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Contraband   /kˈɑntrəbˌænd/   Listen
Contraband

adjective
1.
Distributed or sold illicitly.  Synonyms: black, black-market, bootleg, smuggled.



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"Contraband" Quotes from Famous Books



... less a man than General Santa Anna himself. It is all for his army, whenever he gets one, but it goes first to the castle of San Juan de Ulua, at Vera Cruz. If war has been declared, or if it has in any way begun, the whole thing is what they call contraband of war, and the Goshawk is liable to be ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... enough, listening to the stories of the izzard-hunter, who related to them much of the lore current among the peasantry of the mountains—tales of the chase, and of the contraband trade carried on between Spain and France, besides many anecdotes about the Peninsular war, when the French and English armies were campaigning in the Pyrenees. In this conversation Pouchskin took part: for nothing was of greater interest ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... they set out was lost or taken, or whether its Cargo was seized on by the Officers of the Custom-house, as a piece of Contraband Goods, I have not yet been able to learn; it is, however, certain their first Attempts were without Success, to the no small Disappointment of our whole Female World; but as their Constancy and Application, in a matter of so ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... justice, with opposition to oppression, with respect for national rights, with honourable commercial enterprise, but now under the auspices of the noble lord [Palmerston] that flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of China, we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should never again feel our hearts thrill, as they now thrill, with emotion when it floats magnificently ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Calcutta, and with as little hope for its liberation into the glad air of a free press. Yet it is with me now in Paris. In that last distracted moment of packing, when all sense of what is needed has left one, it was thrust into a glove case like contraband cigarettes. There may have been some idea of remolding it with a few deceiving touches—make a soldier of the hero probably—but with the "love interest" firmly remaining. There was only one Perfect Day ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... of everything save life, the professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant girls, for the bath-house—here at length plunged beneath the flood he found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved there to starve ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... quaking meekness of heart, experienced the bold indignation of virtue at his account of the way people were made their own baggage-smashers, and would not be amused when he painted the vile terrors of each husband as he tremblingly unlocked his wife's store of contraband. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... rigorous on the matter of this innocent powder, and in consequence an immense contraband trade is carried on. The spies employed by the Spanish snuff-makers are always on the look-out after foreign snuff, and if they detect anyone carrying it they make him pay dearly for the luxury. The ambassadors ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Harry, who regarded Ethel's attainments as something contraband. "D'ye think I could tell? No, that's the only pity, that he can't hear it; but, after all, I don't care for anything he does, now I know he has shown ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... carefully, and come to the conclusion it was a good one. A trip "across the way," as people remembered his father used to say, over to the costa d'afora, to Algiers! No fishing, you understand. Fish aren't always around when you need them most. No, not that! But a cargo of contraband, the boat crammed to the decks with alguilla and flor de mayo, God of Gods! There, rediel, was business for you! And that was what the old man had done a thousand times. Well, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Huddard's, except that it was in Mountjoy Square, and about a hundred boys were herded there in unsought proximity. We boarders always fought the town boys, but also had to cajole them in humiliating ways to smuggle us in contraband articles of food. The meals at Huddard's were fairly good, no doubt, as school fare goes, but the sugary stick-jaw stuff for which the soul of a boy longs was naturally not part of the official ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... we were boarded by two revenue officers, who seemed more surprised than pleased to see me; as, however, my papers were in perfect order, and nothing either compromising or contraband was found in my possession, they allowed me to land, and I thought that my troubles (for the present) were over. But I had not been ashore many minutes when I was met by a sergeant and a file of soldiers, who asked me politely, yet ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... Commissioners (the church) Do strictly authorise the right of search: As always practis'd—you're to understand By these what articles are contraband; Guns, mortars, pistols, halberts, swords, pikes, lances, Ball, powder, shot, and the appurtenances. Videlicet—whatever can be sent To give the enemy encouragement. Ogles are small shot (so the instruction runs), Touches hand grenades, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

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

... legislation, backed by the armed force of the North-West Mounted Police, swept these frightful pollutions from the fair face of the prairie, how they thrived on the encouragement of gambling and the sale of contraband spirits. The West is a cleaner country now, thanks to the untiring ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... inadmissible. If the Spanish Government did not admit the other articles of English produce, the duty on Spanish wines could not be reduced. English cottons were an object of necessity for the Spanish people, and came in by contraband; whereas Spanish wines were but an article of luxury for the English. Senor Sanchez Silva concludes, that it is quite useless to renew the negotiations, the English note being couched in the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... youthful days or the narratives of their predecessors. Perhaps no frontier is so rich in these tales as that between Spain and France, where the mountainous recesses of the Pyrenees offer secure retreats to the half-robber who drives the contraband trade, as well as safe routes for the transportation of his merchandise. On the line between the Russian Empire and Germany the trade is greater in amount than elsewhere, but is devoid of the romantic features which it possesses in other countries. There, owing to the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

