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Contraband   Listen
noun
Contraband  n.  
1.
Illegal or prohibited traffic. "Persons the most bound in duty to prevent contraband, and the most interested in the seizures."
2.
Goods or merchandise the importation or exportation of which is forbidden.
3.
A negro slave, during the Civil War, escaped to, or was brought within, the Union lines. Such slave was considered contraband of war. (U.S.)
Contraband of war, that which, according to international law, cannot be supplied to a hostile belligerent except at the risk of seizure and condemnation by the aggrieved belligerent.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contraband" Quotes from Famous Books



... Peterboro' hills; Like some vast fleet, Sailing through rain and sleet, Through winter's cold and summer's heat; Still holding on, upon your high emprise, Until ye find a shore amid the skies; Not skulking close to land, With cargo contraband. For they who sent a venture out by ye Have set the sun to see Their honesty. Ships of the line, each one, Ye to the westward run, Always before the gale, Under a press of sail, With weight of metal all untold. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... Portuguese jealously watched their privilege to export men from Africa, so that only about forty thousand negroes were brought yearly by lawful and contraband channels to the different islands. Cuba obtained most of these. The greater part of the Portuguese trade took the direction of Brazil, for the sugar-cane had been carried from Madeira to Rio Janeiro in 1531. Formidable rivalry in selfishness was thus sown in every direction by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... feeling last under the new bill? Could we rely on its continuance in reference to marriages, which can no longer be called contraband or clandestine, which are recognised and regulated by an Act of Parliament, as being on an equal footing with marriages in facie ecclesiae, and which are henceforward to be performed by a statutory officer, intrusted with important and honourable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... the Council meetings at Whitehall, and in meetings of Whitlocke and the other English Commissioners with the Ambassador at Dorset House. "A long debate touching levies of soldiers and hiring of ships in one another's dominions;" "long debates touching contraband goods, in which list were inserted by the Council corn, hemp, pitch, tar, money, and other things:" such are Whitlocke's descriptions of the Dorset House meetings. The Treaty, in fact, was partly commercial and partly political, pointing to new advantages for England, but also to new responsibilities, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Duties of Neutral Nations; Contraband Goods; Blockade; Right of Search; Safe Conducts and ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... science and history; but the core of the whole thing was undiluted classics. We did a good deal of composition, Greek and Latin, and the Latin verses were exercises out of which I got much real enjoyment, and some of the pride of authorship. But it was possible to be very idle, and to get much contraband help in work from other boys. Most of the school work consisted of repetition, and of classical books, dully and leisurely construed. I do not think I ever attempted to attend to the work in school; and there were few stimulating teachers. I needed strict and careful teaching, and got some ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... duties towards the State, and this sense of duty is still further obliterated by the attitude of the Catholic Church, whose action so far as the State is concerned is in strict truth anarchical. It is no uncommon thing to find among its ministers upholders of the moral lawfulness of smuggling and contraband as if in disobeying the legally constituted authority the smuggler and contrabandist did not sin against the Fourth Commandment of the law of God, which in commanding us to honour our father and mother commands us to obey all lawful ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... arrested by order of COL FISK. It proved to be the sage of Chappaqua. He was attired in a clean shirt collar, by means of which he no doubt hoped to avoid recognition. In his travelling bag was found a tooth-brush and several copies of the Tribune. Upon being tried and convicted of carrying contraband of war, he was sentenced to give forthwith his reasons why J. C. BANCROFT DAVIS should not be dismissed from his present office of Assistant ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... Pacha' had turned his back upon Fashoda (the government station in the Shillook country), the mudir (governor) would relapse into his former habits, and levy a good round sum on the head of every slave, and then let the contraband stock pass without more ado. But for once the seriba people were reckoning without their host. The mudir had been so severely reprimanded by Baker for his former delinquencies, that he thought it his best policy, for this ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... prospered, and moved up into a showy place on the Common, the other had had the head winds. Through no fault of his own the reputation had fastened on him of being unlucky in his cargoes: if he carried tea and colonial exports to, say, Antwerp, they would have been declared contraband while he was at sea, and seized on the docks; he had been blown, in an impenetrable fog, ashore on Tierra del Fuego, and, barely making Cape Pembroke, had been obliged to beach his ship, a total loss. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Protection was still continued over such supplies as were within lines held by us and which we expected to continue to hold; but such supplies within the reach of Confederate armies I regarded as much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction was accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war. Promiscuous pillaging, however, was discouraged and punished. Instructions ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... of a large box. A few spectators on one side, and a large fleshy man, the owner of the box, on the other, apparently very unwilling for me to open it. But it seemed a clear duty that I was fully authorized to examine all contraband goods, and therefore there was no resistance. As the top of the box flew off, this man eagerly seized two or three bottles apparently filled with water and hugged them close to him, silently waiting the result of the ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates

... stagnation between his dinner and supper, or between his supper and his bed; one of those strong, ossified brains, which have no more room for a single idea, so fiercely does animal matter keep watch at the doors of intelligence, narrowly inspecting the contraband trade which might result from the introduction into the brain of a symptom of thought. We have already said night was closing in, the shops were being lighted, while the windows of the upper apartments were ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... permission from the Secretary of the Treasury to ship the powder, shot, saddle, bridle, tar, pitch, and rope, but I had to consign these, with the hats, to General Saxton, from whom you will have to obtain an order for them. The tobacco, shoes, rice, and buggy are not contraband. They were going to stop the hats, on the ground that they were "adapted for military uniforms," and I had to get a "character" from one of my friends, a clerk in the Custom House, and then assure the crusty old Collector that the hats were not ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... this way lent their aid in the suppression of smuggling, they themselves were sometimes subjected to disagreeable espionage on the part of those whose duty it was to keep a special lookout for runners of contraband goods. An amusing instance of this once occurred in the Downs. The commanding officer of H.M.S. Orford, discovering his complement to be short, sent one of his lieutenants, Richardson by name, in quest of men to make up the deficiency. In the course of his visits from ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... limes a contraband article, and solemnly vowed to publicly ferule the first person who was found breaking the law. This much-enduring man had succeeded in banishing gum after a long and stormy war, had made a bonfire of the confiscated novels ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... head, positively declining to do so foolish a thing as to mention a contraband article to those whose duty it would be to punish a violation of the revenue laws. In the meanwhile the sequins remained in the hands of Andrea Barrofaldi, who seemed greatly at a loss to understand the character of the strange being whom chance had thus thrown in his way. The ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... in the early years of its foundation, had no direct communication with the mother-country. The inhabitants were contented with carrying on a trifling contraband trade in dried meat and tobacco with the West India Islands, and with the Dutch colony of Essequibo, by the Rio Carony. Neither wine, oil, nor flour, three articles of importation the most sought after, was received directly from ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... liable to be seized and condemned in British prize courts whenever it was clear that their cargoes were not American produce, but were actually purchased at the port of an enemy. Even provisions purchased from an enemy or its colonies were considered "contraband of war" on the ground that they afforded actual aid and encouragement to an enemy. The United States urged at first that only military stores could fall under this category, and eventually went so far as to assert ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... quite a lot about him. The authorities of Holland, Spain and France knew him as one of the leading spirits in a system of smuggling that had been going on for years. Once Hume had been located in Antwerp, once at Hamburg, and for a long time at Bayonne. This system of contraband had been broken up just before he had been arrested by the United States service. A number of the criminals had been convicted; but Hume, with his usual luck, had escaped once more, because of lack of evidence ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... introduced the books into the new house surreptitiously, because he was in fear, despite his acute joy. He had pushed the parcel under the bed. After tea, he had passed half an hour in gazing at the volumes, as at precious contraband. Then he had ranged them on the shelf, and had gazed at them for perhaps another quarter of an hour. And now his father, with the infallible nose of fathers for that which is no concern of theirs, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... from Major Boyle, in command at Gordonsville, gives information that the smugglers and extortioners are trading tobacco (contraband) with the enemy at Alexandria. He arrested B. Nussbaum, E. Wheeler, and S. Backrack, and sent them with their wagons and goods to Gen. Winder, Richmond. But instead of being dealt with according to law, he learns that ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... to dress as a private soldier, mixing with his men, and going to taverns or palaces looking for contraband of war. When he was Chief Commander of the armies of England, he insisted on acting as colonel and leading the Ironsides into battle at the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... the United States was invited to give its adherence. The four rules embodied in the declaration, which have since formed the basis of maritime law, are as follows: First, privateering is, and remains, abolished. Second, the neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. Third, neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag. Fourth, blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective. The United States Government was in thorough accord with the ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... of innovators; it was there that, sheltered by a complete toleration of religious dogmata, by an almost republican liberty, and by an authorised system of contraband, all that could not be uttered in Paris, in Italy, in Spain, in Germany, was printed. Since Descartes, independent philosophy had selected Holland for its asylum: Boyle had there rendered scepticism popular: it was the land ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... with them might be interrupted and our disposition for peace drawn into question by the suspicions too often entertained