish was father to the thought, who prophesied disaster from an Act which they declared would open the door to peculation and jobbery, is to be found in the Local Government Board Report for 1903, issued on the expiry of the first term of office of the County Councils. It expressly declares that in no matter have the Councils been more successful than in their financial ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... money to be collected; otherwise he is not apt to be so particular. This is, however, rather a matter of private concern than of zealousness in the performance of his official duties; the possibilities of peculation are ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Livius, who had been consul in the gear before the beginning of this war, and had then gained a victory over the Illyrians. After his consulship he had been impeached before the people on a charge of peculation and unfair division of the spoils among his soldiers: the verdict was unjustly given against him, and the sense of this wrong, and of the indignity thus put upon him, had rankled unceasingly in the bosom of Livius, so that for eight years after his ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A. |