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

... a pair of old pistols. The authorities give every encouragement to the trader; but the duties exacted are high, for at Kupang and Roti they demand six rupees duty for every horse exported, or musket imported. Arms and gunpowder are no longer considered contraband. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... next to nothing, is almost miraculous when we remember that printing was still carried on under a rigid censorship by a select body of monopolists, and that out of London, and in rare cases the university towns, it was impossible for a minor poet to get into print at all unless he trusted to the contraband presses of the Continent. In dealing with this crowd of enthusiastic poetical students it is impossible to mention all, and invidious to single out some only. The very early and interesting Posy of Gillyflowers of Humphrey Gifford (1580) exhibits the first ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... the deceased, who was conservative in his views and actions, belongs the credit of first enunciating the 'contraband' idea as subsequently applied in the practical treatment of the slaves of rebels, Early in the spring of 1861, Flag-Officer Pendergrast, in command of the frigate 'Cumberland,' then the vessel blockading the Roads, restored ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... and the "distinguished member of Congress," figured somewhat largely as the sources of those very discrepant statements; and those persons are notoriously untrustworthy; even more so than the "intelligent contraband" of the war times. But after all it was a puzzle—unless, indeed, upon the assumption that these newspapers published each of them, not what they knew to be the fact, but what they thought their readers would like to be told; a theory not to be entertained for a moment. Nevertheless ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

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

... now his glance went, not to my doublet, but to the man within. "A trader!" he said curtly. "A trader carrying contraband brandy. A good commandant would send you back where you belong. No, no, monsieur, wait! I am not threatening you. Though you know as well as I that the thumb-screws are rather convenient to my hand should I care to use them. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... and cabins must all give up their trunks; a general muster among the baggage, and passenger after passenger comes forward as their names are called, much as follows: "Snooks." "Here, sir." "Any thing contraband here, Mr. Snooks? Any ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... United States does not understand to be proposed in this case. To declare and exercise the right to attack and destroy any vessel entering a prescribed area of the high seas without first accurately determining its belligerent nationality and the contraband character of its cargo, would be an act so unprecedented in naval warfare that this Government is reluctant to believe that the Imperial German Government in this case contemplates it ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

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

... Morley, or the chief baron of the Court of Exchequer, Lord Manwood, or some merchants or poor artisans or an "Elice Gailer, of Berton, yeoman," that appear before the council at its summons; whether it is engaged in formulating rules for articles contraband of war, or trying to put an end to illicit coinage on the borders of Wales; whether engaged in one or other of a hundred different interests, the council is always active, intrusive, and high- handed. [Footnote: Ibid, 231, 305, 314, 378, 449, 572.] It regulated manufactures ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

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

... of merchandise that he did not only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides and other like commodities, which he sent into Spain,' where both hulks and hides were confiscated as being contraband. ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

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

... looking to the abandonment of northern Mexico were forthwith adopted by those in authority—a policy that would have resulted in the speedy evacuation of the entire country by Maximilian, had not our Government weakened; contenting itself with a few pieces of the contraband artillery varnished over with the Imperial apologies. A golden opportunity was lost, for we had ample excuse for crossing the boundary, but Mr. Seward being, as I have already stated, unalterably opposed to any ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... is,—Miss Allison, and their maid were billeted in very comfortable rooms under Herr Schnorr's hospitable roof. Elmendorf stepped in to write letters, and Cary sneaked out for a smoke. It was after ten. The shops were closed. Cigarettes had been strictly forbidden, and the boy's small stock of contraband had been discovered and seized that morning at Bonn. Herr Max wrote currente calamo, and as he turned off page after page he lost all thought of his charge. Among Cary's treasured possessions was a calibre 32 Smith & Wesson, and with this pellet-propeller ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

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

... naval Power intent upon ruining its adversary and that larger part of the world which remains at peace and desires to carry on its trade with as little obstruction as possible. It was admitted on all sides that a belligerent may search a neutral vessel in order to ascertain that it is not conveying contraband of war, and that a neutral vessel, attempting to enter a blockaded port, renders itself liable to forfeiture; but beyond these two points everything was in dispute. A Danish ship conveys a cargo of wine from a Bordeaux ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... "Essay on the Rights of Neutral Nations," in which he took a position at variance on a single point with that which he held when vindicating Jay's Treaty a few years before. In that treaty Great Britain had stipulated that naval stores should be prohibited as contraband of war, and Webster, in common with others, assumed with reluctance that such prohibition was in accordance with the general law of nations, although admitting that this was the most vulnerable article of the treaty. Further investigation ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... how strange, fictitious or paradoxical this may seem, still, even these compositions, and drawings, and obscene photographic cards, did not arouse a delightful curiosity. They were looked upon as a prank, a lark, and the allurement of contraband risk. In the cadets' library were chaste excerpts from Pushkin and Lermontov; all of Ostrovsky, who only made you laugh; and almost all of Turgenev, who was the very one that played a chief and cruel role ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... perfect order, vised for here and there and everywhere, with good clothes, good luggage, and nothing contraband in baggage or demeanor, Alexandrowo is easy enough. Obedience and patience will see the traveller through. There is no fear of his being left in the huge station, or of his going anywhere but to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... as tramps plying contraband between South America and Mexico, His Majesty's postmen were delivering His Majesty's mail, with never a thought of the play of human emotions lying behind the sealed lips of an envelope. If His Majesty's ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... The contraband and stolen property was piled in assorted heaps on the back veranda of the bungalow. A few paces from the bottom of the steps were grouped the forty-odd culprits, with behind them, in solid array, the several ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... crazy gringo Don Abran tried to stop from going into the desert! We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it was a contraband conducta owned by friends of ours who attacked you back of the town! Droll, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