by belligerent nations. It seemed, therefore, to be my duty to admonish our citizens of the consequences of a contraband trade and of hostile acts to any of the parties, and to obtain by a declaration of the existing legal state of things an easier admission of our right to the immunities belonging to our situation. Under these impressions the proclamation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... and their corn sack was taken away from them under Depretis or Crispi, as under the Borgia or the Malatesta; and their grape skins soaked in water were taxed as wine, their salt for their soup-pot was seized as contraband, unless it bore the government stamp, and, if they dared say a word of resistance, there were the manacles and the prison under Vittorio and Umberto as under Bourbon or Bonaparte; for there are some things which are immutable as fate. At long intervals, during the passing ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... grant him the authority to use "writs of assistance" in searching for smuggled goods. A writ of assistance was a general search-warrant, empowering the officer armed with it to enter, by force if necessary, any dwelling-house or warehouse where contraband goods were supposed to be stored or hidden. A special search-warrant was one in which the name of the suspected person, and the house which it was proposed to search, were accurately specified, and the goods which it was intended to seize were as far as possible ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... my fellows have finished their bread and wine they will be more full of fight than ever. We smugglers have plenty of the fox in our nature, and we should not treasure up our rich contraband stores in a cave that has not ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... England. This vessel conveyed him to a desolate spot in Romney Marsh. About half a mile from the landing place a smuggler named Hunt lived on a dreary and unwholesome fen where he had no neighbours but a few rude shepherds. His dwelling was singularly well situated for a contraband traffic in French wares. Cargoes of Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load thirty packhorses had repeatedly been landed in that dismal solitude without attracting notice. But, since the Revolution, Hunt had discovered that of all cargoes a cargo of traitors paid best. His lonely abode ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... read you what I say about neutrality, and how England is certain to violate our strategical right by an attack on Belgium and about the sharp measures that ought to be taken against neutral ships laden with contraband,—the passages are in Chapters VII and VIII, but for the moment I fail to lay the thumb ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... Contraband Mobilize Mitrailleuse Moratorium Armistice Armageddon Belligerent Entente Dreibund Enfilade Neutrality ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... of knowledge of the world; he could believe in the existence of that fabulous creature the lorette, the possibility of "marriages at the Thirteenth Arrondissement," the vagaries of the leading lady, and the contraband traffic carried on by box-openers. In his eyes the more harmless forms of vice were the lowest depths of Babylonish iniquity; he did not believe the stories, he smiled at them for grotesque inventions. The ingenious reader can see that Pons and Schmucke were exploited, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... traced to the fact that the mechanic has never been permitted to place himself among them? And may not the cause of this be found in the fact that Portugal and Gibraltar have for a century past been the seats of a vast contraband trade, having for its express object to deprive the Spanish people of all power to do any thing but cultivate the soil? Who, then, are responsible for the subjection of the Spanish people? Those, assuredly, whose policy looks to depriving the women and children ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... which we contrived to smuggle into Naples; and it now forms part of a small but excellent collection of antiques which I still possess. The excavations at that period were conducted with little regularity or direction, and the guides were able to carry on a contraband trade as mentioned. Since the annexation of the Neapolitan provinces to the kingdom of Italy, the Cavaliere Fiorelli has organized the system of excavations in the most masterly manner, and has made many interesting discoveries. ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... State was barred from state by many trade hindrances that prevented literature from circulating, and freedom of the press had been refused by Napoleon. It was necessary for conspirators to have their own printing {189} press, and conceal their contraband goods in barrels of pitch and in packets ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... largely Kidd's, Capt. Tempest Rogers settled at St. Thomas, where, says Richard Oglethorp (Cal. St. P. Col., 1706-1708, p. 24), "any piratt for a smale matter of money may bee naterlized Deane"; there he became "a sworn Deane", removed to St. Eustatius (Dutch), engaged in the contraband trade which these neutral islands maintained during the war between Great Britain and France, and finally died among ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... had strings on Belchik. He was afraid of the Devagas but somewhat more terrified of her. His fear of the Devagas was due to the fact that he and an associate had provided the hierarchy with a very large quantity of contraband materials. The nature of the materials indicated the Devagas were constructing a major fortified outpost on a world either airless or with poisonous atmosphere. Pluly's associate had since been murdered. Pluly believed he was next ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... an end to this, and to the acceptance of his I O U's. Following the instincts of his Irish ancestors, he then leagued with a professional smuggler, and began to deal in contraband liquors and cigars. But before this occurred, he had sent his sister to a little secluded town, where she should be well out of earshot of his doings or possible troubles. He would have shielded her from harm at the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... excuse the notice which he was provoked to take of that agitator, in my humble opinion he would better have consulted the dignity of his station and of his country in treating him with contemptuous silence. He would exclude us from European society, he who himself, can only obtain a contraband admission, and is received with scornful repugnance into it! If he be no more desirous of our society than we are of his, he may rest assured that a state of perpetual non- intercourse will exist between us. Yes, sir, I think the American Minister would best have pursued the dictates ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... after blockade runners and contraband dealers and goods, incidentally introducing Terrence R. Quinn, George G. Nellis and E. W. Andrews, Jr.