"Commute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty years' penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a bargain," he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville's expression; "that life should be safe for other ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... for decapitation, but with a recommendation to mercy. Next, one Pussort, a malignant tool of the Chancellor, inveighed against Fouquet for four hours, so violently that he injured his case. His voice was for the gallows,—but, in consideration of the criminal's rank, he would consent to commute the cord for the axe. After him, four voted for death; then, five for banishment. Six to six. Anxiety had now reached a distressing point. The Chancellor stormed and threatened; but in vain. On the twenty-fifth of December the result was known. Nine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Bertram solemnly, "there are times when I conceive a sort of respect for your commonplace and plodding intellect. Now, let me have my little inning. I used to commute—on the Jersey and Delaware Short Line. There's a station on that line, Pearlington by name, that's a combination of Mosquitoville, Lonesomehurst and Nutting Doon. It's in the mathematical center of the ghastliest marsh anywhere ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... beamed a message to the men on Moon Base One, telling them that from now on they would be able to commute back and forth from Luna to Earth, just as simply as flying from New ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... die at all!" she cried. "For weeks he has been in the death house: it is killing me. The Governor refuses him a pardon, nor will he commute my son's sentence. In three days he is to die in the electric chair, for a crime which you admit you alone are responsible for. Yet you remain in your laboratory, immersed in your experiments, and do ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... value was bound to furnish a knight for his lord's service; and the barons thus held a body of trained soldiers at their disposal. When Henry called his chief lords to serve in the war of Toulouse, he allowed the lower tenants to commute their service for sums payable to the royal treasury under the name of "scutage," or shield-money. The "Great Scutage" did much to disarm the baronage, while it enabled the king to hire foreign mercenaries for his service abroad. Again ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... hundred thousand ducats, to be raised out of the ecclesiastical revenues in Castile and Aragon. A bull of crusade was also published by his Holiness, containing numerous indulgences for such as should bear arms against the infidel, as well as those who should prefer to commute their military service for the payment of a sum of money. In addition to these resources, the government was enabled on its own credit, justified by the punctuality with which it had redeemed its past engagements, to negotiate considerable loans ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... not addicted. Considering their infirmity in that way, it would be hardly fair to take them as seriously as they take themselves, but when any considerable number of apparently earnest citizens unite in a petition to the Governor of their State, to commute the death sentence of a convicted assassin without alleging a doubt of his guilt the phenomenon challenges a certain attention to what they do allege. What these amiable persons hold, it seems, is what was held by Alphonse Karr: the expediency of abolishing the death penalty; but apparently they ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... whispered about that the King was in his debt—some word of honor, and dare not refuse. The word of mercy came just in time, ordering Jeffries to commute your sentence. At first he swore he'd hang you, King or no King, but his nerve failed. My uncle said he roared like a bull. This Bucclough; is he ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... women elevation, liberty? Men put the right of suffrage for themselves above all price, and count the denial of it the most severe punishment. If a man serving a term in State's prison has one friend outside who cares for him, that friend will get up a petition begging the Governor to commute his sentence, if for not more than forty-eight hours prior to its expiration, so that, when he comes out of prison he may not be compelled to suffer the disgrace of disfranchisement and may not be doomed to walk among his fellows with the mark of Cain upon his forehead. The only ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... a few months before the campaign Tietzow was an unemployed electrical engineer who had difficulty paying the three-dollar weekly rent for his hall bed-room at the Aldine Ave. address. After Schwinn's visit and meeting with him, Tietzow began to commute by air between Chicago and Buffalo where he ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... and as the use of his name furnishes me with an explanation that will satisfy the Assembly and people of this State, I can be less rigorous. That you should not endure one hour more of anxiety than need be, I have hurried to you, to tell you that I shall commute his sentence to imprisonment with the other political prisoners ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... condemned to death for witchcraft, and for the staying of proceedings in several other cases, to remain unnoticed, and without remarking upon the consequences which may ensue. There is also a letter from your secretary of state, declaring your majesty's intention to commute the punishment of these criminals into one of perpetual banishment, and to submit to the opinion of the procureur-general, and of the most learned members of the parliament of Paris, whether, in the matter of witchcraft, the jurisprudence of the parliament of Rouen is to be followed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... doorway;—and in old Saxon, as we in modern, would fain demand some Five-point Charter, could it be fallen-in with, the Earth being too tyrannous!—Wise Lord Abbots, hearing of such phenomena, did in time abolish or commute the reap-penny, and one nuisance was abated. But the image of these justly offended old women, in their old wool costumes, with their angry features, and spindles brandished, lives forever in the historical memory. Thanks to thee, Jocelin Boswell. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... are under consideration for allowing beneficiaries of men who have died or been killed in the service to choose between taking monthly payments over a period of twenty years or to commute these payments ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... ways of getting money from these metropolitan hayseeds," says Silver, "than there is of cooking rice in Charleston, S. C. They'll bite at anything. The brains of most of 'em commute. The wiser they are in intelligence the less perception of cognizance they have. Why, didn't a man the other day sell J. P. Morgan an oil portrait of Rockefeller, Jr., for Andrea del Sarto's celebrated painting of the ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... price of tobacco was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16s. and 8d. per hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50s. per hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of 16s. 8d. per hundred. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... hand in the arrest and imprisonment of Servetus, he was unwilling that he should be burnt at all. "I desire," says he, "that the severity of the punishment should be remitted." "We endeavoured to commute the kind of death, but in vain." "By wishing to mitigate the severity of the punishment," says Farel to Calvin, "you discharge the office of a friend towards your greatest enemy." "That Calvin was the instigator of the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... usually paid? How else may it be paid? How does the overseer indicate that a person's tax is paid? If a person liable to road tax does not "commute," and yet neglects or refuses to appear when duly notified by the road overseer, what can the latter do about it? How is delinquent road tax collected? How can a person who has paid his tax prove that he has ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... "respectfully pray the President, in consideration of the sex and age of the said Mary E. Surratt, if he can, upon all the facts in the case, find it consistent with his sense of duty to the country, to commute the sentence of death, which the Court have been constrained to pronounce, to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life." This recommendation for executive clemency remained unknown to the public until it was incidentally referred to by the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... for instance, provided that persons sentenced to be whipped or branded might, if they wished, escape the punishment by serving seven years in the colonies, and never returning to England. Another allowed convicts sentenced to death to commute the sentence by ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... strongly prompts me to pardon this most unfortunate lady; but I have recently pardoned so many convicted prisoners, that the press and the people generally are down on me, and I really dare not grant any more pardons at present. I will, however, commute the lady's sentence ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... in chief of the army and naval forces of the State. He has revision of all bills passed by the General Assembly, and, a two-thirds majority in each house is necessary to pass a bill over his disapproval. The Governor can commute sentences, and grant pardons to criminals, except in cases of treason or impeachment. He is empowered to fill many important offices by appointment. He issues commissions to all officers in the State. He may issue proclamations ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it to be ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln |