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

... of Davie's adventures in his contraband trade. In days when he was young and strong revenue officers would scour the hills with a small band of soldiers in their company, the better to over-awe the country folk. On one such occasion Davie had the misfortune to be apprehended in his house, when off his guard; for he was well known ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... Aremberg, the Hanse towns, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck, were, together with a portion of the kingdom of Westphalia, at the same time also incorporated by Napoleon with France, under pretext of putting a stop to the contraband trade carried on on those coasts, more particularly from the island of Heligoland. He openly aimed at converting the Germans, and they certainly discovered little disinclination to the metamorphosis, into French. He pursued the same policy toward the Italians, and, had he continued to ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... (I'm a mixture of RUPERT the Rover and KRUPP). At Jarrow Slake moored, my trim wherry or boat I rejoiced in, and sung "I'm afloat! I'm afloat!" For quick-firing guns ammunition I made, Engaging (says FORD) in the contraband trade. An inquest was held, but its verdict cleared me. I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... door; warn off; dash the cup from one's lips; forbid the banns. Adj. prohibitive, prohibitory; proscriptive; restrictive, exclusive; forbidding &c. v. prohibited &c. v.; not permitted &c. 760; unlicensed, contraband, impermissible, under the ban of; illegal &c. 964; unauthorized, not to be thought of, uncountenanced, unthinkable, beyond the pale. Adv. on no account &c. (no) 536. Int. forbid it heaven! &c. (deprecation) 766. hands off! keep off! hold! stop! desist! cease and desist! avast! Phr. that will ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

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

... was connected with the camp, and this next received the Commandant's attention. Everything about it appeared to be regular. A vast number of letters came and went, but they all passed unsealed, and seemed to contain nothing contraband. Many of them, however, were short epistles on long pieces of paper, a curious circumstance among correspondents with whom stationery was scarce and greenbacks were not over-plenty. One sultry day in June, the Commandant builded a fire, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... till 1763 is mainly the story of the pressure of the English colonies on this paper barrier. As regards Spanish America, England was content to profit by the Asiento (q.v.) treaty, which gave her the monopoly of slave- hunting for the Spanish colonies and an opening for contraband trade. In the river Plate region, where the dissensions of Spaniards and Portuguese afforded another opening, English traders smuggled. The Spaniards, with monstrous fatuity, refused to make use of the superb waterways provided by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... told all about its uses,—how Clinch,—in the event of a raid by State Troopers or Government enforcement agents,—could empty his contraband hootch into the lake if necessary,—and even could slide a barrel of ale or a keg of rum, intact, into the great tile tunnel and recover the liquor ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

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

... explain certain facts not in all respects to her credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search; but old Sophy considered that a game ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... frontier line, might be skirted by taking a lonely and difficult road to the right within a mile or so of our exit from Austrian territory. I had ascertained also that a sentry was on duty on this pathway night and day, his main duty being to prevent the passage of contraband goods. That we should have to deal with this fellow was an absolute certainty, and had been from the first, but it was easier to reckon with one man than with the dozen posted at ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... cried Somerset. "If what you say be true, you have no call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

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

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

... (GANZ UND GAR); they were not to circulate at all in his Countries; and I was so bold, I had brought batzen hither into the King's Capital, KONIGLICHE RESIDENZ itself! At the Packhof, there was but one answer, 'Contraband, Contraband!'"—Here was a welcome for a man. "I made my excuses: Did not the least know; came straight from Thuringen, many miles of road; could not guess there What His Majesty the King had been pleased to forbid in His (THEIRO) Countries. 'You should have informed yourself,' said the Packhof ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... American waters. Ever since the renewal of hostilities with France in 1803 a species of blockade had been maintained along the coast of the United States by British vessels on the watch for deserters or contraband of war. It was also found necessary to employ ships of war to guard against pirates in the West Indies and to protect British commerce in that quarter against French privateers. For all these purposes speed was of more importance than strength, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... obligation authorize Congress to pass any law whatsoever on the subject, however atrocious and wicked? Had you voted for a law to prevent smuggling, in which you had authorized every tide-waiter to shoot any person suspected of having contraband goods in his possession, would it have been a good "reason" for such an atrocity, that the collection of duties was "a constitutional obligation"? You are condemned for voting for an arbitrary, detestable, ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock

... ended by opening the valise and taking out the packages of currency which it contained. It was a strange picture to gaze upon. The fire-lit cave, shrouded outside with mystery and darkness, but its heart alive with light and warmth; the rude appliances and paraphernalia for distilling the contraband "mountain dew"; the floor strewn with blankets, cooking- tins, a rifle or two, and provisions, while, bathed in the warm glow of the cheerful fire, secure from pursuit and comfortably housed from the weather, the three men, with greedy eyes, drank in the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

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

... said nothing, but stood by to take in sail as they ran swiftly toward the little quay. The pace slackened, and the Arabella, as though conscious of the contraband in her forecastle, crept slowly to where a stout, middle-aged woman, who bore a strong likeness to the mate, stood ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

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

... return for all these gifts, these glorious gifts, what have the inhabitants done? they have left the land uncultivated, and the mountains unsearched. Mines of all sorts abound. Copper, (which is sold in secret only, and is a contraband article,) were its mines worked on a grand scale, would alone furnish a new element of commerce to Constantinople, and might help to draw it from its present state of torpor. But will the Turks ever dream of such a thing? Never! For like the dog in the fable, the Ottomans will neither profit themselves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... we arrived off Greenwich, and Bramble told me to go on shore and remain with my father and mother until he came down, which he would do in a few days, and pay a visit to his old friend Anderson. I landed with all my contraband articles in the boat, but no one thought of stopping or searching the former "Poor Jack." My insignificance was my protection; and I arrived safely at Fisher's Alley with all my curiosities and prohibited effects. When I entered the ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... reviewed them with a somewhat jealous eye, did not seem to perceive their beauty, and told her to take them away again. But the next day, when Esther was not in the room, he examined the collection carefully, looking to see if there were anything that looked like contraband 'Christmas greens.' There were some sprigs of laurel and holly, that served to make the hues of the bouquet more varied and rich. That the colonel did not think of; all he saw was that they were bits of the objectionable 'Christmas.' Colonel Gainsborough carefully pulled them out and threw them ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... her down, and presently, in a voice rich with loyal pride, as the carriage moved on, bade Charlie and Miranda observe that only things made contraband by the Richmond Congress were burning, while all the Coast Landing's wealth of Louisiana foodstuffs, in barrels and hogsheads, bags and tierces, lay unharmed. Yet not long could their course hold that way, and—it was Anna who ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... had the Seaman's volvent sprite, Lean from the chase that barked his contraband, A beggared applicant at every port, To strew the profitless deeps and rot beneath, Slung northward, for a hunted beast's retort On sovereign power; there his final stand, Among the perjured Scythian's shaggy horde, The hydrocephalic aerolite Had taken; flashing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

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

... epoch opened by our narrative, been absent from him upwards of five years. From his frequent voyages, and the direction his canoe was seen to take, it was inferred by his immediate neighbours, that he dealt in contraband, procuring various articles on the American coast, which, he subsequently disposed of in the small town of Amherstburgh (one of the principal English posts) among certain subjects domiciliated there, who were suspected of no ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... more than three months in Dumfries, before he (p. 145) found an opportunity of testifying by deed his sympathy with the French Revolutionists. At that time the whole coast of the Solway swarmed with smuggling vessels, carrying on a contraband traffic, and manned by men of reckless character, like the Dirk Hatteraick of Guy Mannering. In 1792, a suspicious-looking brig appeared in the Solway, and Burns, with other excisemen, was set to watch her motions. She got into shallow water, when the ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... of general international law, there is nothing to prevent neutral States from allowing contraband of war to reach the enemies of Germany through or out of their territory. This is also permitted by Article VII. of the Hague Convention of the 19th October, 1907, dealing with the rights and duties of neutrals in the case of land or sea war. If a State uses this freedom to the advantage ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... of "the pocket." And it was a secure shelter. No one came here; no one was likely to. Its uncanny reputation, added to the almost impassable barricade of rocks and ledges all about, made it what Captain Wolf needed—a veritable burrow for a sea fox. Here he brought his cargo of contraband spirits and stored them in the cave. Here he repacked kegs of rum inside of empty mackerel kits, storing them aboard the sloop with genuine ones. By this ruse he almost obliterated the chance of detection. Like a sly fox, ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

