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Theft   /θɛft/   Listen
Theft

noun
1.
The act of taking something from someone unlawfully.  Synonyms: larceny, stealing, thievery, thieving.



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"Theft" Quotes from Famous Books



... Barbey-Nanteuil Bank would rake in important profits ... in haste the assassins get rid of an accomplice who is in their way—that duffer of a Jules, the rue Raffet servant, and they send Dollon to kill Thomery. After that they decide to rob your Bank which is stuffed with gold; for, were it not for this theft, it would be your Bank, burdened as it is, with Thomery shares, which would pay out to speculators the differences in value between past and present prices—which amounts would have to come out of the money paid in the day before. Messieurs, with regard to this, Thomery's death did you ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... early crimes obtained a power which secures indemnity to all the crimes of which they have since been guilty, or that they can commit, it is not the syllogism of the logician, but the lash of the executioner, that would have refuted a sophistry which becomes an accomplice of theft and murder. The sophistic tyrants of Paris are loud in their declamations against the departed regal tyrants who in former ages have vexed the world. They are thus bold, because they are safe from the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... natural we should want this provision of the Constitution carried out. The Constitution says slaves are property; the Supreme Court says so; the Constitution says so. The theft of slaves is a crime; they are a subject-matter of felonious asportation. By the text and letter of the Constitution you agreed to give them up. You have sworn to do it, and you have broken your oaths. Of course, those who have done so look out for pretexts. Nobody expected them do otherwise. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... the country and were allowed a great deal of licence in consequence of their weak-mindedness. Accordingly, the impostors above mentioned, who used generally to eke out the gifts of the charitable by stealing, when detected in their theft, would plead, as a rule, lunacy as an excuse of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... wretches, in all the cities and towns of a great nation, huddled together like so many swine in a pen; in rags, squalor, and want; without work, bread, or hope; dragging out from day to day, by begging, or the petty artifices of theft, an existence which is worthless and a burden; and when, at the same time, we see a system of laws, that has carefully drawn a band of iron around every mode of human exertion; which with lynx-eyed and omniscient vigilance, has dragged every product ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... of being the thief, and in a sorry scene the father, on the condition of being permitted to read the letter, which turns out to be a trivial note, informs Alcestes that Sophia is the delinquent. Finally, Soeller, under the threat of a prick from Alcestes' sword, confesses to the theft, and the piece ends with a mutual agreement to condone each other's delinquencies.[44] The play is not without humour, and the different characters are vivaciously presented, but the blindest admirers of the master may well regret, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... saw him as he passed them like the wind; they wondered, and they shook their heads. Mynheer Poots was not more than half-way to his home, for he had hurt his ankle. Apprehensive of what might possibly take place should his theft be discovered, he occasionally looked behind him; at length, to his horror, he beheld Philip Vanderdecken at a distance bounding on in pursuit of him. Frightened almost out of his senses, the wretched pilferer hardly knew how to act; to stop and surrender up the stolen property was his first ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... flower And rob a shrine at midnight's solemn hour. A rule is needed, to apportion pain, Nor let you scourge when you should only cane. For that you're likely to be overmild, And treat a ruffian like a naughty child, Of this there seems small danger, when you say That theft's as bad as robbery in its way, And vow all villains, great and small, shall swing From the same tree, if men ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... dear Madam, the want of principle Gertrude has shewn ought to be reproved. It was (pray do not think me unkind) but I am afraid I can call it nothing but a theft on ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... that they had been accustomed to assemble on a fixed day before daylight and sing by turns [i.e., antiphonally] a hymn to Christ as a god; and that they bound themselves with an oath, not for any crime, but to commit neither theft, nor robbery, nor adultery, not to break their word and not to deny a deposit when demanded; after these things were done, it was their custom to depart and meet together again to take food, but ordinary and harmless food; and they ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture, into no explanation of his motives, and they walked ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... and carried it away. Then, in a foreign palace, for a short while he revelled in its beauty and the joy of owning it. The Humming Bird did its best to be continually charming, but it felt its false position. And the worry and annoyance of concealing the theft from the Showman, and the different food the Humming Bird required, and the care that had to be taken of it, at last began to weary the man. He chafed and was often disagreeable to it, although he realized its glory and beauty and the feather it was in his cap. Finally, one ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn

... This unexpected intrusion so much frightened all the company, that they ran out of the house as fast as possible, really believing it was an apparition from the tombs come to punish them for their sacrilegious theft. Such power has fear over the strongest mind when taken by surprise! The undaunted adventurer, however, won his wager; which was spent at the same house the Saturday following, when the joke was universally allowed to be a very ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... so in proportion as he scalps and steals horses so does his number of wives increase, and the greater a warrior does he become. In short, he becomes "a big heap chief." What to us becomes a murder or a theft,—the very first act of a young Indian,—in his own tribe is a great and praiseworthy deed. So you see what blood has been shed, and other acts of cruelty caused by Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and others, who have imbrued ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... I stole you! And the curse of God has gone with the theft, and with every step of the thief, from the first day till now. From the first day until now God has lifted that other man up and brought me down. And yet, before God who said, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, he loves you this moment—now!—with ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... the baleful lustre of a chief Once pledged in tyranny! O star of dearth Darkly illumining a nation's grief! How many men have worn thee on their brows! Alas for them and us! God's precious gift Of gracious dispensation got by theft - The damning form of false unholy vows! The thief of God and man must have his fee: And thou, John Lackland, despicable prince - Basest of England's banes before or since! Thrice traitor, coward, thief! O thou shalt be The historic warning, trampled and abhorr'd Who dared ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bo-man, or responsible cow-keeper—the last, in his pastoral county, a charge of trust and respectability. At one period he had an appointment in Lord Reay's forest; but some deviations into the "righteous theft"—so the Highlanders of those parts, it seems, call the appropriation of an occasional deer to their own use—forfeited his noble employer's confidence. Rob, however, does not appear to have suffered in his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... Nature, which will not permit him to shock any one of our Sex to their Faces. But let that pass: For being impeach'd of murdering my Moor, I am thankful, since, when I shall let the World know, whenever I take the Pains next to appear in Print, of the mighty Theft I have been guilty of; But however for your own Satisfaction, I have sent you the