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Public square   /pˈəblɪk skwɛr/   Listen
Public square

noun
1.
An open area at the meeting of two or more streets.  Synonym: square.
2.
A place of assembly for the people in ancient Greece.  Synonym: agora.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Public square" Quotes from Famous Books



... afterward Trueman is seated in his office, in the Commerce building, on the public square of Wilkes-Barre, in the middle of which is situated the Court House. On the same floor with his office are the general offices ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... perished on board the Jersey as 11,000, and continues: "After it was known that it was next to certain death to confine a prisoner here, the inhumanity and wickedness of doing it was about the same as if he had been taken into the city and deliberately shot on some public square. * * * Never did any Howard or angel of pity appear to inquire into or alleviate our woes. Once or twice a bag of apples was hurled into the midst of hundreds of prisoners, crowded together as thick as ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... six Lewis guns went into battalion reserve. The Australian Mounted Division were at Esdud next day and their innate love for chickens caused a large picquet of the battalion to be sent into the town to preserve order. The picquet squatted on the public square, gazed at solemnly by bearded and unclean descendants of the Philistines and unmoved by the rustlings and stifled laughter of hidden females. The town itself is almost certainly built on the site of the ancient Ashdod, one of the Philistine ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... after those fine gardens which add so much to the picturesqueness of Vienna and Berlin. There were wide gravel paths and long avenues of lofty chestnuts and lindens, iron benches, fountains and winding flower beds. The park, the palaces, and the Continental Hotel enclosed a public square, paved with asphalt, called the Hohenstaufenplatz, in the center of which rose a large marble fountain of several streams, guarded by huge bronze wolves. Here, too, were iron benches which were, for the most part, the meeting-place of the nursemaids. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... and Stockholm in June, and were much delighted with the new land they visited. To read in the public square at midnight; to pass through groves of pine and fir with rose-colored cones; to hear the watchman call from the church tower four times toward the four quarters of the heaven, "Ho, watchmen, ho! Twelve the clock hath stricken. God keep ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... Dwelt two miserable men,— Misery knows nor clime nor country, Haunts alike the dome or den— Blind the one, the other palsied, Each so poor he prayed for death; Yet he lived, his invocations Seeming naught but wasted breath. On his wretched mattress lying, In the busy public square, See the wasted paralytic Suffering more that ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... small county seat to the east the squat brick "jail-house" sat in the shadow of the larger building. There was a public square at the front where noble shade trees stood naked now, and the hitching racks were empty. Night was falling over the sordid place, and the mountains went abruptly up as though this village itself were walled into a prison shutting it off from ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... armoury. But it was something wholly different to set out for a Sunday Afternoon Concert, or upon some normal and recognized philanthropic errand, and on the way find one's self arrested for a few minutes by seeing a crowd gathered in a public square. Yet it had not been easy to screw Mrs. Fox-Moore up to thinking even this non-committal measure a possible one to pursue. 'What would anybody think,' she had asked Vida, 'to see them lending even the casual support of a presence (however ironic) to so reprehensible ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... saw other forms fleeing before us and disappearing, as we supposed, around corners and into houses. And now suddenly finding ourselves upon the edge of a wide, open public square, we saw in the dim light—for a tall steeple obscured the moon—the forms of vehicles, horses, and men moving here and there. But before, in our astonishment, we could say a word one to the other, the moon moved past the ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... commissary of police; he saw the government of Arcis collected on the public square, and he rode up ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... stone houses with quaint gabled roofs, and still quainter chimneys, and old doorways giving glimpses of dark interiors and dirt floors. Past the modest houses of the mayor, the baker, the butcher and Monsieur le Cure; then through the small public square, in which nothing ever happens, and up to a box ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... public square of the Cascades, in front of the Auteuil hippodrome, she paused a moment between the two lakes, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... and it was only by the interference of the commandant that he was saved from instant punishment. He was, however, permitted to retire, and the company dispersed. The military corps proceeded to the public square of the city, and were there engaged in their exercises, when information was received that Cabler was coming up, armed, and resolved to kill one of the volunteers, who had been most active in expelling him from the table. Knowing his desperate character, two of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... the reign of King Charles IV. of France, surnamed the Fair, the last king of the first branch of the Capets, who died in 1323, the soul of a citizen, some years dead and abandoned by his relations, who neglected to pray for him, appeared suddenly in the public square at Aries, relating marvellous things of the other world, and asking for help. Those who had seen him in his lifetime at once recognized him. The Prior of the Jacobins, a man of saintly life, being told of this apparition, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... to a quick and graceful landing. I found that we were in a large paved court like a public square, facing the east and the sun, which bathed it in cool bright light. It was still early in the morning. Innumerable windows looked down upon us, and a number of doorways led into the building on all sides. From one of these a girl stepped forward. Edvar spoke to her, evidently ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker

... partially consumed fragments, with gestures so violent, so feverishly excited, that their gray locks fell in disorder over their shoulders. It was like a dance of witches, feeding a hellish fire for some abominable act—the martyrdom of a saint, the burning of written thought in the public square; a whole world of truth and hope destroyed. And the blaze of this fire, which at moments made the flame of the lamp grow pale, lighted up the vast apartment, and made the gigantic shadows of the two women dance ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... than his sister—he approached the young lady's home by the longest and most round-about way, a course which caused him to make the complete circuit of the three-acre pond situated a short distance above the public square—a shallow body of water dignified during the wet season of the year by the high-sounding title of "Lake Stansbury," but spoken of scornfully as the "slough" after the summer's sun had reduced its surface to a few ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... Golpho Triste, which was forty leagues away, but where he had reason to suppose he would find some friends. When he came out from among the trees, he mounted a small hill and looked back upon the town. The public square was lighted, and there in the middle of it he saw the gallows which had been erected for his execution, and this sight, doubtless, animated him very much during the first ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... us. Opposite was a public square, grown with brilliant flowers, and flowering trees. We could not doubt the cause of the trouble. An Indian on a bicycle, hurrying to his office, had knocked down a native child. Said child, quite naked, sat in the middle of the white dust and howled ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... was the son of Gordius, a poor countryman, who was taken by the people and made king, in obedience to the command of the oracle, which had said that their future king should come in a wagon. While the people were deliberating, Gordius with his wife and son came driving his wagon into the public square. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... possession of my mind, namely, that diabetes was no doubt the cause of the decadence of France. Yet I suspect it is no more a peculiarity of French manners than of European manners generally, and in its light I relished immensely the history of a well-known statue which stands in a public square in one of the German cities. The statue commemorates the unblushing audacity of a peasant going to market with a goose under each arm, who ignored even the presence of the king, and it is at certain times dressed up and made the centre of ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... "all Dorfield" had turned out to attend the much advertised meeting. The masses completely filled the big public square. The flaring torches, placed at set intervals, lighted fitfully the faces of the people—faces sober, earnest, thoughtful—all turned in the direction ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... down out in the public square smoking, and apparently taking the world at ease,—but I was fretting inside to beat the band! My competitor saw me from the hotel porch. He came over and shook hands—you know we're always ready to cut each other's throats but ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... in this city they were accustomed to bury their dead among the living. Mr. Barnum had done more than any other man to secure to this city the most beautiful-cemetery in Connecticut. He alone had secured to the city what it had never had before—a public square. On the east side of the river he had almost completed a school-house, a thing which could be said of no other man. [Loud cheering.] If material aid were needed, he should be proud to assist in raising it. There was one clause in the resolutions which he did not believe. He did not believe that ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... desire to know, especially if they sought knowledge through original investigation, they were branded with such titles of disgrace as "wizard" or "heretic;" and, as a warning to others, they were often burned in the public square or ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... Ovando invited Anacaona, with her beautiful daughter Higuenamata, and her principal subjects, to witness a tilting match in the public square. ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... under the influence of liquor. Non-combatants! Its attacks on the non-combatants are not so spectacular in their methods as the tactics pursued by the Kaiser's men, who line up the defenseless ones in the public square and turn machine-guns on them. The methods of the liquor traffic are not so direct or merciful. We shudder with horror as we read of the terrible outrages committed by the brutal German soldiers. We rage in our helpless fury that such things should be—and yet we have known and read of just ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... and one Judge), finding that a jury could not, because of terrorisation, be found to convict certain murderers, Italians and members of the Mafia, took the murderers out of gaol and hanged them in a public square in broad daylight. The Italian government demanded the punishment of the lynchers, and the American government had to confess itself entirely unable to comply with the request. Whether it would have given the satisfaction if it could is another ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... a long drive through the suburban streets from the station to the hotel, which we found full, and which with its crazy floors touched the fancy as full of something besides guests. But it was well for us so, because across the market-place, which forms the chief public square of Boston, was a far better hotel, where we were welcomed to the old-fashioned ideal of the English inn, such as I did not so nearly realize anywhere else. The ideal was a little impaired by the electric light in our ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... the sudden swoop of the Golden Eagle II that Barr had seen from the yacht with such satisfaction was the need of replenishing her gasoline tank. The big craft landed in the dusty public square of the city where pretty well every one in the town was on hand when her runners and pneumatic tired supporting wheels struck the ground. The young adventurers were out of her in a few minutes and the first man to grasp their hands ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... screened by a heavy curtain! Those two strangers must not hear! At all costs they must not hear a thing like this! They did not know Mark Carter of course, but at any rate they must not hear! It was like having him exposed in the public square for insult. So she played on, growing steadier, and more controlled. If only she could know the rest! Or if only she might steal away then, and lie down and bear it alone for a little! So this was what had given her father such a white drawn look during his sermon! She had seen that ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... VIII., however, lasted only three days; for the people of Anagni, having recovered themselves, and seeing the scanty numbers of the foreigners, rose and delivered the pope. The old man was conducted to the public square, crying like a child. "Good folks," said he to the crowd around him, "ye have seen that mine enemies have robbed me of all my goods and those of the Church. Behold me here as poor as Job. Nought have I either to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... that avenue, Excellency, until you reach the great fountain in the public square. Then a half block to the left. You cannot miss it, but you ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... with the hospitable Behechio, entertained with various Indian games and festivities, among which the most remarkable was the representation of a battle. Two squadrons of naked Indians, armed with bows and arrows, sallied suddenly into the public square and began to skirmish in a manner similar to the Moorish play of canes, or tilting reeds. By degrees they became excited, and fought with such earnestness, that four were slain, and many wounded, which seemed to increase the interest and pleasure of the spectators. The contest would have ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... I was on the street a Saturday night when another gentleman drove into town. He stopped on the public square and stood up in his buggy. "Let the prominent citizens gather around me, for I am ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... the Place des Hommes, a little public square of Arles, which somehow quite misses its effect. As a city, indeed, Arles quite misses its effect in every way; and if it is a charming place, as I think it is, I can hardly tell the reason why. The straight-nosed Arlsiennes account for it in some degree; and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... two men strolled into the public square of a well-known Chinese city. They were plainly dressed and looked like ordinary countrymen who had come in to see the sights. Judging by their faces, they were father and son. The elder, a wrinkled man of perhaps fifty, wore ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... great public square and governor's palace are, I believe, is (or used to be) the principal street, and the shops there are very attractive, especially the jewellers', with their exquisite silver and gold filagree work; ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... Lancaster fever prevailed in 1835. A fatal fever also visited Lancaster in 1836, caused by the grading of the public square. Dr. Luther Buford discovered the origin of the malaria and wrote ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... became at an early age the property of the sovereign, who farmed it out to his relatives or favourites. It was arranged on the ching, or 'well' system—eight private squares round a ninth public square cultivated by the eight farmer families in common for the benefit of the State. From the beginning to the end of the Monarchical Period tenure continued to be of the Crown, land being unallodial, and mostly held in clans or families, and not entailed, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... as a subordinate a "companion" who could replace him when occasion demanded, and he was assisted in the exercise of his functions by the counsel of "Friends," and further still in extraordinary circumstances by the citizens of the capital assembled in the public square. This intervention of the voice of the populace was a thing unknown in the East, and had probably been introduced in imitation of customs observed among the Greeks of AEolia or Ionia; it was an important political factor, and might possibly lead ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... behind their backs until they were unconscious; and then forcing salt water, hot water, cold water, and water with pepper in it down their nostrils, alternately; and other added cruelties; they announced to the village that they would release them that night on the public square." ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger

... drawing near to the prince in the attitude of one presenting a petition, fired a pistol at his head. The ball passed through the jaw, but the wound was not mortal. The Prince of Orange recovered. The assassin was slain in the act by sword and halberd thrusts, then quartered on the public square, and the parts were hung up on one of the gates of Antwerp, where they remained until the Duke of Parma took possession of the town, when the Jesuits collected them and presented them as relics to ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... "How do you know?" Charles Darwin with his "Origin of Species" would have been laughed out of court. Or probably had Darwin been persistent we would have consigned him to the stocks, burned his book in the public square, and with the aid of logical thumbscrews made ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... is that Paganetti is well known in his native country. The value of his word is written on the public square at Corte which still awaits the monument to Paoli, in the vast crop of humbuggery that he has succeeded in planting in this sterile Ithacan island, and in the flabby, empty pocket-books of all the wretched village cures, petty bourgeois, petty noblemen, whose slender savings he has ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... order to reach the Plaza, which is the main feature of attraction belonging to the town, the traveler is obliged to follow the crooks and turns of several unattractive streets. The home of Kit Carson faces on the west side of this public square. It is a building only one story in height; but, as it extends over a considerable space of ground, it makes up in part this defect, and within, it is surpassed by but few other houses in the country for the degree of comfort which is furnishes to its occupants. On most any fair day, around ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... people, to whom I am going to announce the news. You, Torchebeuf beat the tattoo throughout the whole neighborhood as far as the hamlets of Gerisaie and Salmare, in order to assemble the militia in the public square. You, Pommel, get your uniform on quickly, just the coat and cap. We are going to the town-hall to demand Monsieur de Varnetot to surrender his powers ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Darzens, "have a special physiognomy,—they are not, as in the provinces, discreet localities, with an atmosphere of familiar conventionality, in which the father brings his eldest son to pass the evening with the notary of the quarter and the pharmacien of the public square, in an interminable game of billiards or of piquet voleur. Houses very comme il faut, in which no incongruity would be tolerated, from which a Parisian was even chased one day for having pronounced a gross ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... them. As soon as the Danes saw what was going on, their courage once more rose, and they fell upon the plundering patriots, already half drunk with wine. Gustavus therefore sent a detachment under Olsson into the town to drive the Danish soldiers back. They met in the public square, and a long and bloody battle followed; but at last the remnant of the Danish soldiers fled and took refuge in the monastery. Here they remained three weeks, and then escaped by boat to Stockholm. Gustavus, after the fight ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... morning by the children of the master-miners and of other inhabitants of the district. The boys—the eldest of whom is not yet over sixteen, or the youngest under ten years of age—assemble, and sit under a large tree in the public square of the village. Each has his diamond weight in a bag, hung on one side of his girdle, and on the other a purse, containing sometimes as much as five or six ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... somewhere else. Instead of scenes we have narrative, instead of tableaux, descriptions. Solemn-faced characters, placed, as in the old chorus, between the drama and ourselves, tell us what is going on in the temple, in the palace, on the public square, until we are tempted many a time to call out to them: "Indeed! then take us there! It must be very entertaining—a fine sight!" To which they would reply no doubt: "It is quite possible that it might entertain or interest you, but that isn't the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... to conceive of the market-place at Athens as bearing any resemblance to the bare, undecorated spaces appropriated to business in our modern towns; but rather as a magnificent public square, closed in by grand historic buildings, of the highest style of architecture; planted with palm-trees in graceful distribution, and adorned with statues of the great men of Athens and the deified heroes of her mythology, from the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... lighted torch of two pounds weight in his hand, before the west door of the church of Saint-Pierre in the Market Place and before—that of Sainte-Ursule, both of this town, and there on bended knee to ask pardon of God and the king and the law, and this done, to be taken to the public square of Sainte-Croix and there to be attached to a stake, set in the midst of a pile of wood, both of which to be prepared there for this purpose, and to be burnt alive, along with the pacts and spells which remain in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view. Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a "jog" at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire. Warwick was unable to perceive much change in the market-house. Perhaps the surface of the ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... from Madrid to execute him, and without loss of time he was placed on a horse draped all in black, and, preceded by a herald and guarded by a troop of guards, taken out to the public square to be beheaded. But the good people of the capital, who, in the fashion of the world, would not most probably have stirred a step to save a saint, were mightily concerned to see a rogue receive his ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... planter contemptuously. "You are such prisoners as they shut up in the penitentiary, or hang in the public square." ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... and I thought him about the ugliest man I had ever seen. There was nothing in his looks or manner that was prepossessing. Such he appeared as he rode in the procession on the forenoon of that warm summer day. His appearance was not different in the afternoon of that day, when, in the public square, he first stood before the great multitude who had assembled there to hear him. His powers were aroused gradually as he went on with his speech. There was much play of humor. 'Judge Douglas has,' he said, 'one great advantage ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... baggage. I believe that's the custom, but—Oh, gee! This IS funny." He was still laughing when he reached the public square, for at last he had begun to see the full humor ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... setting represents a public square. In the centre stands a sheriff's officer on an auctioneer's block, around the base of which are the various pieces for the machine. A crowd is gathered on each side of the platform. To the left of the spectator are grouped together ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... "The White Lotus of the Good Laer." A pious Nepaulese bowed in reverence before a vase of lilies which perfumed the study of Sir William Jones. At sunset in Thibet, the French missionaries tell us, every inhabitant of every village prostrates himself in the public square, and the holy invocation, "Oh, the gem in the Lotus!" goes murmuring over hill and valley, like the sound of many bees. It is no unmeaning phrase, but an utterance of ardent desire to be absorbed into that Brahma whose emblem is the sacred flower. The mystic formula ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... as I remember,—but it is all rather blurred now,—the place where I pulled up was a sort of public square. I swung myself off Old Blunderbore just outside a tavern. An ostler ran up to me at once to hold him. So I gave him a silver piece what it was worth I did not know, saying ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... would have made a severe example of him. The young man seemed to have been in no dread of farther punishment, as I believe he felt all a man could do from the indignity of being put in irons in the public square, before all his brother caciques and many hundreds of other Indians. I thought this was not a very politic step of the governor, as the cacique came after to Captain Cheap to thank him for his goodness, and in all probability would remember the English for some time after; and not only ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... represents the police authority," he said, taking off his hat and bowing low to the policeman, "can he show me an order emanating from the said authority, which states that it is forbidden for poor strolling players, like ourselves, to carry on their humble profession on a public square?" ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... out for her son's ship.[A] In Fiji the following tale is told about the Nanga or sacred stone enclosure:—"This is the word of our fathers concerning the Nanga. Long ago their fathers were ignorant of it; but one day two strangers were found sitting in the Rara (public square), and they said they had come up from the sea to give them the Nanga. They were little men, and very dark-skinned, and one of them had his face and bust painted red, while the other was painted black. Whether these were gods or men our fathers did not tell us, but it was they who taught ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... I was eight years old they sold me. The market place was in Snow Hill on the public square near the jailhouse. It was jus' a little stand built out in the open with no top on it, that the slaves stood on to get sold while the white folks auctioned 'em off. I was too little to get on the stand, so they had ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... and men formed in the large public square in front of the municipal offices, where Councillor George Wareham, J. P., as chairman of the district council, extended to the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... sturdy of the villagers array themselves as champions of the faith, while its ancient opponents are represented by another band of villagers, dressed up as Moorish warriors. A tent is pitched in the public square of the village, within which is an altar and an image of the Virgin. The Spanish warriors approach to perform their devotions at this shrine, but are opposed by the infidel Moslems, who surround the tent. A mock fight succeeds, in the course of which ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... of June, at break of day, the town of Belley saw a mournful sight. The scaffold had risen from the earth during the night, and stood in the middle of the public square. ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... little frontier town of the class that immediately succeeded the stockaded hamlets. A public square had been laid out, round which, and down the straggling main street, the few buildings were scattered; all were of logs, from the court house and small jail down. There were three or four taverns. The two best were respectively houses of entertainment ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... of Jack, there had recently been enacted, on the public square of this southern city, a tawdry little tragedy in brown and coffee color, having to do with the fascinations of a certain damsel known in her own circles as the "gold-tooth girl." The latter had, in her ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... Governor Irwin. The feeling of the Legislature was so strong, that, after the Yazoo act had been repealed, it was decided to destroy all the records and documents relating to the corruption. By order of the two Houses a fire was kindled in the public square of Louisville, which was then the capital. The enrolled act that had been secured by fraud was brought out by the secretary of state, and by him delivered to the President of the Senate for examination. That officer delivered ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... had a terrible alarm. The tocsin was sounded in the public square, and thousands have been running hither and thither to know its meaning. Dispatches have been posted about the city, purporting to have been received by the governor, with the startling information that the U. S. war steamer Pawnee is coming ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... the public square the suitors thronged around him with smooth speeches, but in their hearts they kept on plotting his death. He wanted them to see that he was in Ithaca, but he did not care to be in their company, so he took his place among some friends of his father. One of the crew came up to ask ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... streams which flowed west into the AEgean Sea. One of the most remarkable of these rivers was the Meander. There was a town built exactly at the source of the Meander—so exactly, in fact, that the fountain from which the stream took its rise was situated in the public square of the town, walled in and ornamented like an artificial fountain in a modern city. The name of this ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... political excitement all along the way, even at that early period of the canvass. My sister Susan, two years younger than I, was with me. We met with no adventure worthy of notice until we arrived at our destination, when, in ascending the hill to the public square, the coach slipped and fell over on its side. This we considered a bad omen. It was not, however, an unusual accident, as the roads were always bad in March, and the coaches of the day not worthy of the name. We were heartily welcomed into the family of Robert McComb, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... contrary, reigns in the heart of Ferrara, where the Este's stronghold, moated, draw-bridged, and portcullised, casting dense shadow over the water that protects the dungeons, still seems to threaten the public square and overawe ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... gateway of the Sherwood Forest of Betty's dreams, the name had seemed an enchanted one to her. As they had come only the comparatively short journey from Leeds, they arrived at Mansfield in the middle of the morning, and being Friday, the public square presented its usual busy scenes of market-day. Vendors were shouting their wares, long-suffering babies who had been unwillingly brought along were crying, women were loudly chattering in shrill voices, and a poor little dog, who in some mysterious way was being made ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... so famous in all the Chilian picturesque annuals. I was carrying directions for some vessels which had gone round the Cape; and what a time Burrows and Wheatland and I had a week after, when we rode into the public square of Valparaiso shouting, "Muera la Constitucion,—Viva Libertad!" by our own unassisted lungs actually raising a rebellion, and, which was of more importance, a prohibition on foreign flour, while Bahamarra and his army were within a hundred miles of us. How those vessels came up the harbor, and ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... committee wish to erect a statue to their local hero in the public square, and if on two opposite sides of the square there are buildings of very different heights, the statue should not be put in the exact middle of the square, if it is to give the best effect from a distance. It should be placed a little toward ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... then destroyed the printing press and tore the office down. Then they went through the town hunting for the leading brethren. They caught Bishop Edward Partridge and Charles Allen, dragged them to the public square, stripped most of their clothes off, and then smeared tar all over their bodies. This ended that day's work, and the frightened women and children who had fled to the woods came back to ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson

... yapping as though they knew what was going on. The elephant got down on all fours, and we straightened up in the pagoda, and for a block or so the beast only waltzed around. As we got to some sort of a public square, where there were thousands of people, the stale beer seemed to be getting in its work, for the elephant looked at the people, as much as to say: "Now I will show you something not down on the bills," and, by ginger, if he didn't raise up his hind quarters and stand ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... the train at Leesville, it was a blustery morning in early March, with snow still on the ground and flurries of it in the air. In front of the station was a public square, with a number of people gathered, and Jimmie strolled over to see what was going on. What he saw was a score of young men, some in khaki uniforms, some in ordinary trousers and sweaters, being drilled. Jimmie, being in the mood ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... impressive ceremonies were held in the public square at the rear of Independence Hall. On temporary platforms sat 5,000 distinguished guests, and a chorus of 1,200 singers. The square and the neighboring streets were filled with a dense throng. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the mover ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... submarine had towed the NX-1 into one of the weird mound cities. His own ship was lying in what seemed a kind of public square, and crowds of black octopi were swarming around it as he and his crew were brought out. Shooting straight off the square ran one of the wide streets he had previously seen from above, and on each side the brown ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... structure which gives it an identity and a common interest which is lacking in the former and which must mean much in the maintenance of community pride and which must give much better opportunity for outdoor gatherings of all sorts. In planning a new community such a public square should be a central feature. Around it may be built the school, the town hall or community house, the churches, the library and other public buildings. If large enough it should include tennis courts and a playground. Where the main streets are already occupied ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... granaries, barracks for the soldiers,—in short, everything necessary for comfort and security. Each mission was at once fortress, refuge, church, and town. The little town grew in time more and more to resemble its fellows in old Spain. Bull-fights and other festivals were held in the plaza, or public square, in front of the presidio, or governor's house, and the long, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... claims. The mob next visited the store kept by Gilbert, but refrained from attacking it on receiving a pledge that the goods would be packed for removal by the following Tuesday. They then called at the houses of some of the leading Mormons, and conducted Bishop Partridge and a man named Allen to the public square. Partridge told his captors that the saints had been subjected to persecution in all ages; that he was willing to suffer for Christ's sake, but that he would not consent to leave the country. Allen refused either to agree to depart or to deny the inspiration of the Mormon Bible. Both ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... houses in the place are the residences of Gen. Don Mariano Guadaloupe Vallejo; his brother-in-law, Mr. J.P. Leese, an American; and his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo. The quartel, a barn-like adobe house, faces the public square. The town presents a most dull and ruinous appearance; but the country surrounding it is exuberantly fertile, and romantically picturesque, and Sonoma, under American authority, and with an American population, ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... or "Corpus Christi," by singing "a profane hymn of Clement Marot." Parliament turned aside from the procession, and in the sacristy of the church of St. Stephen rapidly tried him, and ordered him to be burned the same day at the stake in a public square, as a "reparation of the injury done to the holy faith." Certainly a church dedicated to the Christian protomartyr was not the most appropriate place for drawing ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... or cited in analogous texts; the names of monuments, such as stelae, tablets, cippi, etc., the indication of places, or parts belonging to those places, where they ought to be set up or deposited, such as a temple or vestibule, a court or peristyle, public square, etc.; those at whose cost it was set up, the entire city or a curia, the public treasure, or a private fund, the names and surnames of public or private individuals; prerogatives or favors granted, such as the right of asylum, of hospitality, of citizenship; the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... with people as a public square; fatigue-parties in detachments, and isolated men. Here and there, the stretcher-bearers are beginning (patiently and in a small way) their huge ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... of great assistance in doing this work, Frank taking the lead, since no patrol leader happened to be in evidence. They and the police soon drove the people back, and the Uhlans dismounted. There, in the public square, used as a market place, they proceeded to cook a meal, making a fire in the street. From the sides of the square the people watched them sullenly. But there was no demonstration, since both the police and the scouts had explained that anything of the sort was likely to mean the execution of ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... went," she answered. "And I told the people all I meant to say. Some of them believed. But they were not many, and of the others who did not believe, they were afraid, and so kept they silent. Then into Orlog I went, and in the public square I spoke—for very long, because, for some reason I know not, at first ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... incurring his paternal displeasure. He brought out the forty prisoners who still remained in their dungeons. Eight of the most distinguished men of the kingdom were led to three of the principal cities, in each of which, in the public square, they were ignominiously and cruelly whipped on the bare back. Before each flagellation ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... over to see this fortress. They were stopped a few minutes at the bridge, by a steamer going through. There was a large company of soldiers stopped too, part of the garrison of Ehrenbreitstein that had been over to attend a parade on the public square at Coblenz, and were now going home, so that Rollo was not sorry for the detention, as it gave him a fine opportunity to see the soldiers, and to examine the Prussian uniform. It consisted of a blue frock coat and white trousers, with an ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott



Words linked to "Public square" :   piece of land, Trafalgar Square, parcel of land, plaza, agora, square, market, tract, market place, marketplace, piece of ground, piazza, parcel, mart, place, city



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