"Commutation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... information received from the local street railway company, it appears that not over 25% of the mill operatives use the street cars in going to and from work. The single fare is ten cents, but a commutation ticket plan was put into operation in September, 1919, by which 50 rides could be obtained for $3 provided the ticket was used within a month. It has been found, however, that many of the more poorly ...
— The Cost of Living Among Wage-Earners - Fall River, Massachusetts, October, 1919, Research Report - Number 22, November, 1919 • National Industrial Conference Board
... trace In this decline that morning when we did Sport 'twixt the claws of newly-whelped existence, Which had not yet learned rending? we did then Divinely stand, not knowing yet against us Sentence had passed of life, nor commutation Petitioning into death. What's he that of The Free State argues? Tellus! bid him stoop, Even where the low hic jacet answers him; Thus low, O Man! there's freedom's seignory, Tellus' most reverend sole free commonweal, And model deeply-policied: there ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... Esther and the tea combined won a signal triumph, and Charlie was called down from the room above, where he had been exchanging telegraphic communications with the before-mentioned Kinch, in hopes of receiving a commutation of sentence. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... hundred thousand francs stolen from Monsieur and Madame des Vanneaulx no efforts of the police could find them; and the obstinate silence of the criminal gave no clue. Monsieur de Grandville tried the common means of holding out hopes of commutation of the sentence in case of confession; but when he went to see the prisoner and suggest it the latter received him with such furious cries and epileptic contortions, such rage at being powerless to take him by the throat, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... then reigning Tsar, assuredly deserved, according to aristocratic ideas, the deportation to Siberia which was said to have been prepared for the author. The intercession of Karamzine and Joukovski procured a commutation of his sentence. Strangely enough, Pushkin appeared anxious to deceive the public as to the real cause of his sudden disappearance from the capital; for in an Ode to Ovid composed about this time he styles himself a "voluntary exile." (See Note 4 ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... raising new regiments and letting old ones die out; Sherman cited; act providing for; weakened by commutation clause; insignificant numbers ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that you should instantly have been taken from the stand to the scaffold, but the sentence has been deferred to as distant a period as prudent—six weeks. But this time has not been granted for the purpose of giving you any hope for pardon or commutation of the sentence;—just as sure as you live till the twenty-second of April, as surely you will suffer death—therefore indulge not a hope that ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... is laid on the Protestant Church forced upon a Catholic nation; but divide among the Irish what the Church takes from them, and it does not reach six shillings a head. Besides, tithes are a tax upon landed property, not upon the tenant, though he may nominally pay them; now, since the Commutation Bill of 1838, the landlord pays the tithes directly and reckons so much higher rent, so that the tenant is none the better off. And in the same way a hundred other causes of this poverty are brought forward, all proving as little as these. This poverty is the result of our social conditions; ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... Attestation of general and special amnesty, commutation of punishment, reprieve, and restoration ...
— The Constitution of Japan, 1946 • Japan
... my experience of the law courts, I believe it possible to obtain important revelations by offering commutation ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... this intelligence to Louise. All her fears returned. Was it certain that Alexis was pardoned? Might not the commutation of punishment announced in the Gazette be a ruse to conceal the truth from the people? These, and a thousand other doubts, arose in her mind; but I at last succeeded in tranquillizing her, and returned home ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... who had his little pharmacy on the opposite side of the street, a little below Anderson's grocery. He united with his drug business a local and long-distance telephone and the Western Union telegraph-office, and he rented and sold commutation-books of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... brother; if you won't be gay, we'll not differ; I will be as grave as you wish. [Affects gravity.] And so, brother, you have come to the city to exchange some of your commutation notes for ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... by aid of their servants rescue by force the intended victim. Byron, however, preferred in the first place, to rely on diplomacy; some vigorous letters passed; ultimately a representation, convoyed by Taafe to the English Ambassador, led to a commutation of the sentence, and the man ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... was opposed to the execution of these men. I thought it would have been far better to commute the punishment to imprisonment, and I said so; and I not only said so, but I wrote a letter to Governor Oglesby, in which I urged the commutation of the death sentence. In my judgment, a great mistake was made. I am on the side of mercy, and if I ever make mistakes, I hope they will all be made on that side. I have not the slightest sympathy with the feeling of revenge. Neither have ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... from possible imposition, no commutation of his supplies will be allowed, except in clothing, which may be commuted at the rate of $3 per month for first-class hands, and in similar proportion for other classes. The crops will stand pledged, wherever found, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... The Constitutional Act of 1791 greatly complicated the situation by its provisions relating to the so-termed 'clergy reserves,' or reservations of lands for Church endowment, and it was not until 1825 that the Canada Trade and Tenures Act opened the way for a commutation of tenures whenever the seigneur and his habitants could agree. This act was permissive only. It did not apply any compulsion to the seigneurs. Very few, accordingly, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... be the last thing the Wolf would do. The Wolf had double-crossed the underworld, and the underworld, if it found it out, would not easily forgive—and even in a death cell, clinging to the hope of commutation of sentence, the Wolf would never run the risk of his additional guilt of the Spider's murder leaking out. The role of "Smarlinghue" in the underworld ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... creatures who make away with their illegitimate offspring in the agony of their trouble and shame, there were, in my experience, almost always to be found very strong reasons for commutation, even to very limited ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Strunsky has somewhere remarked: "At eighteen a man is interested in causes; at twenty-eight in commutation tickets."] ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... represented in a convention to assemble for the purpose of receiving and considering a proposition which she intends to submit for the capitalization of the Sound dues and the distribution of the sum to be paid as commutation among the governments according to the respective proportions of their maritime commerce to and from the Baltic. I have declined, in behalf of the United States, to accept this invitation, for the most cogent ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... slipped by when one day he asked me if I would prepare a petition which he might send to the Home Secretary in the hope of obtaining a commutation of sentence. I liked the youngster very well and readily consented, but told him that I doubted very much if he would get anything. The petition was sent, and in a few days the usual answer was returned, "No grounds." He told me of his ill luck, and I said to him: ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... of the same form, called Zamarra, but instead of the red cross were painted flames and devils, and sometimes an ugly portrait of the heretic himself,—a head, with flames under it. Those who had been sentenced to the stake, but indulged with commutation of the penalty, had inverted flames painted on the livery, and this was ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... the Catholic and Dissenting clergy was secured by a grant of some provision to both on the part of the State. To win over the Episcopal Church to such an equality measures were added for strengthening its modes of discipline, as well as for increasing the stipends of its poorer ministers, while a commutation of tithes was planned as a means of removing a constant source of quarrel between the Protestant ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... New York City who were opposed to the war, and, consequently, to all radical measures to fill the city's quota. The poor believed they had a just ground of complaint. A clause in the Enrollment Act of Congress allowed a drafted man to be discharged upon the payment of three hundred dollars commutation. This gave the wealthier people a right the poor were not ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... a sharp look, but she was smiling amiably. Doremus and the men he lived with, in town had a bungalow at Burlingame and they bought their commutation tickets at precisely the fashionable moment. "She will stay in town," he said shortly. "She needs a rest, and San Francisco is the healthiest ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins."—If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... commuting half-pay for life into a gross sum equal to five years' full pay, to be discharged at once by certificates bearing interest at six per cent. Such poor paper was all that Congress had to pay with, but it was all ultimately redeemed; and while the commutation was advantageous to the government, it was at the same time greatly for the interest of the officers, while they were looking out for new means of livelihood, to have their claims adjusted at once, and to receive something which could do ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... leading Baltimore Unionists were enlisted in his behalf through family connections, and as the Border State Unionists were then potent at Washington, they readily secured a commutation of his sentence ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... watch. It was nearly midnight. It would take me until two in the morning to get home, where I would have to wake my wife, and relate the whole truth—or else tell her a lie as to why I was home a day ahead of time. I cared to do neither, and thought of a hotel. But, though I had a commutation ticket in my pocket, my money was now reduced to twenty-five cents—not enough to pay for a night's lodging. There was not a soul left in that darkened building to ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... of the Pentateuch still bear traces of their origin in fines and penalties; they are not gifts to God, they are not even symbolical, they are simply mulcts payable to the priests, partly of fixed commutation value (Leviticus v. 15). Apart from the mechanical burning of the fat they have in common with the sacrifice only the shedding of blood, originally a secondary matter, which has here become the chief thing. This circumstance is an additional proof of our thesis. The ritual of the simple offering ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... capital invested in land and agriculture in this country—look at the interests involved in it—look at the arrangement that has been come to for the commutation of tithes—look at your importation of corn diminishing for the last ten years—consider the burdens on the land peculiar to this country[14]—take all these circumstances into consideration, and then you will agree with Mr McCulloch, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... temper of too many others. We may do much which God requires, may even go beyond and do much which he doth not require, and yet be nothing in religion. There must be the spirit and temper of true religion. There can be no commutation—Nothing will be accepted as a substitute. We must do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God, or have no part in him. Nothing without it will be accepted; not even "giving the body ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... designe of doing so, I have not a thought of what is pretended in most Dedications, a Commutation for Courtesies: no indeed Sir, I put no such value upon this trifle; for your owning it will rather increase my Obligations. But my desire is, that into whose hands soever this shall fall, it may to them be a testimony of my gratitude to your ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... war, the government, the soldiers, of the harmless and inoffensive negroes; angry incitings of the poor man to hatred against the rich, since