—A description of a storm on the ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... of the United States confiscated as "contraband of war" the slave population of the South, but it left to the portion of the unrepentant rebel a far more valuable species of property. The slave, the perishable wealth, was confiscated to the government and then manumitted; ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... of Napoleon, issued November 1, 1806, declared a blockade of the entire British coast. * * * Great Britain retaliated by the celebrated "Orders-in-Council," which declared all traffic with France contraband, and the vessels prosecuting it, with their cargoes, were seized. These restrictions pressed heavily on the neutrals, especially the United States, which now engrossed much of the carrying trade of the world.—Withrow's History ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... barrieres, in order to serve the purposes of party, and favour the arrest of particular persons. To the number of sixty, they are placed at the principal outlets of the suburbs, and occupied by custom-house officers, whose business is to collect duties, and watch that no contraband goods find their way into the city. Formerly, when every carriage entering Paris was stopped and examined (which is not the case at present), the self-importance of these commis des barrieres could be equalled ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... razors. Some of the Neapolitan officers embarked in really large commercial operations, going shares with the custom house people who were there to enforce the law, and making their soldiers load and unload the contraband vessels. The Comte de ——-, a French officer on Murat's staff, was very noble, but very poor, and excessively extravagant. After making several vain efforts to set him up in the world, the King told him one day he would give him the command of the troops round ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of the hostile cruisers. Our ports are insulted or held up to ransom, when news reaches us from India it is to the effect that the enemy is before our troops, a native insurrection behind. Malta has fallen, and our outlying positions are passing from our hands. Food is contraband, and may not be imported. Amid the jeers of Europe 'the nation of shopkeepers' is writhing ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in many cases so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emancipated contraband. When the Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they were their "property" by law, the General replied by "confiscating" the property by what Germans call Faustrecht (or fist-right) as "contraband ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... progress, that the salt of Araya was carried, at great expense, to the West India Islands, Carthagena, and Portobello. In 1605, the court of Madrid sent armed ships to Punta Araya, with orders to expel the Dutch by force of arms. The Dutch, however, continued to carry on a contraband trade in salt till, in 1622, there was built near the salt-works a fort, which afterwards became celebrated under the name of the Castillo de Santiago, or the Real Fuerza de Araya. The great salt-marshes are laid down on the oldest Spanish ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... of war has not been recognized by this country, the Spanish government has not the right to stop or search our vessels on the high seas for contraband of war or for any other purpose, nor would it have the right to subject American citizens or an American vessel in Cuban waters to treatment which would not be legal in the case of Spanish citizens ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... enemy might attempt in spite of the Declaration of London to treat as contraband food destined for the civil population and this course ought to be anticipated, but in the military weakness of Great Britain an enemy whose navy had gained the upper hand would almost certainly prefer to undertake the speedier process of bringing the war to an end by landing an ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... growing cannabis production; ethnic Albanian narcotrafficking organizations active and expanding in Europe; vulnerable to money laundering associated with regional trafficking in narcotics, arms, contraband, and illegal aliens ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the vessel touched the quay, profiting by the commotion, they emerged, and signed certificates with chalk on my portmanteau; then vanished in the crowd. The Custom-house read the certificates, and seized my luggage as contraband. I was too old a traveler to leave my luggage; so then they seized me, and sent us both down here. (With sudden and short-lived fury) that old hell-hound at the Lodge asked them where I was booked for. "For the whole journey," said a sepulchral voice unseen. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... hour the details of their filibuster were arranged. A point in the Caribbean, near the Isle of Pines, was selected for a rendezvous. There the Cuban schooner would take aboard the contraband cargo and Franklin go on his ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... I must own, that I do not love to encourage these contraband traders. What is it, but bidding defiance to the laws of our country, when we do, and hurting fair traders; and at the same time robbing our prince of his legal due, to the diminution of those duties ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... chorus of voices. 'Yes, it is Gauger Westhouse,' said the man calmly, giving his neck a wriggle as though he were in pain. 'I represent the King's law, and in its name I arrest ye all, and declare all the contraband goods which I see around me to be confiscate and forfeited, according to the second section of the first clause of the statute upon illegal dealing. If there are any honest men in this company, they will assist me in the execution of my duty.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... its broad verandas, and elegant mirrors and paintings on the walls, all became, including the darkeys, "contraband of war." ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer

... a stout resistance, but the officers easily seized him and, after a hasty but thorough search, unearthed his cache of the contraband drug. ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... Vard Waymouth, lawyer that he is, didn't know just about how much that act would amount to after it got to operating? About all it did was to proclaim the rum business contraband. No teeth, no claws, not much machinery for enforcement—and public sentiment cussing it, after it began to hit men individually. Reform in politics is popular just so long as it ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... it would be pleasant to smuggle in such a vessel, though your contraband is a merry trade, after all. She has a pretty battery, as well as one can see from ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... civilization against them. For it was heard by a logger in his hut near the marsh, who, looking out, had seen Jim pass. A careless, good-natured frontiersman, he might have kept the outcasts' mere presence to himself; but there was that damning shot! An Indian with a gun! That weapon, contraband of law, with dire fines and penalties to whoso sold or gave it to him! A thing to be looked into—some one to be punished! An Indian with a weapon that made him the equal of the white! Who was safe? He hurried to town to ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... servants. His heart bounded freely when he felt the vessel under way; he waited some hours before daring to show himself, knowing well that, once on the high seas, the captain of the Unicorn would not return to port to bring back a contraband passenger. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... Neither can it be, as I sometimes used to think, that smugglers or coiners carried on their illegal practices in some distant and unknown corner of these prodigious caverns, and were consequently anxious to drive us out of them. But no one coins false money or obtains contraband goods only to ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... comes a man, or monster, scrambling from among the rock-hollows; and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean Bear, hails me in Russian speech: most probably, therefore, a Russian Smuggler. With courteous brevity, I signify my indifference to contraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. In vain: the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature, and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it with murder, continues to advance; ever assailing me with his importunate train-oil breath; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... lamps threw a bright circle of light before them and the road slipped away beneath the wheels like a running tide. Celia fell asleep. Even when the car stopped at the Pont de La Caille she did not waken. The door was opened, a search for contraband was made, the book was signed, still she did not wake. The car ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... the farmhouse, too ample for the needs of a small farmer. Tregarthen had a shrewd notion that most of the guineas which his mother had hoarded in a stocking had come at one time or another from the contraband trade; also he had a notion that his father's renewed activities in digging and hedging must have coincided pretty accurately with the building of the coastguard station upon St. Lide's and the arrival of a Divisional Officer. But if smuggling flourished once, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... been lately concluded between the two nations. The captains of their armed vessels, known by the name of guarda-costas, had made a practice of boarding and plundering British ships, on pretence of searching for contraband commodities, on which occasions they had behaved with the utmost insolence, cruelty, and rapine. Some of their ships of war had actually attacked a fleet of English merchant ships at the island of Tortugas, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... sober black and full-bottomed periwig also added to his dignity, and gave him an appearance of greater age. He was then verging on sixty. The time and the place gave him abundant exercise for the qualities we have mentioned, for many of his parishioners obtained their livelihood by the contraband trade, and were mostly men of unscrupulous and daring character, little likely to bear with patience, reflections on the dishonesty of their calling. Nevertheless the vicar was fearless in reprehending it, and his frank exhortations were, at least, listened to on account of the simple ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... exploits of Sebastian Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, and of his own sea-dog ancestors, those rough-riders of the sea who had defied the banks of Sable Island and returned to St. Peter's Port with their rich cargoes of contraband, looking innocent as kittens, while the ship was bursting with fur, fin and feather. So, pipe in mouth, with the frigate close-hauled, watching her bows splintering the sea into a million jewels, he left care behind, and thenceforward his busy brain was forming plans that would soften his ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... the ship, sir. They dug Portuguese brandy in kegs out of the seamen's beds and parcels of silk out of the very beams. They shook two case-bottles out of the chaplain's breeches, which must have galled him sorely in his devotions. They netted close on two hundred pounds' worth of contraband in the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... the job is done; the rest lies in finding the receiving point of these furs so that they may be seized, or the receivers be made to pay duty that they have evaded. Of course whoever is buying these furs knows they are shipped across the border as contraband. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if these men could lead me direct to something that would show where immense quantities of fur have gone in the ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... was so clever over it, sir, why in blazes—if I may speak so to a gentleman and a magistrate," pursued the man with a rueful explosion of disgust, "didn't you give me the hint? Why, guineas is contraband of war—it's treason, sir—and guineas is a cargo that's fought for, sir! I shouldn't have moved with two men in a boat patrol, d'ye think? I should have had the riding officers, and the water-guard, and a revenue cruiser in the offing, and all tight ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out of which to make a soldier. He did not know ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... 546; mock, sham, make-believe, counterfeit, snide*, pseudo, spurious, supposititious, so-called, pretended, feigned, trumped up, bogus, scamped, fraudulent, tricky, factitious;bastard; surreptitious, illegitimate, contraband, adulterated, sophisticated; unsound, rotten at the core; colorable; disguised; meretricious, tinsel, pinchbeck, plated; catchpenny; Brummagem. artificial, synthetic, ersatz[&German]; simulated &c 544. Adv. under false colors, under the garb of, under cover ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... bring back the horse I rode next day; Ingram, whose occupation lay as much on land as sea, was quite at home on his rough sheltie, which carried also a couple of little panniers at either side of the pommel, well-primed with samples of his contraband commodities. We arrived a little after nightfall in Larne, where we left Davie with the horses, while Ingram, having disposed of his pony, joined me on foot, and we set off by the now bright light of the moon along the hills ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... and drew her hands across her eyes when she saw that he had lifted his head and was turning towards her a face that had become the mirror of his mother's expression. He, too, was wrapped in some exquisite and contraband contentment. She raised her brows in enquiry, and mockingly he whispered back words which he knew she ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... was made accordingly, but nothing suggesting contraband traffic being discovered, the revenue men went away perfectly satisfied, the lieutenant wishing us a goodnight, and requesting us to keep the affair a secret when ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... shortened the supply. They considered that having established themselves in a new country they had a right to a voice in the conditions of their occupancy. It was thus that the Spaniards in the Canaries represented the matter to John Hawkins. They told him that if he liked to make the venture with a contraband cargo from Guinea, their countrymen would give him an enthusiastic welcome. It is evident from the story that neither he nor they expected that serious offence would be taken at Madrid. Hawkins at this time ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... in the service of the Cuban gentleman, instead of in yours. That makes a very important difference, Jack, for, you see, I shall have to look to him, instead of to you, for my pay; and smuggling contraband of war is a very different matter from navigating a gentleman's private yacht, and is work for which I shall ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... deep ledge of the window. Thus did he work for six months, whenever the moon shone bright enough to read the lines and signs and marks. But alas! one day the elder brother was rummaging around the boy's room in search of things contraband and he pounced upon the portfolio of copied music. He summoned the offender into his presence. The facts were admitted, and Johann Sebastian had his bare legs well tingled with an apple-sprout. Then the portfolio was confiscated and carried away, despite ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... already torn up that board; perhaps even now some new generation of Fernhurstians is using it as a receptacle for tobacco, or cheese, or any other commodity contraband to the dormitories. But perhaps underneath a board in No. 1 double dormitory there still repose that identical lemonade bottle and the roll-book with its blue cover, now sadly faded and its leaves turned up with age, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... farmer was mortally afraid of the sergeant, knowing he had thirty ankers and more of contraband liquor in his cellars, and minding the sergeant's threat. None the less his ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... friend failed to provide, Odo had little difficulty in obtaining for himself; for though most of the new writers were on the Index, and the Sardinian censorship was notoriously severe, there was never yet a barrier that could keep out books, and Cantapresto was a skilled purveyor of contraband dainties. Odo had thus acquainted himself with the lighter literature of England and France; and though he had read but few philosophical treatises, was yet dimly aware of the new standpoint from ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... unanimous agreement that a proclamation should be issued "forbidding our citizens taking any part in any hostilities on the seas with or against any of the belligerent powers; and warning them against carrying to any such powers any of those articles deemed contraband, according to the modern usage of nations; and enjoining them from all acts and proceedings inconsistent with the duties of a friendly nation toward those at war." Jefferson's scruples having been appeased by avoiding the use of the term "neutrality," it was now unanimously decided ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... Marti. "I am glad to have the pardon. But as for the reward, I should like to make you a proposition in place of the money you offer. What I ask is that you grant me the sole right to fish in the waters near the city, and declare the trade in fish contraband to any one except my agents. This will repay me quite well enough for my service to the government, and I shall build at my own expense a public market of stone, which shall be an ornament to the city. At the expiration of a certain term of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... nothing Of many false helps, and contraband wares of beauty, which are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a maiden gentlewoman, of a good family, in any county of South Britain, who has not heard of the virtues of may-dew, or is unfurnished with some receipt or other ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... mules, Massa. I 'tends ter dem mules myself; we keeps 'em right round de corner." Taken together, the statements of the two officials had a bad look; but Mr. Davis had just given me a message to his niece, and Mr. Benjamin had just intrusted Colonel Jaquess with a letter—contraband, because three pages long—for delivery within the limits of the "United States"; therefore the discrepancy did not alarm me, for the latter facts seemed to assure our safe deliverance from Dixie. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... mainly the story of the pressure of the English colonies on this paper barrier. As regards Spanish America, England was content to profit by the Asiento (q.v.) treaty, which gave her the monopoly of slave- hunting for the Spanish colonies and an opening for contraband trade. In the river Plate region, where the dissensions of Spaniards and Portuguese afforded another opening, English traders smuggled. The Spaniards, with monstrous fatuity, refused to make use of the superb waterways ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... swearing at Durks for that, back he comes with a young officer and four armed sailors. The officer looks at me and says: 'You have contraband ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... stage of his dream he was suddenly awakened. To his no small amazement, he found himself stretched on the floor of his room, his head jammed against the door, through which one of the wardroom boys, a very small specimen of a contraband, was endeavoring to escape, while the look of terror depicted on his face, and the energy with which he strove to open the door, showed that he had sustained something of a fright. On the opposite side of the room ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon

... extensive connivance. From this beginning smuggling of all kinds gradually grew up in the community, and gained such a foothold that even after the repeal of the embargo it still continued to be extensively practiced. Secret depositories of contraband goods still existed in many of the lonely haunts of islands off the coast of Maine. Hid in deep forest shadows, visited only in the darkness of the night, were these illegal stores of merchandise. And from these secluded resorts they found their way, no one ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Among them the following were of vital significance. In the first place, it was recognized that an enemy merchant ship caught on the high seas was a legitimate prize of war which might be seized and confiscated. In the second place, it was agreed that "contraband of war" found on an enemy or neutral ship was a lawful prize; any ship suspected of carrying it was liable to search and if caught with forbidden goods was subject to seizure. In the third place, international law prescribed ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... order that no prisoner should be permitted to have any kind of pets, especially rats and mice, and as the prison swarmed with these, the warders had become tired of being obliged to turn over the cells and prisoners daily in search of these contraband favorites, the loss of which generally provoked the owners to insubordination; in consequence of which there was a tacit understanding that they were not to be interfered with, provided they were kept out of sight when the governor made ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... been occupied by the Confederates, some negroes were captured who had been employed in building fortifications. Butler declared them "contraband of war," and this gave rise ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... are whole regions of our lives which seem to us to be so small that it is hardly worth while summoning the august thought of 'right or wrong?' to decide them. Yes, and a thousand smugglers that go across a frontier, each with a little package of contraband goods that does not pay any duty, make a large aggregate at the year's end. It is the trifles of life that shape life, and it is to them that we so frequently fail in applying, honestly and rigidly, the test, 'Is this ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... she could not choose but run — For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun. (And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip.) She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins, And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins. They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear, When they were aware of a ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... Spaniards, and supplied them with goods of English manufacture. To prevent this illicit trade, the Spaniards doubled the number of ships stationed in Mexico for guarding the coast, giving them orders to board and search every English vessel found in those seas, to seize on all that carried contraband commodities, and confine the sailors. At length not only smugglers, but fair traders were searched and detained, so that all commerce in those seas was entirely obstructed. The British merchants again and again complained to the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... policy of putting to work the men who came within his lines and justifying their retention on the ground that, being of service to the enemy for purposes of war, they were like guns, powder, etc., "contraband of war," and could not be reclaimed. On August 30th of this same year Major-General John C. Fremont, in command in Missouri, placed the state under martial law and declared the slaves there emancipated. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... the name Balkan Committee even was misleading. In the Near East a committee is a revolutionary committee, and consists of armed komitadjis. Times innumerable have I assured Balkan people of all races that the Balkan Committee did not run contraband rifles, but they ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... while Catherine, Empress of Russia, was actively organizing the Armed Neutrality, by which all the other states of Europe leagued together to resist England's practice of stopping vessels on the high seas and searching them for contraband goods. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... brought about difficulties, and gave rise to sufferings by which all the governments were injured. In annexing Holland to France, Napoleon had authorized, under a duty of 50 per cent., the sale of goods of English production which the contraband had kept stored up in their warehouses. He conceived the idea of applying the same duty to all sales of colonial products which until then had only been able to enter France by virtue of a special license. All the merchandise of this kind found in ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... they were troubled by the defeats northern armies had suffered and by the appalling lack of unity and patriotism in the North. They were beginning to see that the problem of slavery had to be faced and were discussing among themselves whether Negroes were contraband, whether army officers should return fugitive slaves to their masters, whether slaves of the rebels should be freed, whether Negroes should be enlisted ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... induce change of trade routes. Thus, I heard of a merchant in Central Persia, whose communications are with the South, asking a contractor in the North for a quotation of his terms, so as to make it advantageous for him to send his goods that way. In the matter of contraband articles, the farming system lends itself to encourage the passing of what the State forbids, as the middlemen and their servants are tempted to make as much money as possible during the short time of their annual contract ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... and the Indians, so far as I have seen them, renders it a matter of no little difficulty to supervise this business, and it has required perpetual activity in examining the boats and outfits of the traders who have received their licenses at Mackinack, to search their packages, to detect contraband goods, i.e. ardent spirits, and grant licenses, passports, and permits to those who have applied to me. To me it seems that the whole old resident population of the frontiers, together with the new accessions to it, in the shape of petty dealers of all sorts, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... exhibiting, in a sly way, the apples and gingerbread we had brought for a Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears of some discreet meeting-going dog, who now and then would soberly pitapat through the broad aisle. But woe be to us during our contraband sports, if we saw Deacon Abrams's sleek head dodging up from behind the top of the deacon's seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread, and handkerchiefs vanished, and we all sat with our hands folded, looking as demure as if we ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... a policy of war, to exchange those prisoners, blockaded their ports, made medicine contraband, and brought the Southern Army itself to starvation. The prison records, when made at last for history, will show as many deaths on our ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... only saved because the Administration had already held that the gun's presence on a vessel did not deprive her of the right to proper warning before being sunk. Germany admitted liability for sinking the Columbian and agreed to pay for the value of the vessel and the contraband cargo ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... of my Diana. I went to her last night, tempted her with your charming words, and still more charming sequins. The last prevailed. She bade me call early in the morning. Lomellino had been there as you predicted, and paid the toll to his contraband heaven with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the hotels. Cuff was precisely the subject for Rice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him to accompany the actor to the theatre, where he was led through the private entrance, and quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the play, Rice, having shaded his own countenance to the "contraband" hue, ordered Cuff to disrobe, and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off apparel. When the arrangements were complete, the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an old coat forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes composed equally of patches and places for patches ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... sailors had appropriated a number of beaver skins, and he therefore confiscated them and had them placed in the store, pending the decision of the company. This infraction of the rules of commerce was trifling when compared with the contraband which was carried on freely in the lower St. Lawrence. The merchants of La Rochelle and the Basques were the most notorious in this respect. Their vessels were constantly sailing from one shore to another, trading furs, although they had no ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... case that any shall be convicted of the above as chief factors, associates, or participants, or of aiding or giving advice, they shall, besides the confiscation of their goods and boat, incur on their persons the civil and criminal penalties imposed on those who handle contraband goods, and of perpetual banishment, and deprivation of the post that they shall have obtained from us in the Indias. In regard to the above we charge the conscience and care of our servants. [Felipe III—Valladolid, December 31, 1604 (?); San Lorenzo, April ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... return for all these gifts, these glorious gifts, what have the inhabitants done? they have left the land uncultivated, and the mountains unsearched. Mines of all sorts abound. Copper, (which is sold in secret only, and is a contraband article,) were its mines worked on a grand scale, would alone furnish a new element of commerce to Constantinople, and might help to draw it from its present state of torpor. But will the Turks ever dream of such a thing? Never! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various



Words linked to "Contraband" :   ware, illegal, product, contrabandist



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