Garden from whence I gather'd, and I hope you will not think me vain, if I say, I have weeded and improv'd it. I hope to prevail on the Printer to reprint The Lust's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... inflict in this kingdom are these: for a thief, whatever theft he commits, howsoever little it be, they forthwith cut off a foot and a hand, and if his theft be a great one he is hanged with a hook under his chin. If a man outrages a respectable woman or a virgin he has the same punishment, and if he does any other such violence ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... an invention of his own evil thought, prompted by some selfish motive. You can say the same of theft, murder—in fact of all crime. But God—Good—is not the author of the lie, or crime, neither does He 'permit them for some wise purpose,' as you have quoted, any more than a just and loving human father would teach, or permit, his ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... in an inevitable destiny, and acknowledged but one God. His servant availed himself of this doctrine one day while being beaten for a theft, by exclaiming, "Was I not destined to rob?" "Yes," replied Zeno, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... renders her incapable of attempting violent assaults upon the person, and this would suffice to explain why it is that girls so rarely commit such crimes. In the case of offenses for which bodily strength is less requisite, such as fraud, theft, etc., the number of youthful female offenders is proportionately larger, although here also they are less numerous than males of corresponding age charged with the like offenses. It has been asserted that in the law courts girls find more sympathy ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... His manner was cool and decided. He possessed in an eminent degree the egotism that makes possible great crimes and great criminals, and his degenerate brain dealt with this colossal horror as simply as if it had been a petty theft. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... People. Mercy to Kidnappers. Richard Allen, the Colored Bishop. The Colored Guests at his Table. Kane the Colored Man fined for Blasphemy. John McGrier. Levi Butler. The Musical Boy. Mary Norris. The Magdalen. The Uncomplimentary Invitation. Theft from Necessity. Patrick M'Keever. The Umbrella Girl. The two young Offenders. His courageous intercourse with violent Prisoners. Not thoroughly Baptized. The puzzled Dutchman. Hint to an Untidy Neighbor. Resemblance to Napoleon. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... intemperate; and it is supposed that the beginning of Eugene Aram's downfall was the appetite for drink. The confederacy that he formed with these men is not easily explicable, and probably it never has been rightly explained. The accepted statement is that it was a confederacy for fraud and theft. Clarke was reported to be the heir presumptive to a large fortune. He purchased goods, was punctual in his payments, and established his credit. He was supposed to be making purchases for a merchant in London. He dealt largely in gold and silver plate and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... have chosen a better way in which to fire her imagination. His voice in the dark, his laughing triumph, the daring theft of her fan. Her heart followed him, seeing him a Conqueror even in this, seeing him a robber with his rose-colored booty, a Robin Hood of the Garden, a ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... understood their business, and at first allowed me to win from them considerable sums of money; till, elated with my success, I began playing for higher stakes, and when I lost them, I grew desperate, and it was then that I began adding the sin of theft to the no less heinous one of gambling. But it is no use now to talk of the past; my character is blasted, and all I wish is to die and hide my guild in the grave, and yet I am ill-prepared to die." He became so much excited, that we endeavored to soothe him by kind and encouraging words. His ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... royal seat, afterwards they placed a corpse in it. Some of them drew, over shirts stained with blood, the court-dresses which had circled the waist of royal princesses, and strutted about in this masquerade. Riot and destruction as much as you please, but no theft—such was the order of the day. A young man was bearing off a hat, decorated with plumes of a costly description. "Where are you going," cried his companions, "with that hat?" "It is only a souvenir," said he of the hat. "Ha! good; but in that case ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... see that they didn't want to murder me," he said. "A post-mortem would have prevented that part of the scheme that required my signature—hence the daring theft of my body. But the main thing is that I have made L500 by ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... former a model hill-man, a sturdy, thick-legged, huge-calved, gruff-voiced, full-bearded fellow, hot-tempered, good-humoured, and renowned as an ibex-hunter. His gun, marked "Lazari Coitinaz," was a long-barrelled Spanish musket, degraded to a matchlock: it had often changed hands, probably by theft, and the present owner declared that he had bought it for seventy dollars—nearly 15! Yet its only luxury was the bottom of a breechloader brass cartridge, inlaid and flanked by the sharp incisors of the little Wabar, or mountain coney. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... given the home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft? "It is he who knows how to ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... tell you my motive, except that it is for your good. All I want to ask is, whether this meeting is aware that three members of the new Club are at this moment under the eyes of the police, for a disgraceful act of theft committed in the town; and, if so, whether you think that fact increases their claims to become members of a Club which is to be a ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... to her foes, yet fears her force to try, Because she wants innate authority; For how can she constrain them to obey, Who has herself cast off the lawful sway? Rebellion equals all, and those who toil In common theft, will share the common spoil. Let her produce the title and the right Against her old superiors first to fight; If she reform by text, even that's as plain 460 For her own rebels to reform again. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... indicted a Fox upon a charge of theft; the latter denied that she was amenable to the charge. Upon this, the Ape sat as judge between them; and when each of them had pleaded his cause, the Ape is said to have pronounced {this} sentence: "You, {Wolf}, appear not to have lost what you demand; I believe that you, {Fox}, have ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... purpose of Christ's suffering ("passion") on the cross was to bring love into the world, but after a thousand years of his teaching his image looks down upon theft, anger, murder. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... ascribe to this deep demoralization and want of religion the frequent occurrence of murders, committed not for the sake of robbery or theft, but from motives of revenge and hatred. The murderer either commits the deed himself, or has it perpetrated by one of his slaves, who is ready to lend himself for the purpose, in consideration of a mere trifle. The discovery of the crime need cause ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... Faith, after another moment's hesitation. "I will hear what you have to say on the subject, Mary, but I am sure I shall still think it right to report that theft to-morrow." ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon

... the hunt yet, Ben," urged Roger. "Just as soon as this awful storm is over I'd let the authorities in all the big cities, as well as the little ones, know about the theft, and then they can be on the watch for Porton and his confederate. By the way, I wonder ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... the theft Gryphus, armed with a stick and a knife, attacked Cornelius, calling out, "Give me back my daughter." Cornelius got hold of the stick, forced Gryphus to drop the knife, and then proceeded to give the gaoler a thrashing. The noise brought in turnkeys ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... "but that is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she must have known something about their history; anyone who reads the papers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I should think the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always had the reputation of being ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... transmuted into a Glassy Earth. At the hearing of this, he smiling, say'd You could more dexterously play the Thief, than apply the Tincture. I wonder, that you, so expert in the Fire, do no better understand the fuming Nature of Lead. For if you had wrapped your Theft in yellow Wax, that it might have been conserved from the Fume of Lead, then it would so have penetrated into the Lead, as to have transmuted the same into Gold. But now a Sympathetick Operation ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius

... do his father's bidding, and soon most of the whites and slaves on the place were informed of the theft, and were wild with excitement as ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... sorts of means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for instance, Alessandro Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held office under the republic, was condemned to death for high treason, and to twenty years at the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft, which was palpably absurd; but the Pope, while quashing the first sentence, confirmed the second, and Calandrelli would have remained in prison till the year of grace 1870, as many others did, but for the chance circumstance that his father had been a friend ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... in which the Dean's venerable coachman made the entire disaster hinge upon the theft of the breeching was able, but cannot ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the Islanders from the beginning haue vsed all one with the Norwayes: of the King and his subiects: of the seate of iustice, and of law cases which come to be decided there, of inheritances: of adoptions, marriages, theft, extortions, lending, bargaines, and the rest: all which, to what purpose should they be enioyned vnto them with whom all things are common? We call to witnesse so many broyls and contentions in our courts, and places of iudgement in Island ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... recollected, contained an account of the secret investigations which the Duchess had made as to the private character and opinions of Viglius—at the very moment when he apparently stood highest in her confidence—and charged him with heresy, swindling, and theft. Thus the painstaking and time-serving President, with all his learning and experience, was successively the dupe of Margaret and of Alva, whom he so obsequiously courted, and always of Philip, whom he so feared ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... experimentalized very early in making paper, gunpowder, pottery, and in other arts, which, in later life, he was found thoroughly to understand. His moral faculties appeared strong, so that white witnesses admitted that he had never been known to swear an oath, to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. And, in general, so marked were his early peculiarities that people said "he had too much sense to be raised; and, if he was, he would never be of any use as a slave." This impression of personal destiny grew with his growth: he fasted, prayed, preached, read ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... drinking upon the mind, that a law was formerly passed in Spain which excluded drunkards from being witnesses in a court of justice. But the demoralizing effects of distilled spirits do not stop here. They produce not only falsehood, but fraud, theft, uncleanliness, and murder. Like the demoniac mentioned in the New Testament, their name is "Legion," for they convey into the soul a host of ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... of course, and I examined things pretty carefully. I know that the theft occurred after the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... the undivided opinion that Isom had caught Joe robbing him, and that Joe had shot him in the fear of punishment for the theft. Perhaps it is because chivalry is such a rare quality among the business activities of this life, that none of them believed he was shielding Isom's wife, and that he was innocent of any wrong himself. They did not approve the attempt ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... captains here never ceased to fight and trick for the ownership of the West. From their forts, built to curb the English settlers, the French set the savages on to harass the frontier of our colonies, which their war parties wasted with theft and fire and murder. Our colonies made a poor defense, because they were suspicious of one another. New England was suspicious of New York, New York of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania of Virginia, and the mother country was suspicious of them all. She was willing ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... to exploit the many, the claims of the many to rule wisely as the few—the shibboleth of theorists, the fine spun cobwebs of the doctrinaires, governmental ideals of brotherhood that were mostly sawdust and governmental practices that were mostly theft under privilege—all went down in the smash of the next twenty years' tempest. All that was left was what was real; what would hold water and work ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... may have heard such sounds. I am convinced my evening draught was drugged; and the same secret enemy who did this, to give him opportunity undiscovered to purloin my sword—may, nay, must have entered my chamber during that deathlike sleep, and committed the theft which was to burden an innocent man with his deed of guilt. The deep stillness in the house might have permitted her ear to catch the step, though my sleep was too profound. I could hardly have had time to waken, rise, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... particularly pleased over his errand, and many times while he rode the trail toward Dakota's cabin his lips moved from his teeth in a snarl. Following the incident of the theft of the calves by Blanca, Duncan had taken pains to insinuate publicly that Dakota's purchase of the Star from the half-breed had been a clever ruse to avert suspicion, intimating that a partnership existed between Dakota ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... most dearly personal of his possessions—these, certainly (for Amidon knew the rule of evidence which brands as a thief the possessor of stolen goods); and who could tell of what else? Letters, bags, purses, money—these any vulgar criminal might have, and bear no deeper guilt than that of theft; but, the clothes! Mr. Amidon shuddered as his logic carried him on from deduction to reduction—to murder, and the ghastly putting away of murder's fruit. Imagination threw its limelight over the horrid scene—the deep pool or tarn sending ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... are popularly thought to represent a man laden with a bundle of thorns in punishment of theft:— ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... outside every police-station in London—and over a good part of England—by tomorrow noon. And, of course, we're all at work. But you see, we haven't so far, the slightest clue as to the thieves! For there's no doubt, now, that it was theft ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... a boy, and yet you steal apples. You think it is not theft to do so because of that ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... denied the theft, and required that I should be punished for wrongly accusing him. In this doubtful case, the court demanded witnesses. This demand I could not answer, but proposed that my opponent should take ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... which she kneeled to say her prayers during the day; and which, for a mortification, served her as a pillow during the night. Upon each of the sacred bits she had affixed a label with the name of the saint it belonged to, which occasioned the disclosure. When Madame Letitia heard of this pious theft, she insisted on having the culprit immediately and severely punished; and though the Princesse Borghese, as the innocent cause of poor Rosina's misfortune, interfered, and Rosina herself promised never more to plunder saints, she was without mercy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... foreigners so much; Forgetting that themselves are all derived From the most scoundrel race that ever lived; A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones Who ransack'd kingdoms, and dispeopled towns; The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot, By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought; Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, Whose red-hair'd offspring everywhere remains; Who, join'd with Norman French, compound the breed From whence your ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... plunder of a land is given, When public crimes inflame the wrath of Heaven. But what, my friend, what hope remains for me, Who start at theft, and blush at perjury, Who scarce forbear, though Britain's court he sing, To pluck a titled poet's borrow'd wing; 70 A statesman's logic unconvinced can hear, And dare to slumber o'er the Gazetteer;[4] Despise a fool in half his pension ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... but unfortunate families. When her father came home, she told him what she had done. History does not say, but we can easily guess, what he did. And that was not the last of it; soon after, the King came to her father's house to dine, and having heard about the theft, called the child up to him, and asked her how she had dared to do such a wicked thing as to rob her father and deface the gift of a great monarch. Now, we republicans can have very little idea of what it was to be called up and spoken to ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... acquisition of those habits which adapt an individual to his social environment. It is the instrument society uses to hand down the habits of thinking, feeling, and action which characterize a civilization. Society is protected from murder, theft, and pillage by law and the police, but it is even better protected by the fact that living together peacefully and cooeperatively is for most adults habitual. In a positive sense the multifarious occupations ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... you, my daughter, the toilets of Tonton and of Treville de Saint Julien, I write it for you alone, dear child, and it seems to me it would be a theft against you if I did not. But this is the last time I shall stop to describe petticoats, gowns, and knee-breeches. Treville was twenty-five; large, dark, of a manly, somber beauty. A great unhappiness had overtaken him in childhood and left a permanent trace on his forehead. He wore his hair ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... this respect, because I realise that you would hardly like to tell me. But what I want to tell you is this, that Mr. Lyne is probably framing up a charge against you—that is to say, inventing a charge of theft." ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... him" (ibid.). If a man killed another he was fastened to the corpse and flung overboard (Laws of Oleron). For drawing a weapon in a quarrel, or in mutiny, the offender lost his right hand (ibid.). Theft was generally punished with flogging, but in serious cases the thief was forced to run the gauntlet, between two rows of sailors all armed with thin knotted cords. Ducking from the bowsprit end, towing in a rope astern, and marooning, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... have to ask your pardon for bringing on board your vessel, of which I was Padrone, a Cervoni, who has betrayed you—a traitor!—that is too much. It is too much. Well, I beg your pardon; and you may spit in Dominic's face because a traitor of our blood taints us all. A theft may be made good between men, a lie may be set right, a death avenged, but what can one do to atone for a treachery like this? . . ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... foundation for literal belief, find perhaps no fitter exposure than in the fact that for many centuries it was the prevalent faith of Christendom that every woman has one rib more than man, a permanent memorial of the Divine theft from his side. Unquestionably, there are many good persons now who, if Richard Owen should tell them that man has the same number of ribs as woman, would think of the second chapter of Genesis ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... house, up each of the corners and gables, and along the ridges, this would probably be a sufficient protection for an ordinary building against any thunderstorm in this climate. The copper wire may be built into the wall to prevent theft, but should be connected to any outside metal, such as lead or zinc on the roof, and to metal rain-water pipes. In the case of a powder-mill it might be advisable to make the network closer by carrying one or two additional wires over the roof and down the walls to the wires ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... disappointed you. What shall I do with my sweetheart? Shall she be whipped for her theft? Shall she be shut in a dungeon? Shall she be thrown before elephants? ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... all from Jeremy and The Golden Scarecrow. The "Men and Women" are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, from The Gods and Mr. Perrin; Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Aggie, from The Green Mirror; and Mr. Crashaw, from The Captives. The "Incidents" are chosen with an equal felicity—we have the theft of an umbrella from The Gods and Mr. Perrin and, out of the same book, the whole passage in which Mr. Perrin sees double. There is also a scene from Fortitude, "After Defeat." After two episodes from The ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... history, music, and general lectures on astronomy, natural philosophy, geology, and other subjects." The simpler principles of these branches of learning were to be "rendered intelligible, and a firm foundation laid for the acquirement of future knowledge." Unfortunately a suspicion of theft on Butler's part cut short the fulfilment of this really splendid programme, and Butler left Cromwell hurriedly for the ampler field of Dunedin. There, less than a fortnight after his arrivel{sic}, he was sentenced to four years' hard labour ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... great numbers, but none on the other: this made us conclude that one of the panniers must have contained sweets, and the other only grain." Upon hearing the above, the sultan said to the complainant, "Friend, go and look for thy camel, for these observations do not prove the theft on the accused, but only the strength ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... thief, The editor, minister, judge, and all the people— "A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes And he can't get work, and he can't get bread Without stealing it, why the boy will steal. It's the way the people regard the theft of the apple That makes the ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... of misgivings. When she woke in the middle of the night dreadful pictures presented themselves of Kettles' father stealing upstairs with a poker in his hand in search of the plate-basket. She could hear the dean saying when the theft was discovered: ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... Even the usual pleasure of going shopping with her captain could not mitigate the pain of yesterday's shocking discovery. To Marjorie the bare idea of theft was abhorrent. When, at the Hallowe'en dance, Mignon had accused Constance of taking her bracelet, Marjorie's wrath at the insult to her friend had been ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... did not long succeed in keeping the knowledge of their union from their relatives. Tartini's family, enraged at his conduct, withdrew at once the support they had hitherto given him, and to cap the climax, the bishop accused him of seduction and theft. Warned in time, Tartini fled to Rome, leaving his young wife in Padua without confiding to her the ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... calls many times for a boy to catch it. He snares it and places it in a jar. Lad's grandmother eats the bird. He discovers the theft, leaves home and gets a big stone to swallow him. The grandmother gets horses to kick the stone, carabao to hook it, and chickens to peck it, but without result. When thunder and her friends also fail, she ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... immunity than we had in our house at Benares, which was several times visited by these unwelcome intruders, though we always kept a watchman. All over the North-West, I suppose all over India, thieves abound. Whole tribes have for generations followed theft as a profession, and have betaken themselves to honest work only when compelled by finding their occupation perilous. They have had as their associates the idle and dissolute of other castes. Tents, as I have observed, are commonly pitched in shady groves, and ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... the 15th of January, when Louis Cornbutte was going down into the steward's room to get some lemons, he was stupefied to find that the barrels in which they were kept had disappeared. He hurried up and told Penellan of this misfortune. A theft had been committed, and it was easy to recognize its authors. Louis Cornbutte then understood why the health of his enemies continued so good! His friends were no longer strong enough to take the lemons away from them, though his life and that of his comrades depended ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... seemed plausible, but the master could not harbor a suspicion that Tony was guilty of theft. ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... Florence, Italy, and lived from 1265 to 1321. Like many great men, he incurred the hatred of his countrymen, and he spent, as a result, the last twenty years of his life in exile with a price on his head. He had been falsely accused of theft and treachery, and his indignation at the wrong thus done him and at the evil conduct of his contemporaries led him to write his poem, in which he visits Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, and learns how God punishes bad actions, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... the place of the juryman and interpreted it thus: if it was a case of house-breaking, then there was no theft, because the laundresses themselves sold the linen and spent the money on drink; but if it was a case of theft, then there could ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

... people were originally accused were various, but the principal were theft, sorcery, and causing disease among the cattle; and there is every reason for supposing that in none of these points ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... finger upon some definite assignable wrong-doer, that is, upon some man or some men who can be held responsible for political calamities or errors, as a murderer may be held guilty of murder, or a robber of theft. A calm critic should also reflect on the profound truth of the dictum (attributed by the way to an Irishman) that "history is at best but an old almanack," and, while not entertaining any great hope that antiquarian research ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... to be no robbery about the affair," said the minister, in an apparent dread of rough theft and maybe worse. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... effrontery. "Is it worth while to waste your time so?" she enquired. "You failed the first time tonight, but you can't fail now; I'm alone, I can't oppose you, and you know I won't raise an alarm. Why not stop talking, take what you want and go? And leave me to be accused of theft unless I choose to tell the world—what it wouldn't believe—that my own father stole the necklace ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... in this respect she only did me justice; and, in fact, a theft of the kind she alluded to appeared to me all ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... other crimes. Like Robin Hood and Mike Martin, he robbed the rich and gave to the poor, which none of you should believe makes the crime any less wicked; especially as he did not scruple to use violence in accomplishing his purpose. For some small theft he was shut up in this prison; but while the overseer was at church, Hoeyland broke into his room, stole some of his clothes, and quietly walked out of the castle and out of the town. He was recaptured, but repeatedly made his escape. Though he was heavily ironed, ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... into a surreptitious bottle, and bore it off for the sustenance of a couple of little forlorn kittens that he was acting as special providence for. The meditative smile with which he perpetrated this theft upon the prison authorities was a wonderful sight. Another convict, a hardened old timer, for several weeks lavished cargoes of tenderness upon a rat which he had laboriously conciliated and tamed. "What makes you so fond of that animal?" enquired one day a sentimental and statistical ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... short and easy to steal the life others have made. When you dug, you made the earth live and bring forth as I live and bring forth. It was for that that Lilith set you free from the travail of women, not for theft and murder. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... in a low deep voice, 'to save your victim if I can. Liar and scoundrel you are, in every action of your life; theft is your trade; and double dastard you must be, or you were not here today. Hard words will not move me, nor would hard blows. Here I stand, and will, till I ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... with her slaves, etc. as a return. A poor man will get a wife for a pig. Whatever the number of wives may be, each will have a separate khetee, (field) and each khetee has a separate granary. All the wives live in the same house; in fact, one house forms the village. Theft is punished by a fine inflicted by a meeting of all the Gams; if the fine is not paid, or the offender refuses to pay, he is slain in a general attack. Murder is punished in the same way, but by a heavier fine: adultery against the consent of the husband, or at least elopement, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... the name of Timothy (Dwight), Campbell was appropriating a line, "The hunter and the deer—a shade" from Freneau's "Indian Burying Ground," and knitting it into "O'Connor's Child," and Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion," by altering a single word, was transparently concealing his theft from "The ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... shiftless ghost." The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name: — "Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry: Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: — "Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... he raved, kicking furiously at the hideous wens. Not if he knew it! and going to some stores left in our care by the Line Party, he openly stole several tins of preserved vegetables. "Must have vegetable longa Clisymus," he said, feeling his theft amply justified by circumstances, but salved his conscience by sending a gift of eggs to the Line Party as a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... one could explain it except on the theory of theft, and as her rags were not worth twenty sous, even this theory ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... propensity to steal anything and everything that they could lay their hands upon, especially nails— which, it will be understood, were of very considerable value to us, situated as we then were. But their most serious peccadillo, and the one which had the most disastrous results, was their theft of a brace of revolvers and a number of cartridges. We had no occasion to make use of our firearms until the two savages had been with us about five months; then on a certain day we made the disagreeable discovery that South-west Bay had been invaded by a school of some seven ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... Ye know there needs no second proof with good Gained for our flesh from any earthly source: {275} We might go freezing, ages,—give us fire, Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth, And guard it safe through every chance, ye know! That fable of Prometheus and his theft, How mortals gained Jove's fiery flower, grows old {280} (I have been used to hear the pagans own) And out of mind; but fire, howe'er its birth, Here is it, precious to the sophist now Who laughs the myth ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... of Payne, irritated the natives, and was undoubtedly the cause of their committing depredations and theft, and finally murdering all our remaining crew, excepting ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... ruling out of certain ways of arriving at the human ideal, however that is to be defined, which have been attempted and have been found failures. Whatever else may be the way to reach the end, murder is not, theft is not, and so on. Thus we get the Second Table of the Decalogue, where morality commits itself to prohibitions—this is not the way, that is not the way; then gradually, under the pressure of experience, there begins to emerge the conception of the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... theft of Enna's flower from earth, These urchins celebrate their dance of mirth Round the green tree, like fays upon a heath— Those that are nearest linkt in order bright, Cheek after cheek, like rose-buds in a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... their dummies, in the dozen or so parasitic companies whose stock was nearly all in their own hands, and paid from twenty to forty and even a hundred per cent, on the investment in unadvertised dividends. He thought of this and hundreds of other forms of legalized theft practiced by these men of church standing, who made it a point never to engage in petit larceny. They preferred to steal millions and keep on the safe side. They divided up the "swag" in the office of the American Transportation and Terminal Company, organized solely for that respectable ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... halcyon weather April passed, that year, into May. For three days a gentle breeze had blown from the south; for three more days it continued, dying down at nightfall and waking again at dawn. Stolen days they seemed: cloudless, gradual, golden; a theft of Spring from Harvest-tide. Unnatural weather, many called it: for the air held the warmth of full summer before the first swallow appeared, and while as yet the cuckoo, across the harbour, had been heard ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... hundred dollars! In God's name, why did he not borrow it, ask me for it? thought poor Jamie. He must have known it would be at once discovered. And mixed curiously with Jamie's dismay was a business man's contempt for the childishness of the theft. And yet ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... first wife? Her actions show how widely in India conjugal love may differ from what we know as such, by the absence of monopoly and jealousy. When she first hears of the theft of Vasantasena's jewels in her husband's house she is greatly distressed at the impending loss of his good name, but is not in the least disturbed by the discovery that she has a rival. On the contrary, she takes a string of pearls that remains from ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... English gipsies; rustically ignorant, but with a touch of woodlore and the dexterity of the savage. Whence they came is a moot point. At the time of the war, they poured north in thousands to escape the conscription; lived during summer on fruits, wild animals, and petty theft; and at the approach of winter, when these supplies failed, built great fires in the forest, and there died stoically by starvation. They are widely scattered, however, and easily recognised. Loutish, but not ill-looking, they will sit all day, swinging ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... had just committed a theft. When Lacaille went off he had caught sight of a carrot lying on the ground, and having picked it up he was holding it tightly in his right hand. Behind him were some bundles of celery and bunches of parsley were diffusing pungent odours ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... not know it, is the natural impulse of primitive man. And in war we are very primitive. To take what does not belong to one is very natural when a man is persuaded that he can be absolved from the charge of theft by quoting military necessity. How surely in war one sheds the conventions of society! It has the attraction of buried treasure; the charm of getting something for nothing. But there are different ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... no! I was not ashamed about that. He was wrong, but it was only money. It was my son.... Oh yes—he was transported too—but that was after.... It was only a theft. I cannot talk about my son." Gwen felt that she shuddered, and that danger lay that way. The fever might return. She cast about for anything that would divert the conversation from that terrible ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... done; it shall be the other way, the way it WAS,—now that we bethink ourselves, after all this fighting for our will!" And make Peace on those terms, as if no war had been; and accuse the great Marlborough of many things, of theft for one. A wonderful People; and in their Continental Politics (which indeed consist chiefly of Subsidies) thrice wonderful. So the Treaty of Utrecht is transacting itself; which that of Rastadt, on the part of Kaiser and Empire, unable to get on without Subsidies, will have to follow: and after ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... remarked, "I have discovered that my boy steals money from his father's purse." "Give him a purse of his own," I answered, "and give him ways of earning money of his own." It is asserted that more than half the boys sent to reform schools go there because of theft. How many of them might have been saved if they had been taught how to earn and to know the value of an ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... furthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed (which is not so uncommon), and the stuepige must be severely spoken to. Whatever it was that he wanted, it was not so necessary to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... built him a temple, and cried, "Long live Prejudice against free born Americans of sable hue!" Who but they are continually crying, "The free blacks are dangerous! the free blacks are dangerous! Away with them—away with them to Africa!" Who but they are the apologists for murder, theft, and all the horrid concomitants of slavery? Who but they have defiled our temples of worship dedicated to God for his service, making merchandise of the souls of men by transferring them over ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... his deputy, make up the sum of twenty-three specified by the Jewish writers. In smaller towns, the administration of law was intrusted to three judges, whose authority extended to the determination of all questions respecting debt, theft, rights of inheritance, restitution, and compensation. Though they could not inflict capital punishments, they had power to visit minor offences with scourging and fines, according to the nature of the delinquency and the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... gladly, rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me' (2 Cor 12:9,10). Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake, &c. Let those that suffer for theft and murder hang down their heads like a bulrush, and carry it like those that are going to hanging; but let those whose trials are for the Word of God know, by these very ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... too, was grief enough alone. But darkest and deepest of all, darker and deeper than the past shame of being suspected by him she loved, was the shame of suspecting her own mother—of believing herself, as she did, privy to that shameful theft, and yet unable to make restitution. There was the horror of all horrors, the close prison which seemed to stifle her whole soul. The only chink through which a breath of air seemed to come, and keep her heart alive, was the hope that ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... my great honor—but let no god be told!— He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold. So though, my lads, a Scare-Crow and no true god I be, My master and his vineyard are very dear to me. Keep off your filching hands, lads, and elsewhere ply your theft: ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... afraid of the horrible pains of doomsday—I mean the torments of an unquiet conscience, the amazement and confusions of some sins and some persons. For I have sometimes seen persons surprised in a base action, and taken in the circumstances of crafty theft and secret injustices, before their excuse was ready. They have changed their color, their speech hath faltered, their tongue stammered, their eyes did wander and fix nowhere, till shame made them sink ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... to the police headquarters at once, where the story of the theft was told at length, and as he could give a good description of the men who had robbed him it was thought that ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... overlord— Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the sword; Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood, And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood. Laws they made in the Witan—the laws of flaying and fine— Common, loppage and pannage, the theft and the track of kine— Statutes of tun and market for the fish and the malt and the meal— The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel. Over the graves of the Druids and under the wreck of Rome Rudely but surely they ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... everything away if only he could be at his grandfather's in time, or else intercept the police before they should arrest him. His grandfather would shoot; the boy knew it. Then there would be bloodshed added to theft. But Big Wolf-Willow's lodge was ninety miles distant, and it was the middle of a long, severe winter. What was to be done? One thing only—he, Little Wolf-Willow, must ride, ride, ride! He must ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... Here was her quiver from her shoulder thrown; Her slender bow unstrung; and on the ground With soft grass clad she rested: 'neath her neck Was plac'd the painted quiver. Jove, the maid Weary'd beheld, and from her wonted troop Far distant. "Surely now, my wife," he cries, "This theft can ne'er discover. Should she know, "What is her rage with such a prize compar'd?" Then Dian's face and form the god conceal'd; Loud calling,—"Where, O virgin, hast thou stray'd? "What hills, my comrade, hast thou crost in chase?" Light springing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... have any intention of robbing anyone when he asked for lodging? Was Valjean accountable for the theft? Discuss fully. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... first thing is to accept the principle that wealth cannot be accepted except in exchange for full-measure service. You, Mrs. Transley—you teach your little boy that he must not steal. As he grows older simply widen your definition of theft to include receiving value without giving value in exchange. When all the mothers begin teaching that principle the golden age which Mr. Murdoch inquires about ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... Phillips, almost inevitable, set Borrow wandering, and very soon he became acquainted with the old fruit-woman who found a valid defence for theft in the history of "the blessed Mary Flanders," a dog's-eared volume of "Moll Flanders," wherein Borrow found "the air, the style, the spirit of the writer of the book" which first taught him to read—Defoe, of course. This classic is ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... possession which she holds most dear. For without virtue, these women are nothing. Without virtue, you may see them dragging the bed of the streets for the bodies they can find. It is the last task which Nature sets them—bait to lure men from the theft of that virtue in others which they can in ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... Theodorean; though we scarcely know in what his doctrines differed from those of Aristippus, unless they were, if possible, of a still more lax character. He taught, for instance, that there was nothing really wrong or disgraceful in theft, adultery, or sacrilege; but that they were branded by public opinion to restrain fools. He is also reproved with utter atheism; and Cicero classes him with Diagoras, as a man who utterly denied the existence ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... afternoon, moreover, the Widow Chupin received her conditional release. There was no difficulty as regards her son, Polyte. He had, in the mean time, been brought before the correctional court on a charge of theft; and, to his great astonishment, had heard himself sentenced to thirteen months' imprisonment. After this, M. Segmuller had nothing to do but to wait, and this was the easier as the advent of the Easter holidays gave him an opportunity to ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... that day when he had got off the train at Willets with his men and Blondy Antrim. He had not permitted any of them to suspect that the incident of the attempted theft of a portion of the trail herd had affected him. But it had affected him. It had aroused him as he never had been aroused before; it had filled him with a passionate hatred of Gary Warden so intense that when his thoughts ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... time he expected to make her another visit in the course of a month or two, but circumstances prevented. The fact is, he was imprudent enough to commit theft and incautious enough to be detected, not long afterward, and the consequence ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.

... of gold; To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire, And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire. Yet not to total shame those names devote, But add in mercy this explaining note: "These cheat because the law makes theft a crime, And they obey all laws but laws ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... difficult affair, as the ikon was under guard. But Ostrov's friends were counting on taking advantage of one of the summer feasts, when the monks, escorting distinguished pilgrims, would have drunk freely. The thieves had still a month in which to make preparations for the theft; they meant to make use of this time by becoming friendly with the monks, and in this way familiarize themselves ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... history of morality as reflected in jurisprudence, by turning our eyes not on the law of Contract but on the law of Crime, we must be careful that we read it aright. The only form of dishonesty treated of in the most ancient Roman law is Theft. At the moment at which I write, the newest chapter in the English criminal law is one which attempts to prescribe punishment for the frauds of Trustees. The proper inference from this contrast is not that the primitive Romans practised a higher morality than ourselves. We should rather ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... Rafaravavy to escape of her own free will is not theft," replied the guide, gravely. "When we are persecuted in one city Scripture advises us ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... is necessary for them to know. Even the idea of the respect that they should have for the property of the rich, is only difficult to be insinuated among them—first, because they look on riches as a sort of usurpation, of theft perpetrated upon them, and unhappily this opinion is in great part true—secondly, because their excessive poverty makes them always consider themselves in the case of absolute necessity—a case in which even very severe moralists have been of their ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... put you in Mind of that Matter, that in these the Passives also obtain a second Accusative Case. The others will have a Genitive." You are taught Letters by me. They accuse me of Theft. I am accused of Theft. Thou accusest me of Sacrilege. I am accused of Sacrilege. I know you are not satisfied yet. I know you are not satisfied in Mind. For when will so great a Glutton of Elegancies be satisfy'd? But I must have Regard to the Company, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... to the gospel which they profess as their guide, and putting the Negro apart in spite of the word of God, whom they worship, that he is no respecter of persons. The Negro was brought over here by theft and outrage. He is here to stay, and we must deal with him according to the golden rule, and as we would wish to be done by if we ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... blame on ourselves for letting it grow up in neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing influences! They hung poor, crazy Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The ordinary of Newgate preached to women who were to swing at Tyburn for a petty theft as if they were worse than other people,—just as though he would not have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if he had been born in a den of thieves and bred up to steal or starve! The English law never began to get hold of the idea that a crime was not necessarily a sin, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Dick left his last shop with the certainty that he would be respectably arrayed for a time, but with only fifty shillings in his pocket. He returned to streets by the Docks, and lodged himself in one room, where the sheets on the bed were almost audibly marked in case of theft, and where nobody seemed to go to bed at all. When his clothes arrived he sought the Central Southern Syndicate for Torpenhow's address, and got it, with the intimation that there was still some ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... appear so only from not adverting to what was shewn to be the essential nature of true Religion. He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshipper of the deified patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which have been specified, the external acts indeed are different; but in principle the disaffection is the same; and unless we return to our allegiance, we must expect the title, and prepare to meet the punishment, of rebels on that tremendous day, when all false ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... Figeac, and even the place and time at which the latter was so imprudent as to meet him, I could fancy the deserted mistress laying this plot; and first placing the packet where we found it, and then punishing her lover by laying the theft at his door. True, he might be guilty; and it might be only confession and betrayal on which jealousy had thrust her. But the longer I considered the whole of the circumstances, as well as the young man's character, and the lengths to which I knew a woman's ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... an Athenian named Draco was employed to write out a code for the state. The laws, as published, were very severe. The penalty for most offenses, even the smallest theft, was death. The Athenians used to declare that the Draconian code had been written, "not in ink, but in blood." Its publication, however, was a popular triumph and the first step toward the establishment of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... put the bag back, while he was recovering himself in Mrs. Wagner's room. Who could have been near enough to hear the alarm? Somebody in the empty bedrooms above? Or somebody in the solitary offices below? If a theft had really been committed, the one likely object of it would be the key of the desk. This pointed to the probability that the alarm had reached the ears of the thief in the offices. Was there any ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... plate; that he had nae doubt but your leddyship had gi'e them commission to purloin it; that your leddyship's visit and compleent to the poleece was naught but a blind to deceive them; and finally that he demanded to have a warrant issued for the arrest of the negroes on the charge of theft. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... friends in office, after the fashion of all Governors, whether they enter office to the cry of 'Liberty' or not. The friends of Alvar Nunez, in the usual Spanish fashion (long sanctified by use and wont), declared themselves in opposition — that is, they roamed about the land, proving by theft and murder that their love of liberty was just as strong as that of those in power. Things shortly came to such a pass that no one could leave his house by night. The marauding Guaycurus burnt all the suburbs, and threatened to attack ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... is sufficient to show the immense influence which an elder brother or sister may have, for weal or for woe, over the younger children. The smothered falsehood, the petty theft, the robbing of a bird's-nest, the incipient oath, the first intoxicating draught, the making light of serious things, with the repeated injunction—"Don't tell mother!" may foster in a younger brother the germ of evil propensities, and lead ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... everywhere, as though he were the greatest man of the day; and who should the Syrian nabob turn out to be, but a man he had employed as a servant in the East, and whom he had been obliged to get bastinadoed for petty theft. In England we run after we know not whom; in America, if a lord be run after, there is at all events a strong presumption in favour of his being at least a gentleman. We toady our Indian swells, and they toady their English swells; and I trust, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... have sped their flight— Still in that theft of sweet delight Exult the happy pair; Caress will never pall caress, And joys that gods might envy, bless The single bride-night there. Ah! never he has rapture known, Who has not, where the waves are driven Upon ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... placing the gorgeous trimmings on the Nuncio's coach carefully searched, lest he should have concealed about his person a scrap of the valuable material. That they are thieves is not to be wondered at when their catechism teaches them "that a theft that does not exceed a certain amount is not a ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... against theft, murder, and oppression, and though he wielded oppressive and despotic authority himself, his people enjoyed a golden age as compared with those that were past. The king, governors, and chiefs constituted the magistracy, and there ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... as the "fourth example." No case more clearly illustrates the credulity that neutralized common sense in strong men. It was a case of abstraction, or theft, or mistaken thrift. A "chest of cloaths" was missing. The owner, instead of going to law, found his remedy "in things beyond the course of nature," and he and his friends with "nimble hands" pelted Desborough's house, and himself when abroad, with ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... but still you must remember the Princess does not in the least suspect her husband of the theft." ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... by theft when thievery was practicable; at other times he went fishing for himself with an ill will. Meantime, he developed strength and craft, both in extraordinary degree. There was not a more successful criminal in the pack, nor was there a more despicable bully. When the first snow fell, Tog was master ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... On one occasion a crowd of lperos being collected, and the image carried round to be kissed, one of them, affecting intense devotion, bit off the large pearl that adorned her dress in front, and before the theft was discovered, he had mingled with the crowd and escaped. When reminded of the circumstance, the padre said it was true, but that the thief was a Frenchman. After taking leave of the Virgin, we visited the padre in his ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... drunkenness: simony: witch-craft: breaking of the holy-days: sacrilege: to receive GOD'S Body in deadly sin: breaking of vows: apostacy: dissipation in GOD'S service: to set example of ill deeds: to hurt any man in his body, or in his goods, or in his fame: theft: rapine: usury: deceit: selling of righteousness: to hearken ill: to give to harlots: to withhold necessaries from the body, or to give it to excess: to begin a thing that is above our might: custom to ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... put it? Yet my greed received a check. I had a letter from friend Hicks. It was a most grievous letter: my money, all that he held in trust for me (and it was my all), had been stolen from his keeping. The theft had occurred more than a month ago, but as he had sedulously hoped to detect the culprit, he had kept the fact from me for shame at what might be termed his negligence of reposed trust. He had instigated diligent search, but nothing had come of it: there was no one to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... occasional cyclone added excitement; the cattle were apt to stampede senselessly; and, while the Indian had not yet developed the hostility that later made a journey across the plains so dangerous, nevertheless the possibilities of theft were always near enough at hand to keep the traveler alert and interested. Then there was the sandy country of the Platte River with its buffalo—buffalo by the hundreds of thousands, as far as the eye could reach—a marvelous ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... stretched to include resemblances. For instance, when we charge the brain of an entranced patient with some strange idea, such as, 'On awakening you will rob Mr. So-and-so of his handkerchief,' and on awakening, the patient accomplishes the theft commanded, can we believe that in such a sequence there is nothing more than an image associated with an act? In point of fact, the patient has appropriated and assimilated the idea of the experimenter. She does not passively execute a strange order, but ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various



Words linked to "Theft" :   pilferage, breach of trust with fraudulent intent, felony, embezzlement, petty larceny, defalcation, petit larceny, biopiracy, shrinkage, misapplication, rustling, petty, peculation, robbery, misappropriation, grand larceny, skimming, shoplifting



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