"Gallows" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Neither Chapter nor Countess or Protector can serve them. Here is Easter come round; the year is ending; we must turn our company out of doors, and that at once. Do you think you can teach an old constable how to know a gallows-bird? Our two lodgers were on terms with la Porette, that heretic jade from Denmark or Norway, whose last cries you heard from here. She was a brave witch; she never blenched at the stake, which was proof enough of her compact with the Devil. I saw her as plain as I see ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... accepted the present she had brought him, but refused even to let her see her son, and caused the sentinels to put her out of the camp by force. Next day young McKay and four other prisoners were taken out of the rail pen in which they had been confined. By Brown's order they were hanged upon a gallows until they were nearly strangled. They were then cut down and turned over to the tender mercies of the Indians, by whom they were mutilated, scalped, and finally murdered in the most ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... dejar ahorcar por...: i.e., he would not stick at putting up a million pesetas if they were needed to save him from the gallows. ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... pretend to architectural beauty; its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame; its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the almshouse at the other—such being the features of my native town it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... said a third, the Capitana Tinay, "but I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell my son not to study any more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary, and my son wants to go ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the affair in Sweden, especially viewed in connection with the foregoing extract, indicates that the change, I have conjectured, had come over him, as to the way to deal with Witches; and that he had reached the conclusion that prayer would not, and nothing but the gallows could, answer the emergency. In the Swedish case, was found the precedent for a "Special ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... stripped travellers on the road. Under Elizabeth as under her predecessors the terrible measures of repression, whose uselessness More had in vain pointed out, went pitilessly on. We find the magistrates of Somersetshire capturing a gang of a hundred at a stroke, hanging fifty at once on the gallows, and complaining bitterly to the Council of the necessity for waiting till the Assizes before they could enjoy the spectacle of the fifty others hanging beside them. But the Government were dealing with ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... was present at the execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. Her 'poysonous Rage', as a reporter of the time puts it, 'did so work upon the Bystanders—yea, even upon the Hangman—that ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... beginning of January, 1810, when in his cell in the castle he quietly heard his sentence—that he should be shot before the door of his father's inn at Mitter Olang, and that his body should then be hung on a gallows as a solemn warning to refractory peasants. His young wife, maddened with grief, penetrated to the presence of the French general, clasped his knees and plead in vain for mercy. He remained perfectly impassive to her entreaties, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... intent; and so the jury brought in its verdict, and he was sentenced to be executed, which sentence was duly performed and that closed another act of the sad drama. Intemperance and Sensuality had clasped hands together, and beneath their cruel fostering the gallows had borne its dreadful fruit of death. The light of one home had been quenched in gloom and guilt. A husband had broken over the barriers that God placed around the path of marital love, and his sun had gone down at mid-day. The sun which should have gilded the horizon of life and ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... a visit home, he brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing something pinned to her knee; while a full-lipped, full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up by a single gallows, stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to call her attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by the tender and delicate modelling of the thin, tired face, had asked him if it were his mother. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... be not terrified with this spectacle, prove faithful servants to your master." Scoone took him to his house till the keys of the tolbooth were had. By the way one demanded, "Whither with the man, my lord?"——"First to the tolbooth, and then to the gallows," said Scoone. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... good and noble instincts, and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to his dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other reformer that ever, labored among them. At this point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that the old voyager ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... die Beneath a Southern sky! Upon a felon's gallows swung, Murdered by tyrant hand,— While round a helpless band, On Butler's name ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... philosophy, which it is hard to affect and harder to attain. On the east side sat Daniel D. Barnard, upon whom 'Anti-Rent' has piled Ossa, while Pelion only has been rolled upon Wright. In the middle of the church was Croswell, who seemed to say to Wright, 'You are welcome to the gallows you erected for me.' On the opposite side sat John Young, the saved among the lost politicians. He seemed ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... from those present, that Wyatt was taken from his cell, faint from the loss of blood he had shed a few days before, in his attempt to commit suicide. When seated in his chair, under the gallows, he made remarks like the following: "I have lived like a man, I will die like a man. I am not afraid to die. I am about to enter eternity, and appear before my God. My conduct has been misrepresented—men have sworn falsely against me—I cannot and will not forgive them—I am not the man I have ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... but was certain that the Government would never venture to set him free while the war should last. Upon the oath of allegiance being proposed to him, instead of simply declining, he defied the Judge to do his worst, expressing his readiness to confront either gallows or platoon. The risk of either was about equal to that of his being tortured at the stake, on the steps of the Capitol. In spite of all this simple vanity, and