the rich man could save himself from the necessity of serving in the ranks by the payment of three hundred dollars of commutation money; incendiary appeals to the worst passions of the most ignorant portion of the community; and open calls to insurrection and arms to resist the peaceable enforcement of a law enacted in furtherance of the defence of ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... to save the criminal, thought only of obtaining a commutation of the sentence. Some of them came to me, asking me to save them: though I was not related to the Horn family, they explained to me, that death on the wheel would throw into despair all that family, and everybody ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... disapproved of the condemnation of the two women, who had only been convicted of a crime by which neither of them had profited. The reprieve granted to Mme. Acquet, "whose declaration had deceived no one," seemed a good omen, indicating a commutation of her sentence. The nine "brigands" condemned to death received no pity. Lefebre was not known in Rouen, and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sympathy; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, and only interested the populace hungry for a spectacle on the scaffold. The ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... year under the ancient system which united almost every possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as the commutation of all dues into cash; but "duty work" was as strictly exacted on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land, but to give him at Christmas ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... to the colonies to labor for a fixed number of years became a familiar form of commutation of the death penalty, and after 1662 it was made the statutory ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... vag'd. When the police got through with me, and returned my pie-card I turned it in for a commutation ticket, and there are still a few feeds to the good on it. The commutation ticket is the proper card for a gentleman in straitened circumstances. You are not obliged to gorge yourself at early morn with a whole twenty-cent breakfast ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... will also expire on the 3d day of March next. While on the subject of its continuance it will be worthy the consideration of the Legislature whether the provisions of the law inflicting on Indians, in certain cases, the punishment of death by hanging might not permit its commutation into death by military execution, the form of the punishment in the former way being peculiarly repugnant to their ideas and increasing the obstacles to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... write from China before the expiration of my leave." On the 11th he received a further message, "Reasons insufficient: your going to China is not approved." To this Gordon replied, "Arrange retirement, commutation or resignation of service; ask Campbell reasons. My counsel, if asked, would be for peace, not war. I return by America." The War Office were not, however, going to lose an officer of such ability so easily, so when Gordon arrived at ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... millions to the poor, because it is impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish the poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the commutation tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars of all which are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to refer for particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to a town of the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its favour, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... for it was one in which Holmes had taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin. The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... United States. Resignation of M. Thiers, who is succeeded, as Prime Minister of France, by Count Mole. Military operations against Abd-el-Kader. Massacre of the Carlist Prisoners at Barcelona. Isturitz made Prime Minister of Spain. Prince Louis Napoleon attempts an insurrection at Strasburg. Commutation of Tithes in England. Bill for the Registration of Births and Marriages. Passage of the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill. Agitations in Canada. War between Texas and Mexico. Burning of the Patent ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... just as every other American who denounced the Germans before we entered the war had received them. Nothing had come of it, of course, and after we went in, the whole matter dropped from public attention. Zalnitch had been sent to prison, but his friends had worked constantly for commutation of his sentence. With labor's new power, due to the fear of Bolshevism, they were again bringing influence to bear ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... provision made for the sustentation of religion was frittered away so as to produce but few beneficial results,'[1] a question which had long been the occasion of much heart-burning was at least settled, and settled for ever. A slender provision for the future was saved out of the wreck by the commutation of the reserved life-interests of incumbents, which laid the foundation of a small permanent endowment; but, with this exception, the equality of destitution among all Protestant communities ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... rectory at the same commutation that the former incumbent had enjoyed it; and, while the patron to whom he owed the presentation was living, he contented himself with his bargain as well as he could: but, soon after the accession of Squire Mowbray, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a small mirror of his own, so there one manages the ticklish business of the cravat. And from our own kennel, where are transacted the last touches (transfer of pipe, tobacco, matches, Long Island railroad timetable, commutation ticket, etc., to the other pockets) there is a heavenly purview of those tall cliffs of lower Broadway, nobly terraced into the soft, translucent sky. In that exquisite clarity and sharpness of New York's evening light are a loveliness ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... celebration of Divine service, matrimony, divorces, bastardy, tythes, oblations, obventions, mortuaries, dilapidations, reparation of churches, probate of wills, administrations, simony, incests, fornications, adulteries, solicitation of chastity; pensions, procurations, commutation of penance, right of pews, and other such like, reducible ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... as a matter of leniency, and as a commutation of what were considered more severe forms of death. We have an instance of such a case in Scotland in 1556, when a man who had been found guilty of theft and sacrilege was ordered to be put to death by drowning "by the Queen's special grace." At Edinburgh, in 1611, a man was drowned for stealing ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... out home for the night, and as the latter had no mount, Lee took him up behind himself, and down Pennsylvania Avenue they went, saluting other officers whom they encountered, with great glee. That was one time when a commutation ticket ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... had her nest-mate never been taken from her, seemed to keep John near. Almost, sometimes, he seemed to walk at her side in her errands of mercy, or to spread above her the arms of benediction. And so even the bitter was sweet, and she came to believe that never before had widow such blessed commutation. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... Good Templars. As of old in our navy, grog is stopped as a punishment. The drink ration can be entirely commuted and the food ration one half, but not more. Many sailors on the Variag practiced total abstinence at sea, and as the grog had been purchased in Japan at very high cost, the commutation money was considerable. Commutation is regulated according to the price of the articles where the ship was ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... in Parliamentary history the Irish members held the balance of power. In vain did Sir Robert Peel attempt to stave off his downfall by the introduction of welcome measures of reform. Once more it was on a question affecting Ireland that the government was defeated. This was Peel's high commutation bill. Lord Russell in reply moved that the surplus revenues of the Irish Church be used for non-ecclesiastical purposes. In the debate that followed, Gladstone spoke strongly against the measure. For this early speech, embodying ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... complaints of arbitrary imprisonment, and no attempts, so frequent both in earlier and later times, at illegal taxation. In this particular, indeed, Isabella manifested the greatest tenderness for her people. By her commutation of the capricious tax of the alcavala for a determinate one, and still more by transferring its collection from the revenue officers to the citizens themselves, she greatly relieved ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... become relatively a good when it prevents or removes a greater evil; for instance, loss of a limb when life is preserved by the sacrifice, or the acute pain of a remedy by which a chronic disease is cured. Such was slavery in its origin: a commutation for death, gladly accepted as mercy under the arm of a conqueror in battle, or as the mitigation of a judicial sentence. But it led immediately to nefarious abuses; and the earliest records which tell us of its existence show us also that men were kidnapped for sale. ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... the whole huge labyrinth of our public affairs. It is scarcely necessary to explain my meaning. In Athens, the question before the public assembly was, peace or war—before our House of Commons, perhaps the Exchequer Bills' Bill; at Athens, a league or no league—in England, the Tithe of Agistment Commutation-Bills' Renewal Bill; in Athens—shall we forgive a ruined enemy? in England—shall we cancel the tax on farthing rushlights? In short, with us, the infinity of details overlays the simplicity and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... present at this dreary moment, anxious to profit by it, if possible, to work the conversion of the victim. He painted in gloomy colors the dreadful doom of the unbeliever, to whom the waters of baptism could alone secure the ineffable glories of paradise.23 It does not appear that he promised any commutation of punishment in this world. But his arguments fell on a stony heart, and the chief coldly replied, he "did not understand the religion of the white men." 24 He might be pardoned for not comprehending ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... self-consciousness. It was this awakening that Abbot Sampson saw and noted with his clear, shrewd eyes. To him, we can hardly doubt, the revolt of the town-wives, for instance, was more than a mere scream of angry women. The "rep-silver," the commutation for that old service of reaping in the abbot's fields, had ceased to be exacted from the richer burgesses. At last the poorer sort refused to pay. Then the cellarer's men came seizing gate and stool by way of distress till the women ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain. He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, softened for an instant the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... which has had a system of commutation fares in force for more than four years, shall abolish, alter, or modify the same, except for the regulation of the price charged for such commutation; and such price shall, in no case, be raised to an extent that ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... said: "The commutation of sentences acknowledges them to be unjust and arbitrary. The attempt to suppress legitimate ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... their complaints and "slandering the city authorities and representatives as if they had incited the tumultuous mob against the Jews" had been of no avail. In conclusion, he branded the petition of the Balta community for a commutation of the death sentence passed upon the rioters as an act of hypocrisy, adding impressively that "these persons have been pardoned irrespective of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... consummated until three years later. Several other acts of the legislature passed during this period exerted a beneficial influence on agriculture. Of these, the first in date and importance is the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. Improvement was also stimulated by the Public Money Drainage Acts 1846-1856, under which government was empowered to advance money on certain conditions for the improvement of estates. Additional facilities ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all, it was his most important object to learn the fate of the unfortunate Chief of Glennaquoich; to visit him at Carlisle, and to try whether anything could be done for procuring, if not a pardon, a commutation at least, or alleviation, of the punishment to which he was almost certain of being condemned; and, in case of the worst, to offer the miserable Flora an asylum with Rose, or otherwise to assist ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott |