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

... less he seemed content. Sarcasms of which the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then flowed out the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I was vaguely threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the abstract—the godlike thirst after discovery—these feelings were known to me but by ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... more. The Japanese lieutenant, with his men, rejoined us, and motioned us to lead the way below. We complied, and introduced them to our "cargo," the barrels lying everywhere three or four deep above the contraband of war. How consuming was our anxiety as they poked about! Things went well enough for a while; they never penetrated into the casks which they caused to be opened deep enough to find the cartridges, or hoisted out enough of them to come at what was beneath. Our spirits were ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... dear," he said. "All fit and well, I can see. Now hand over your keys. I suppose you have nothing contraband? I telephoned the duchess to send some of her people to meet your luggage, and not to expect you herself until dinner time, as you were taking tea with us. Was that right? This way. Come outside the barrier. What ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... entered my house forcibly, accompanied by a band of sbirri. He turned everything upside down, on the pretext that he was in search of a portmanteau full of salt—a highly contraband article. He said he knew that a portmanteau had been landed there the evening before, which was quite true; but it belonged to Count S——, and only contained linen and clothes. Messer-Grande, after inspecting it, went ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the owner of the sloop: he was a tall, corpulent man, who for many years had charge of a similar vessel, until by "doing a little contraband," he had pocketed a sufficient sum to enable him to purchase one for himself. But the profits being more than sufficient for his wants, he had for some time remained on shore, old Thompson having charge of the vessel. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... subjects on which the Emperor would listen to no raillery was that of custom-house duties, and towards all contraband proceeding he showed inflexible severity; and this reached such a point, that one day M. Soiris, director of the custom-house at Verceil, having seized a package of sixty cashmere shawls, sent from Constantinople to the Empress, the Emperor approved his action, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... medicines which were declared by the enemy to be contraband of war, our medical department had to seek in the forest for substitutes, and to add surgical instruments and appliances to the small stock on hand as ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... were not due except in case of invasion. The French had meanwhile been offering the Dutch considerable commercial privileges in exchange for their neutrality, with the result that Dutch merchantmen were seized by the English cruisers and carried into English ports to be searched for contraband. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... newspaper report stated that as the breastworks and batteries which had been so rapidly erected for Confederate defense in every direction on the Virginia peninsula were built by enforced negro labor under rigorous military impressment, negroes were manifestly contraband of war under international law. The dictum was so pertinent, and the equity so plain, that, though it was not officially formulated by the general until two months later, it sprang at once into popular acceptance ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... methods. Time alone was needed in their isolated geographical condition to develop an industrial strength more efficient in Europe than an armed force at that time As Washington said, just before issuing a proclamation warning all citizens of the United States neither to aid nor to carry contraband goods to either belligerent: "I believe it is the sincere wish of America to have nothing to do with the political intrigues or the squabbles of European nations; but, on the contrary, to exchange commodities and live in peace and ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... contribute to the maintenance of the war, often more than the same number of males. The slave children equally contribute whatever they are able to the support of the war. Indeed, he well supported General Butler's declaration, that slaves are contraband of war. ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various

... morocco. Perhaps a gesture and a remark on my part aroused his suspicions. He opened the glass, tried to take it to pieces, inspected it inside and out, and was so disgusted with his failure to find anything contraband in it that he returned everything to the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

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

... the war-conditions and in the knowledge of being the centre of commerce and industry, a courageous attempt was made. At the instigation of the Exchange, commerce and the spinners of Germany and Austria-Hungaria united, to give a bid for one million bales of cotton to the Americans. Cotton was no contraband of war, and America was neutral, so no difficulties seemed to be in the way of executing this plan. The buyer was prepared to pay the price which the Americans might demand, and the goods were to be paid in hard cash dollars. Yet the offer ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... eye, or a sigh on her lips. If the robber were to be strangled in a corner of his dungeon; if the general were to be put to death privately in his own apartment; if the widow were to be burnt quietly on her own hearth; if the nun were to be secretly smuggled in at the convent gate like a bale of contraband goods,—we might hear another tale. This girl was very young, but by no means pretty; on the contrary, rather disgraciee par la nature; and perhaps a knowledge of her own want of attraction may have caused the world to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... necessaries as well as the luxuries for which they depended upon Spain, and an extensive smuggling trade grew up which no efforts on the part of the authorities could repress. Monopoly was starved out through the very rigor exerted to make it exclusive, and the markets were so glutted with contraband goods that the galleons could scarcely dispose ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... governor, and the following may be taken as fair examples of the manner in which this class of offenders were dealt with. A convict just about due for his liberation had half-an-inch of tobacco given him by another prisoner. The officer happened to notice the gift, went to the prisoner, found the contraband article upon him, and took him before the governor. That gentleman sentenced him to ten days in the refractory cells, and recommended him to the prison director for the loss of his gratuity and three months' remission. The unfortunate ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

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

... nobility or gentry will conceal a contraband article, or one on which there is a heavy duty, on their return from abroad: and what is more, if detected, they are more ashamed, on account of their want of address, than on account of the crime; for such it is, whatever custom may have taught us ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... obstacles to the adventurous stratagems of avarice. In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are called) constantly employed to secure their fiscal regulations against the inroads of the dealers in contraband trade. Mr. Neckar computes the number of these patrols at upwards of twenty thousand. This shows the immense difficulty in preventing that species of traffic, where there is an inland communication, and places in a strong light the disadvantages ...
— The Federalist Papers

... ridiculous account of the manner in which the aid of British soldiery was invoked, to put a stop to the manufacture on the part of the poor prisoners:—"Then those ruthless inroads, called in the story of the place straw plait hunts, when in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries of life, were in the habit of making, red-coat battalions were marched into the prison, who, with the bayonet's point, carried havoc and ruin into every convenience which ingenious ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

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

... trade were of excellent quality and comparatively abundant and cheap; while among the French, especially in time of war, they were often scarce and dear. The Caughnawagas accordingly, whom neither the English nor the French dared offend, used their position to carry on a contraband trade between New York and Canada. By way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson they brought to Albany furs from the country of the "Far Indians," and exchanged them for guns, blankets, cloths, knives, beads, and the like. These they carried ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... advisers, in respect to our relations with China, and especially to their neglect to furnish the Superintendent at Canton with powers and instructions calculated to provide against the growing evils connected with the contraband trade in opium, and adapted to the novel and difficult situation in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

... the coarsest jokes; though, perhaps, with such material, the jokes could not well be otherwise than coarse. The following letter he addressed to M. Baillon, Intendant of Lyons, on account of a poor Jew taken up for uttering contraband goods. This kind of writing obtained for Voltaire the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... wonderful stories about the Prussians, which, although they are generally credited, I take leave to doubt. Villagers who have slipped through the lines, and who play the part of the intelligent contraband of the American Civil War, are our informants. They represent the Prussian army without food, almost without clothing, bitterly repenting their advance into France, demoralised by the conviction that few of their number will be again in their homes. We are treated every day, too, to ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... the Baring Bros., consigned to their agents in Boston—a falsehood, no doubt. Without stopping to look into the bona fides of this claim of neutral ownership, it was enough that the sulphur was contraband, and that the fruit belonged to the same owner; I destroyed both ship and cargo. No papers as to the latter were produced. The second vessel was also a barque, the Investigator, of Searsport, Maine. She being laden with iron ore, the property of neutrals (Englishmen), I released ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... then said "that the American government was anxious to settle by treaty all the subjects of collision between neutral and belligerent rights which, in the event of a new maritime war in Europe, might again arise:—blockade, contraband, searches at sea, and colonial trade, but most of all the case of the seamen,—concerning whom the American government proposed that each party should stipulate not to employ, in its merchant ships or naval service, the seamen ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... consequence was, that these poor fellows had absolutely nothing upon which to live. The seizure of smuggled goods—with which they might have contrived to indemnify themselves—was no longer possible. The contraband trade, under this system, was completely annihilated. The smugglers knew better than to come in contact with coast-guards whose performance of their duty was stimulated by such a keen necessity! From the captain ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... also ordered that all restrictions upon trade heretofore imposed in the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi River, save those relating to contraband of war, to the reservation of the rights of the United States to property purchased in the territory of an enemy, and to the 25 per cent upon purchases of cotton be removed. All provisions of the internal-revenue law will be carried into effect ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

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

... brought forth the contraband book and the long peaceful afternoon was spent in listening to the various mishaps that befell the valiant Don ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... yesterday into a house I call "Fair Rosamond's bower" because it would take a clue of thread to go through it without getting lost. One room has five doors opening into the house, and no windows. The stairs are like ladders, and the colonel's contraband valet won't risk his neck taking down water, but pours it through the windows on people's heads. We shan't stay in it. Men are at work closing up the caves; they had become hiding-places for trash. Vicksburg is now like one vast hospital—every one is getting sick or is sick. My ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... in barracks had a royal old spree on Saturday night, and the captain was sorer-headed than any of the participants in consequence. In some way he heard that a rowboat came up at night and landed supplies of contraband down by the river-side out of sight and hearing of the sentry at the railway-station, and it was thither he hurriedly led Rollins this ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

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

... reached me safely but the "Weavers," which had just been published at that time, and that I could not get hold of, in spite of every effort. The inspector had strict orders to consider that book as contraband. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... a well-known American—the Customs officer had mentioned the name of Headon, which both police officers recognized—an invalid sent with all haste to the famous surgeon in Turin. It was not likely that he would be carrying contraband, ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