flightiness of brain, you could see that the parson had good strong principles, and held to them fast; and I believe ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... prefer punishment to prevention. Let every man do as seemeth good in his own eyes, provided only that he escape conviction for evildoing. In that case the "majesty of the law" will be vindicated by the house of correction or the gallows. Why then take any thought to check the downward step? That is the province of parents, masters, and pastors. The wisdom of the Legislature cannot stoop to such elemental questions. It is unworthy of the wise and illustrious senators of this great empire ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... refrained from telling was that years before, when he was still a mere child, without will or discernment, his father had taken him from his mother, and had started him down that terrible descent, which inevitably leads one to prison or the gallows, unless there be an almost miraculous interposition on one's behalf. This miracle had occurred in Chupin's case; but he did not ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... certain land of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile. There was no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his hands, no sign of captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank from the same basin, broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead, the gallows waiting for him, seemed very far away. They were only two silent travellers, sharing the same hardship, helping to give material comfort to each other—in the inevitable democracy of those far places, where small things are not great nor great ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... what we are. His Holiness Pope Clement, when his audience-room rang with furious outcries for justice on Benvenuto Cellini, who, as far as half-a-dozen murders could form a title, was as fair a candidate for the gallows as ever swung from that unlucky wood, replied, "All this is very well, gentlemen: these murders are bad things, we know that. But where am I to get another Benvenuto, if you hang this one ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... is awful! Must we actually give up trying to punish the dog? Why, he has us at his mercy, it seems. The money I can raise, I believe, and it's not the thought of losing it that cuts me. It's letting that gallows-hound go unscathed. And if anything should slip in the plans—good God, it's too terrible ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... is a merry face you wear, my Guido! Now that the young King Mario visits the court And walks all morning in the woods with the Princess, Or gives her fencing lessons,—upon my word, You are as gay as a gallows! ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... was considerable strife between Cooperstown and Cherry Valley in regard to the location of public buildings. It is said that Judge Cooper playfully remarked that the court house should be placed in Cooperstown, the jail in Newtown Martin (Middlefield), and the gallows ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... asking questions of a civil guard. A man-of-war's boat, the ensign trailing in the glassy water, the glazed hats of the seamen bobbing like clockwork, was flying towards us. Here was England! Here was home! I should have to clear myself of felony, to strain every nerve and cheat the gallows. If only Williams understood, if only he did not make a fool of himself. I couldn't see him any more; a jabbering crowd all round us was being kept at a distance by the muskets of the soldiers. My only chance was Sebright's ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... goaded on by the Holy Synod. Goremykin resigned as Premier and his place was taken by the unspeakably cruel and bloodthirsty Stolypin, whose "hemp neckties," as the grim jest of the masses went, circled the necks of scores of revolutionists swinging from as many gallows. There were many resorts to terrorism on the part of the revolutionists during the summer of 1906, many officials paying for the infamies of the government with their lives. How many of these "executions" were genuine revolutionary protests, and how many simple murders instigated or committed by ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... tale. hogar m. hearth, home. hoguera bonfire. hoja leaf. hola holla! hollar to trample, tread on. hombre man. hombro shoulder. hondo profound, deep. honesto honest. honrado honest, honorable. honrar to honor. honroso honorable. hora hour, o'clock. horca gallows. horizonte m. horizon. hormiga ant. hormigon m. fine plaster. hornilla stew hole (over hearth). horrorizar to horrify. horroroso horrid. hortelano gardener, horticulturist. hospedaje m. lodging, hospitality. hoy to-day. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... Agagite, the Jews' enemy,—thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone."—"If it please the king, let it be written that they (the whole people) may be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver,—to bring it into the king's treasuries."—"Behold also the gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon." (Esth. iii. 1, 9; vii. 9.) Such were the crimes and such the punishments of ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... been there before; Then leave me, Wherefore I will single Live, And my Invention to decoying give, For as I was by fickle Man betray'd, So Men by me too shall be Bubbles made, Till the dull Sots clandestine Means do take, In robbing Masters,for a Strumpets sake, For which if they shou'd at the Gallows Swing, Their End I'd ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... grandeur and splendor every day, and the time will come when every man and every woman shall have the same rights as every other man and every other woman has. I believe, we are growing better. I don't believe the wail of want shall be heard forever; that the prison and gallows will always curse the ground. The time will come when liberty and law and love, like the rings of Saturn, will surround the world; when the world will cease making these mistakes; when every man will be judged according to his worth and intelligence. I want to do all ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... mass of fire burn him, let the moon light him to the gallows, let the stars in their courses fight against the atheist, let the force of the comets dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea lift up her mighty ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... "Your daughter, gallows bird! Your daughter is in Trymalcion's hands, and it is upon her he will wreak his revenge on you. He rejoices over the circumstance in advance. He sometimes is taken with savage caprices, and is rich ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... loose; 'and,' said the poor wretch, 'if you will light the heap of twigs at your feet and warm me by it, your charity shall not be wasted.' For Christian charity then the youth, having his sword ready, cut him down, and the gallows knave fell on his feet and warmed himself at the lit fire. 