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

... stomach would find itself condemned to retain them for an indefinite period, unless by dint of prayers and supplications they should contrive to soften the stern guardian, who may at last get accustomed to their approach, and, perhaps, in a weak moment, allow them to pass as contraband goods; like a custom-house officer on a foreign frontier who will occasionally shut his eyes to a country friend's packet of tobacco. But the poor stomach has had to suffer a martyrdom meantime, while the dispute was pending, and ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... of his Memoirs his descent from an old Highland family through one Mantis McNeill, a Jacobite agent in the Court of Madrid at the time of the War of Succession, who married and settled at Aranjuez. The second chapter he devotes to his youthful adventures in the contraband trade on the Biscayan Coast and the French frontier, his capture and imprisonment at Bilbao under a two years' sentence, which was remitted on the discovery of his familiar and inherited conversance with the English tongue, and his imprisonment exchanged for a secret mission to ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... sometimes more ingenious than dignified. Some of his works were put forth under the names or initials of his friends. The secret was most loyally kept, but others suffered. According to his biographer, his poems were penal contraband, and many of his countrymen were sent to Siberia for possessing them. What Krasinski sacrificed was fame, publicity, above all peace of mind. He envied those of his contemporaries who fought and died for their country. He was not a hero, and he knew it. The heroes of his poems and plays were always ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... nevertheless, united these women miraculously when living alone. When the carbineers inspected the houses in search of contraband goods smuggled in by the men, the Amazons worked off their nervous energy in hiding the illegal merchandise, making it pass from one place of concealment to another with the cunning ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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

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

... calculate, to reckon upon (el) contenido, the contents contentar, to oblige contento, content, contentment contestar, responder, to answer, to reply continuamente,, continually continuar, to continue contra, en contra de, against contrabando, contraband contramaestre de filatura, master spinner contramandar, revocar, to countermand, to revoke contrario, unfavourable, contrary, adverse contratiempo, hitch contrato, contract, written agreement contribuir, to contribute contrincante, competidor, competitor, neighbour convencer, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... possible to be too careful," the Czar complained. "Admiral Stark is too much afraid of responsibility. We have information that the English are taking all kinds of contraband into the Japanese ports, and he does nothing to stop them, for fear of committing some ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... the vigilance of British cruisers had driven French cruisers from the seas, and no food could be imported. To permit Americans to purvey food for the French colonies would clearly be to undo the good work of the British navy. Obviously food was contraband of war. So all English men-of-war were ordered to seize French goods on whatever ship found; to confiscate cargoes of wheat, corn, or fish bound for French ports as contraband, and particularly to board all American merchantmen and scrutinize the crews for English-born sailors. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... of Stuart' to whom Johnstone entrusted his safety during his wanderings, and never once had occasion to repent it. Mr. Blythe, indeed, combined the profession of Calvinist with that of smuggler, and had numerous hiding places in his house for the concealment of contraband goods, which would prove equally serviceable, as Johnstone told him, for 'the most contraband and dangerous commodity that he had ever had in ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... the Civil War could not be kept down. It appeared first in the acceptance of Negroes in the Union army camps as contraband, on the ground that they were being used by the Confederates to build fortifications and the like and, if returned to the seceding territory, would be of further use in opposing the Federal troops. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

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

... deeper than ever into the Oratorian library, in a sort of somber phrensy. He neglected his studies and assigned tasks for the sake of the secret and forbidden work that constituted what he called later on, in Louis Lambert, his contraband studies. Although he continued to write poetry, his mind as it ripened and gathered strength in its singular solitude aspired to still loftier works, based ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... will be a long time before the Englishman appreciates the altered condition of this country and resigns his prejudices, in consequence of another element in this un-American feeling, namely, insular ignorance. Among the contraband articles which are with difficulty smuggled into any point of the English coast is an accurate knowledge of the polity and condition of another country. Indifference is the coastguard which protects, without moving, every inlet and harbor. The Englishman is surprised, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... full of goods, and that they had an inkling of the true state of the case—managed to carry off a considerable portion. The remainder fell into their hands as the reward of their perseverance. Shortly afterwards Jack himself was captured by the Revenue officers, who got possession of all his contraband goods. In the larder of his house was a fat goose, which they were anxious to possess, in order to have a feast to commemorate their success, but the goose not being contraband, they dared not take possession of it, so they ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... with similar minute attention, and Murphy rescued his cameras with difficulty. "What're you so damn anxious about? I don't have drugs; I don't have contraband ..." ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance

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

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

... but vague. My mother is perfectly right. Our niggers are fidelity itself. But since we are so near the Butler lines, where his agents can sneak up on the river and kidnap the new sort of contraband, I think it better to take some precaution. Hereafter General Magruder will have a picket post within two miles of us, between here and the creek, which offers a convenient point ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... Quelch jumped to the conclusion that the stranger was a brigand bent on depriving him of his property, and he held on to the bag with such tenacity that the douanier naturally inferred there was something specially contraband about it. He proceeded to open it, and produced, among sundry other feminine belongings, a lady's frilled and furbelowed night-dress, from which, as he unrolled it, fell a couple of bundles ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... a free port, there is a bureau about half a league from the city on the road to Aix, where all carriages undergo examination; and if any thing contraband is found, the vehicle, baggage, and even the horses are confiscated. We escaped this disagreeable ceremony by the sagacity of our driver. Of his own accord, he declared at the bureau, that we had bought a pound of coffee and some sugar at Marseilles, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... according to their own ideas, the most indifferent or even good acts, but which were considered criminal by people—entire strangers to them—who were making the laws. To this class belonged all those who carried on a secret trade in wine, or were bringing in contraband goods, or were picking herbs, or gathering wood, in private or government forests. To this class also belonged the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... mockery Of the austere and holy principles Which Liberalism like an altar-flame Has guarded through the loose irreverent years Than this inept, this disingenuous, This frankly disingenuous attempt; To smuggle past the barrier of this House An article so plainly contraband As this unlicens'd and contagious Bill— A Bill which, it is not too much to say, Insults the conscience of the British Empire? I will not longer, Sir, detain the House; Indeed I cannot profitably add ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evildoers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