'And now,' said he, being warmed, 'you must take me up behind your saddle; for there is a plot laid to-night from which I only can deliver you.' So they mounted and rode together to the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, but whether he thought I was going to kill him,—I dare say I looked it,—or whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, I know not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I WAS angry,—not because I was to have been cheated, for I been repeatedly and atrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal dared attempt on me such ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... explained in part by poverty and suffering is clear. Philip Ludwell said that the rebel army was composed of men "whose condition ... was such that a change could not make worse." The men who fought so valiantly against the Indians and Berkeley's forces, braved the King's anger, faced death on the gallows were called in contempt "the bases of the people," "the rabble," the "scum of the people," "idle and poor people," "rag, tag, and bobtail." The Council reported that there were "hardly two amongst them" who owned estates, or were persons of reputation. Berkeley complained that his was a miserable ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... a stout boy, whose dirty and ragged clothing, and vicious expression of face, proclaimed him one of those predestined candidates for the State Prison and gallows, bred to their fate by the criminal neglect of the State, "I say," he said, addressing his companion, as wicked looking as himself, "isn't it a ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... inconvenient to the public. And he concluded by desiring that I would take two or three days to consider whether I could not stay in till the end of another quarter, for that, like a man going, to the gallows, he was willing to put it off as long as he could; but if I persisted, he must then look about him and make up his mind to do the best he could: and so ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... colonization of the West Indies, "when a city was to be founded, the first form prescribed was, with all solemnity, to erect a gallows, as the first thing needful; and in laying out the ground, a site was marked for the prison as well ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... the neighboring counties, of such offenders worthy to be speedily executed by martial law, to attach and take the same persons, and in the presence of the said justices, according to justice of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet openly, or near to such place where the said rebellious and incorrigible offenders shall be found to have committed the said great offences."[*] I suppose it would be difficult to produce an instance of such an act of authority in any place nearer than Muscovy. The patent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... conveyance of his body. He was guarded by a posse of constables, and a party of horse grenadiers, and a detachment of infantry; and in this manner the procession moved from the Tower, through an infinite concourse of people, to Tyburn, where the gallows, and the scaffold erected under it, appeared covered with black baize. The earl behaved with great composure to Mr. sheriff Vaillant, who attended him in the landau: he observed that the gaiety of his apparel might seem odd on such an occasion, but that he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... never commit that error again. I know better now. If I were a condemned criminal about to die on a gallows at the state penitentiary, I would make the customary announcement touching on my intention of going straight to Heaven—condemned criminals never seem to have any doubt on that point—and then in conclusion I would add that after Southern ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... steps and noticing Prince Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..." continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, "the man who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum or the gallows!" ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... them there was no choice but to settle on the north shore, at Norrmalm, as it is called. You may be sure that they were not over pleased with this location, for across Norrmalm ran a high ridge, and on that the city had its gallows hill, so that it was a detested spot. Nevertheless the Poor Clares erected their church and their convent on the strand below the ridge. After they were established there they soon found plenty of followers. Upon the ridge itself were ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... But at the present moment he was one of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when he should see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, bound safely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident and change which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by his labourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the day when he caught Al'mah in his arms and carried her off the stage at Covent Garden. He was vaguely conscious of the great change in him, and Barry Whalen, who, with all his faults, would have gone to the gallows for him, was ever vividly conscious of it, and helplessly resented the change. At the time of the Jameson Raid Rudyard Byng had gripped the situation with skill, decision, and immense resource, giving as much help to the government of the day as to his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... coup de grace, quietus; execution &c (capital punishment) 972; judicial murder; martyrdom. butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur^; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner &c (punishment) 975; man-eater, apache^, hatchet man [U.S.], highbinder [U.S.]. regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, feticide, foeticide^, uxoricide^, vaticide^. suicide, felo de se^, hara-kiri, suttee, Juggernath^; immolation, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... murderer was James McCormick. The circumstances of his being out all night, and his guilty looks and actions, were pretty convincing proof against him. He was tryed by a Court-Martial and sentenced to be hanged until dead, his gallows erected, and all things prepared for his execution. Our Chaplain conversed with him respecting his crime, the awful punishment he was soon to suffer, and the more awful and never ending punishment that would await him in the eternal world if he did not ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... Governor said he would never allow a man to be hanged. It is to Mr. McDaniel's credit that this clemency was exercised in full view of the desperate efforts which have been made for more than a year to save from the gallows one Turner, a man of influential family, for whose crime there was no excuse. All recourses of appeal to the courts having been exhausted, Turner's friends are bringing every pressure to bear to have the Governor give him a "negro's chance," but that official has decided ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... horrible? But I happened to know something of Monsieur Paulvitch that would send him to the gallows in Russia if it were known by the police of St. Petersburg. I dared him to carry out his plan, and then I leaned toward him and whispered a name in his ear. Like that"—and she snapped her fingers—"he flew at my throat as a madman. He would have killed ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... business, found means to make profit from it. All the accused were convicted and fined. The more strenuous of their judges were for sending them to jail, and Rous was to have been sentenced to "sit an hour upon the gallows with a rope about his neck;" but the governor and council objected to these severities, and the Assembly forbore to impose them. The popular indignation against the accused was extreme, and probably not without cause.[89] There ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... one that confessed, and retracted a confession, had escaped either hanging or imprisonment for trial. No one of the condemned who asserted innocence, even if one of the witnesses confessed to perjury, or the foreman of the jury acknowledged the error of the verdict, escaped the gallows. Favoritism was shown in listening to accusations, which were turned aside from friends or partisans. If a man began a career as a witch-hunter, and, becoming convinced of the imposture, declined the service, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... candles. Then there was a grand procession, a magnificent hearse, and the usual ceremonies of a royal funeral. On the 30th of January, 1661, Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were dragged from their tombs to Tyburn, and there hanged and beheaded. Their bodies were buried beneath the gallows, and their heads set ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... on the high gallows, tear out thy eyes, if thou art lying, that hither from afar is come the youth ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... recalled his scattered senses. Self-preservation is strong within us all. As in a glass, darkly, the terrified butler, realizing what he had done, saw arrest and prison before him, and realized that the gallows yawned before him in ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... result. But the better feelings of the Canadian people prevailed, and by appeals for clemency, in the cause of humanity, our country was relieved from the gruesome spectacle of witnessing over a score of these unfortunate dupes dangling from the gallows in expiation of their crimes. That they deserved such a fate is undoubted. They entered our peaceful country with murder in their hearts, and carried out a portion of their programme of butchery, but their leaders escaped, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... gallows well for a Rooskie," said one of the men, brusquely, but not without sympathy. "What do you want? Water? Are you ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... scaffold, "that I have but one life to give for my country." It is a shame that America so long had no monument to this heroic man. One almost rejoices that the British captain, Cunningham, author of the cruelty to Hale, himself met death on the gallows, in London, 1791. How different from Hale's the treatment bestowed upon Andre, the British spy who fell into our hands. He was fed from Washington's table, and supported to his execution by every manifestation ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... officer, Major Andre, for upon it is a small figure of General Washington. Andre, caught within the American lines during our war with the colonies, dressed as a civilian, and with suspicious papers in his boots, was hanged as a spy and buried beneath the gallows. We see Andre here vainly petitioning Washington for a soldier's death, while in the background all is prepared for his ignominious {37} fate. The heads of both these statuettes were constantly stolen by tourists in old days, as far back in fact as the time ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... dusky room in the house of your friend, and there, with a blow of the heavenly rod, draw light from the dark wall—open a window, a fountain of the eternal light, and let in the truth which is the life of the world. Joyously would a man spend his life, right joyously even if the road led to the gallows, in showing the grandest he sees—the splendid purities of the divine religion—the mountain top up to which the voice of God is ever calling his children. Yes, I can understand even how a man might live, like the good hermits of old, in ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... tainted alike with cruelty and crime, and pulsating alternately with merciless decrees of death, and the shrieks and wailings of sentenced guilt. And not always guilt! There exist many records of proofs, incontestable, but obtained too late, of innocence having been legally strangled on the gallows in other cases than that of Eliza Fenning. How could it be otherwise with a criminal code crowded in every line with penalties of death, nothing but—death? Juster, wiser times have dawned upon us, in which truer notions prevail ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Nunneries, and the wise and reverend Body of the Popish Priests. We have also the Advantage of able bodied Volunteers, for the Armies of our dear Allies the French; Shoals of Transports, that escape from the Gallows, to the Plantations abroad, and a superfetation of Felons, to give a little Business to our Judges, Justices, and Hangmen at home, and to keep up an Appearance of our being govern'd like other Nations. How many Thousands do we see, take their flight abroad every ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... Maria Zerega who had died of the plague, and the baby, the boy. Jamaica, too, swept into his vision. There was his wife shrinking away from him in the very articles of death. There was young Ebenezer Hornigold, dancing right merrily upon the gallows together with others of the ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... said, dropping her work as the light failed. 'The old man is ruined. Money he borrowed of old Squire Bayfield has to be paid back. And it all came from that worthless son of his years agone having to leave the country to escape the gallows. Farmer Short was here to-day and was telling me all about it. A nice come down for these two girls, especially the eldest, who thinks herself a wit and a beauty. She'll have to go to service, if anybody will take such a useless piece ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... loneliness of the place. Rather than remain another hour within the limits of such a dreary old city, I would have taken passage in a tread-mill, and relied upon the force of imagination to carry me to some other place. Nay, a hangman's cart on the way to the gallows would have presented a strong temptation. In saying this I mean nothing disrespectful to Birger Jarl, who founded Stockholm, and made it his place of residence in 1260; nor to Christina Gyllenstierna, who so heroically defended it against Christian II. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... all in vain that warning strain—the king has crost the tide— But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride! The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free, And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... bullets of the Gabine (French) and of the jara canallis (revenue officers) have hissed about my ears without injuring me, for I carried the bar lachi. I have twenty times done that which by Busnee law should have brought me to the filimicha (gallows), yet my neck has never yet been squeezed by the cold garrote. Brother, I trust in the bar lachi, like the Calore of old: were I in the midst of the gulph of Bombardo (Lyons), without a plank to float upon, I should feel no fear; for if I carried the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... place the Hill of the Women, because it was here that M'lama, the King of the Akasava, slew a hundred Akasava maidens to propitiate M'shimba M'shamba, the god of storms. It was on the topmost point of the hill that Sanders erected a fine gallows and hung M'lama for his country's good. It had always been associated with the spiritual history of the Akasava, for ghosts and devils and strange ju-jus had their home hereabouts, and every great decision at which the people arrived was made upon its slopes. At the crest there was a palaver ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... I register another complaint against the sea-novelists. A score of men for'ard, desperate all, with desperate deeds behind them, and jail and the gallows facing them not many days away, should have only begun to fight. And yet this score of men did nothing while we destroyed their ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... words at all, who dwelt in the midst of a steady kind of light which knew no dawn nor sunset. The girl entertained herself sometimes with conceiving of her friend confronted with the rack, let us say, or the gallows; and perceived that she knew with exactness what her behaviour would be: She would do all that was required of her with out speeches or protest; she would place herself in the required positions, with a faint smile, unwavering; she would suffer or die ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he's brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But that was in former times. The last I sent was in ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... you want to know, I will tell you what it is. Rodd has got a hold over Marnham of a sort that would bring him somewhere near the gallows. As the price of his silence Marnham has promised him his daughter. The daughter knows that her father is in this man's power, though I think she does not know in what way, and being ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... can walk and talk, as the owld lady said when her husband stopped on the way to the gallows to bid ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... terrorism, suppressing every manifestation of the real feelings of the people. The pro-Austrian declarations are enforced by the government. To-day the leading Czech politicians are in prison, the gallows have become the favourite support of the incapable administration, and Czech regiments have been decimated for acting spontaneously up to our national Czech programme. The rights of the Czech language have been ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... to take a generous view of things before they couched the fatal spear. Again, there was neighbor Kimball's pet fox, an arrant rascal, who was known to have a strange penchant for young chickens, and had committed depredations enough to consign him to the gallows. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Gerard to confess his sins and his plots that he had plotted, which out of very shame he was constrained to do, and then Oberon prayed the emperor to command Gerard and those who had helped him to work ill to be hanged on the gallows which had been reared for Huon, and this was done also; and the emperor Charles and Huon, duke ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... beheld the tragic city—that line of quays stretching away in a furnace-like blaze, the deep moat of the river, with its leaden waters obstructed by huge black masses, lighters looking like lifeless whales, and bristling with motionless cranes which stretched forth gallows-like arms. Was that a welcome ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Salisbury did alter, but very slightly, rising and falling like the mercury in a thermometer. At the most it would be half hidden; at the least the tip would show behind the swelling barrier of earth. They passed two elder-trees—a great event. The bare patch, said Stephen, was owing to the gallows. Rickie nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In this great solitude—more solitary than any Alpine range—he and Agnes were floating alone and for ever, between the shapeless earth and the shapeless clouds. An immense silence ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... his temper was imperious, his passions and impulses were those of a primitive ruler, and his heart was the heart of a lion. He was often referred to as an old man, but he was not an old man, when he died on a gallows at Charleston, S. C., July 2, 1822. No, he was by no means an old man, whether judged by length of years or strength of body, for he was on that memorable July day, seventy-eight years ago, not more than fifty-six years ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... French prowess rested the burden of English honor, or, in Gallic phrase, of English glory. Claude Duval, a French man of undeniable courage, handsome, and noted for his chivalrous devotion to women, had been honored, on his condemnation to the gallows, by the tears of many ladies who attended his trial, and by their sympathizing visits during his imprisonment. But the robber represented by the skeleton in Mr. White's museum (whom let us call X, since his true name has ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... need to be," was the quiet reply. "You know that, sir. So do I. There don't need to be any more evidence than mine to send Mr. Morrison to the gallows." ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... city. But the besiegers found that their real work was only beginning. The streets were trenched and barricaded; every dwelling was converted into a fortress; for twenty days the French were forced to besiege house by house. In the centre of the town the popular leaders erected a gallows, and there they hanged every one who flinched from meeting the enemy. Disease was added to the horrors of warfare. In the cellars, where the women and children crowded in filth and darkness, a malignant pestilence ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... as a judge of the value of your time, and so rob you of perhaps the most delicious hour in all your day, on pretense that it is of no use to you?—take a pound of flesh clean out of your heart, and trip on my smiling way as if I had not earned the gallows? ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Surrounded as they were on all sides by a serried rank of castles, where the nobles held undisputed sway over their serfs and controlled the arteries of trade, the cities were compelled to proceed against them; but instead of sending them to the gallows, they contented themselves with forcing them to take up their residence within the town walls. But though the feudal lordship of these nobles had been destroyed, their opulence, their lands, the prestige of their names remained untouched, and in place of disturbing the roads they filled the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... town, which even then presented a thriving appearance with its home industries. But the seaport trade had been sadly interfered with by the rumors and apprehensions of war. At that time it was quaint and country-looking, with few pretensions to architectural beauty. There was old Gallows Hill at one end, with its haunting stories of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... nature more severely on the natives of the country than on the Europeans who fell into their hands. In fact, the agent of Mr. —— was several times arrested by the local authorities; and, in one instance, he was actually condemned by his exasperated countrymen to the gallows. Speedy and private orders to the jailer alone saved him from an ignominious death. He was permitted to escape; and this seeming and indeed actual peril was of great aid in supporting his assumed character among the English. By the Americans, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... and to love. It would have been enough to drive a fine nature into the madness of universal suspicion—into any sort of madness. I don't know how far a sense of humour will stand by one. To the foot of the gallows, perhaps. But from my recollection of Flora de Barral I feared that she hadn't much sense of humour. She had cried at the desertion of the absurd Fyne dog. That animal was certainly free from duplicity. He was ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the stage, gave an adequate rendering of the difficult part of Lady Carlisle. For the rest, the complexion of the piece, as Browning describes it, after one of the latest rehearsals, was "perfect gallows." Great historical personages were presented by actors who strutted or slouched, who whimpered or drawled. The financial distress at Covent Garden forbade any splendour or even dignity of scenery or of costumes.[19] The text was considerably altered—and not always judiciously—from that ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... False said to the youth: 'Better far were this maiden for thee than for thy old father'; and the maiden and the prince thought it good advice. Then Bikki went and told the king, and Hermanaric bade them take and hang Randver at once. So on his way to the gallows, the prince took his hawk and plucked off all its feathers, and sent it to his father. But when his sire saw it, he knew at once that, as the hawk was featherless and unable to fly, so was his realm defenceless under an old and sonless ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... was taken up, and all for setting some free as t' press-gang had gotten by a foul trick; and he were put i' York prison, and tried, and hung!—hung! Charley!—good kind feyther was hung on a gallows; and mother lost her sense and grew silly in grief, and we were like to be turned out on t' wide world, and poor mother dateless—and I thought yo' were dead—oh! I thought yo' were dead, I did—oh, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... It is the general opinion that the infant Surrat committed crimes equal in magnitude to those of any of the conspirators who were hung with her, but her state of infancy should have afforded her legal protection from the gallows. If this government is too weak to decide the qualifications of voters; too weak to extend freedom from the northern coast of Maine to the southern coast of Florida; too weak to prevent any State disfranchising its inhabitants; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with justifiable homicide. If an officer, a sheriff, execute a man on the gallows, draw and quarter him, as in case of high treason, and cut off his head, this is justifiable homicide. It is his duty. So also, gentlemen, the law has planted fences and barriers around every individual; it is a castle round every man's person, as well as his house. As the love of God and our ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... by the throat, makes him stand, and fleeces him. In this they differ, the thief is more valiant and more honest. His walks in term times are up Fleet Street, at the end of the term up Holborn, and so to Tyburn; the gallows are his purlieus, in which the hangman and he are quarter rangers—the one turns off, and the other cuts down. All the vacation he lies imbogued behind the lattice of some blind drunken, bawdy ale-house, and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... companionship. A distinguishing mark was a large scar on his cheek, probably inflicted by some enraged animal while being tortured by him. I always felt sure Big Bill would come to some bad end. My mother said that a cruel childhood was often a training school for the gallows, and the boy who killed defenseless birds and bugs deadened his sensibilities and destroyed his moral nature so that it was ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... more elevated politician than Penry; yet Algernon Sidney, perhaps, possessed not a spirit more Roman.[421] State necessity claimed another victim; and this ardent young man, whose execution had been at first unexpectedly postponed, was suddenly hurried from his dinner to a temporary gallows; a circumstance marked by its cruelty, but designed to prevent ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... love makes a coward of a man as well as of a woman! But do not trouble yourself over that, either. Have you never heard the love-tale of Hagberth and Signe? How, the same moment in which she saw him hanged upon the gallows, she set fire to her house and strangled herself with her ribbons, so that their two souls met on the threshold of Paradise and went in together? If you die, I will die too; and that will arrange everything." She clung to him for a moment, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... form: at the sight of its own image, it bursts like the steel that one breaks with the blow of a stout staff. And to everything that appeared, from the golden chalice of the altar-table, once the drinking-cup of evil spirits, to the nodding head on the gallows-hill, the old crone hummed her songs; and the crickets chirped, and the raven croaked from the opposite neighbour's house, and the winding-sheet rolled from the candle. Through the whole spectral world sounded, ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... they notice the smallest breach of etiquette concerning their august selves. If they had the power, the Imperial Highnesses would execute any man that called them "Royal Highness," while the Royal Highnesses would be pleased to send to the gallows persons addressing ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... her face back in the doorway for one last word. "Don't you know," she shrieked back to Lot Gordon, in her pitiless despair—"don't you know that I would rather have seen the inside of my prison-cell to-night and the gallows ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... suspense. To know the worst, whatever that may be, is far preferable to the long agony of doubt; hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst. Even a hardened criminal has been known to admit that the two or three hours of waiting for the verdict was far worse than the march to the gallows. If this be so, what must it be to the tender, loving hearts of good and true women whose husbands, sweethearts, brothers and sons are facing the dangers of war, and who (God pity them) have to endure this dread suspense for weeks and months when no ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flung the paper from him; and bidding the arquebusiers burn the body at the foot of the gallows without the town, he quitted the tower ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... speed on that Wesel occasion, and help of Chesterfield's Secretary, got across to England; got into the Portuguese service; and has there been soldiering, very silently, these ten years past,—skin and body safe, though his effigy was cut in four quarters and nailed to the gallows at Wesel;—waiting a time that would come. Time being come, Lieutenant Keith hastened home; appealed to his effigy on the gallows;—and was made a Lieutenant-Colonel merely, with some slight appendages, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had sued him for debt, Burroughs was arrested and charged, among other offences, with "extraordinary Lifting and such feats of strength as could not be done without Diabolicall Assistance." Though the jury found no witch-marks on his body he was convicted and executed on Gallows Hill, Salem, on the 19th of August, the only minister who suffered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... criminal going to the gallows, the Trojan went to the pole and began the ascent with his already tender hands. He would have asked for a postponement had not the serene face of the principal warned him that it would not be granted. With much effort he reached the top, took off the helmet, and slipped rapidly down with ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... for the third time (late at night) they slipped in pin and record and let the djinn rave. So the sheik, with his rifle, shot his son as he had promised, and the English judge before whom he eventually came had all the trouble in the world to save that earnest gray head from the gallows. Thus: ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... be armed with spears, and he dreamed of distributing laudanum to the troops. Unfortunately for himself, he made known his plans to all and sundry, and was rewarded for his indiscretion by being hanged on Gallows Hill, as an ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... of the counties in his district. Being a gentleman of great distinction, and a candidate for Congress, he was appropriately invited by the sheriff to occupy a seat with the prisoner and his spiritual adviser upon the gallows. At the near approach of the fatal hour, the sheriff, with watch in hand, amid the sea of upturned faces, stated to the prisoner that he had yet five minutes to live, and it was his privilege if he so desired to address the audience. The ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... day drew near I felt like a real murderer, and had the prisoner all the time before my eyes, hanging on a gallows. I drank harder than ever, but I could not get that picture out of my mind. I saw worse pictures than before. So I determined what to do. I sat down, wrote a full confession of the murder, which I signed; and a friend of mine carried this to the prisoner's wife. I had put on it 'In haste, this ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... experiments, repeated under many different forms, prove that never, never in this world do the Necrophori dig, or even give a superficial scrape, at the foot of the gallows, unless the hanging body touch the ground at that point. And, in the latter case, if the twig should happen to fall, its fall is in nowise an intentional result, but a mere fortuitous effect ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... chief butler said of him, "Mr. Merdle never was a gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on Mr. Merdle's part would surprise me." The great banker was "the greatest forger and greatest thief that ever cheated the gallows." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: "boil body of so and so!" They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords. 6. They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honour and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive. 7. They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... why we never hear what becomes of the pirate's lady friends. Surely any decent, self-respecting pirate who is an honor to his profession, should have a woman somewhere to either mourn his loss or—as I suggested—go to the gallows and ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... monastery. Within this ancient church the ornaments of some of the old stalls in the choir are very quaint, representing a man leading a bear, a dying miser handing his money-bags to the priest and doctor, and three rats solemnly hanging a cat on a gallows. The priory was the nucleus about which gathered the town, or, properly speaking, the towns, for there are a series of them, all well-known watering-places. Great Malvern has North Malvern alongside it and ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... treated as mere misdemeanours, sent to herd with felons at Botany Bay. Some reformers, whose opinions were extravagant, and whose language was intemperate, but who had never dreamed of subverting the government by physical force, were indicted for high treason, and were saved from the gallows only by the righteous verdicts of juries. This severity was at the time loudly applauded by alarmists whom fear had made cruel, but will be seen in a very different light by posterity. The truth is, that the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... scoured the woods—but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broom-stick or ladle, he would fly to the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Thereupon we naturally consoled[5] our coffee; when you're consoled, you console! and as one thing led to another, we fell upon each other! There was a very devil of a carnage! The proof of it is that that gallows-bird of a saloon-keeper threw us ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Lascelles," thinks I—"so you don't know me; you shall know me by-and-by." I quite forgot that I was stained black, till one of the men who seized me by the collar to pass me forward, said, "Hand along the nigger. He's a young one for the gallows, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... imputations upon the chaplain, then lying dangerously ill in his berth. All through the four months' passage by way of the Canaries and the West India Islands discontents and dissensions prevailed. Wingfield, who had been named president of the colony, had Smith in irons, and at the island of Nevis had the gallows set up for his execution on a charge of conspiracy, when milder counsels prevailed, and he was brought to Virginia, where he was tried and acquitted and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... again by hearing the tread of a horse, but it was only the old grey munching round. Her father finished skinning, and drew the carcase up to a make-shift "gallows". "Now you can go to bed," he said, in ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... which he brings out the underlying assumptions. The legal sovereign is omnipotent, for what he declares to be the law is therefore the law. The law is his commands enforced by 'sanctions,' and therefore by organised force. The motives for obedience are the fear of the gallows on one side, and, on the other, the desire of protection for life and property. Law, again, is the ultimate social bond, and can be made at will by the sovereign. He thus becomes so omnipotent that it is virtually assumed that he can even create himself. Not only can ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... right's your right, In season or out of season. Stand up and back it in all men's sight— With that for your only reason! Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide The shame or mocking or laughter, But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side To the gallows-foot—and after! ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... when he animated the people not to suffer the same sheriffs to be carried through the city to the Tower, prisoners. Now the poet hath undertaken, for their being kicked three or four times a-week about the stage to the gallows, infamously rogued and rascalled, to try what he can do towards making the charter forfeitable, by some extravagancy and disorder of the people, which the authority of the best governed cities have not been able to prevent, sometimes under far ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... the love he has conceived for your daughter." "Your Majesty, I tell you it is a doll, and not a human being." "I don't want to hear nonsense! If you don't present your daughter to me in a fortnight, your head will fall under the guillotine." (Do you not know what the guillotine is? It is the gallows. He was to be hung if he did not take her his daughter within a fortnight.) The merchant went home, weeping. His wife said: "What is the matter; what has the king said to you at the palace, to make you weep?" "Can you not guess what has happened to me? The king's son has ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... one care, that I may some day denounce you as a shameful deceiver, who has sold me a bad copy of his own manufacture for an original, and be assured that this deception may bring you to the gallows at any time if I ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... chimney shafts and the spikes of a couple of spires. On the other sides it was bounded by the brick walls of factories, the municipal gasworks and the approach to the railway station, indicated by signal-posts standing out against the sky like gallows, and a tram-line bordered by a row of skeleton cottages. Golgotha was a grim garden compared with Paul's brickfield. Sometimes the children of the town scuttled about it like dingy little rabbits. But more often it was a desolate solitude. Perhaps all but the lowest ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd filled the Piazza. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... give him a lesson which he will not forget," said Sir Reginald; "notwithstanding all his promises, he would be certain to poach again. He might end by killing a keeper, and have to be sent to the gallows, as has been the fate of many. Poachers and smugglers must be put ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... Wood, the Weed, the Wag: The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree; The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag; The Wag, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... indeed has not been spared. But with so little avail has it been used, or rather to such ill effect, that every public execution, instead of deterring villains from guilt, serves only to afford them opportunity for it. Perhaps the very risk of the gallows operates upon many a man among the inducements to commit the crime whereto he is tempted; for with your true gamester the excitement seems to be in proportion to the value of the stake. Yet I hold as little with ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... Presbyterian, tried for complicity in the Rye House Plot, and unfairly condemned to death, and barbarously executed the same day (in 1683) for fear he should die afterwards and cheat the gallows of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... would be if there were no gibbets!" said one of two highwaymen who chanced to pass a gallows. "Tut, you blockhead," replied the other, "gibbets are the making of us; for, if there were no gibbets, every one would be a highwayman." Just so with every art, trade, or pursuit; it is the difficulties that scare and keep out ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden |