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

... mouth of Red River, where was a gun boat, from which a few prisoners were taken aboard of our boat. A woman named Crosly was also taken on board, to go to New Orleans for the purpose of exposing those who had run through our lines contraband goods. There was a woman of property and standing on the boat, who still held her household servants, and made her boast that no one could even hire her slaves to ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... probably has not been a period since civilization has introduced the art of smuggling among its other arts, when French brandies, and laces, and silks, were not exchanged against English tobacco and guineas, and that in a contraband way, let it be in peace or let it be in war. One of the characteristics of Sir Gervaise Oakes was to despise all petty means of annoyance; usually he disdained even to turn aside to chase a smuggler. Fishermen he never molested ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... guns of a side. I inwardly prayed they might not be long ones, but I was not a little startled to see through the glass that there were crowds of naked negroes at quarters, and on the forecastle and poop. That she was a contraband Guineaman, I had already made up my mind to believe; and that she had some fifty hands of a crew, I also considered likely; but that her captain should have resorted to such a perilous measure, perilous to themselves as well as to us, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody to the extent of having the ashes taken up ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... correct one," said Harry. "We sent a man down the bay to meet the steamer. People who are going to smuggle anything rarely take pains to conceal their contraband goods till they are nearing port. We know something about the matter, you see. Moreover, we know would-be smugglers who don't make a profession of it are very careless, talkative about what they are going to smuggle, and apt to give themselves away. By sending ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty

... had a sounding name for themselves in the world; during the American Civil War, for instance, when the blockade-runners made their dare-devil trips with contraband cotton, between Nassau and South Carolina; and before that again, when the now sleepy little harbour gave shelter to rousing freebooters and tarry pirates, tearing in there under full sail with their loot from the Spanish Main. How often ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... am going to tell you how Roberta kept her promise about taking care of the soldier boy's gun. Not many weeks after that memorable Fourth, Squire came home in great excitement, saying the soldiers were searching every house for contraband articles, and soon would ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... and seizure were transferred to the Company of Stationers. Licensing was to go on as before, but to be exercised by special commissioners, instead of by the Archbishop and the Bishop of London. Only whereas, before, contraband had consisted of Presbyterian books, henceforward it was Catholic and Anglican books which would ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... migration to Sierra Leone, and eighty-eight Negroes were sent, but they were not welcomed. As a result territory was bought in the present confines of Liberia, December 15, 1821, and colonists began to arrive. A little later an African depot for recaptured slaves taken in the contraband slave trade, provided for in the Act of 1819, was established and an agent was sent to Africa to form a settlement. Gradually this settlement was merged with the settlement of the Colonization Society, and from this union ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... the United States to England, requesting an early improvement in the treatment of American shipping by the British fleet, was made public. The note of protest had been presented on December 29. It dealt with the manner in which American ships suspected of carrying contraband of war had been held up on the high seas and sent into British ports for examination. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, and Walter Hines Page, United States ambassador, conferred on the subject ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... read me most of that, Ned. Just as you told me, it relates how the government agents, having tried in vain to get a clew to the smugglers, came to the conclusion that they must be using airships to slip contraband goods over ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

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

... and - to a lesser extent - cocaine from South America destined for Western Europe; limited opium and growing cannabis production; ethnic Albanian narcotrafficking organizations active and expanding in Europe; vulnerable to money laundering associated with regional trafficking in narcotics, arms, contraband, and illegal aliens ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... destruction only after their crews had been given an opportunity to take to the boats. Neutral ships bearing neutral goods, even if bound to an enemy port, were liable to destruction only if found upon visit to be carrying goods that were contraband of war. The list of contraband had been from time immemorial rigidly limited, and confined almost wholly to munitions of war, or to raw material used in their construction. But international law went by the board early in the war. Each belligerent was able to ascribe plausible ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... o'er—the bark was caught, The winged crew her freight explored; And found 'twas just as Love had thought, For all was contraband aboard. "A prize, a prize, my Cupids all!" Said Love, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... rigorously interdicted, a great number were in the house, in possession of the Misses Primber's pupils; and when this supply was exhausted, she had recourse to a circulating library near by; being often put as nearly to her wits' end to devise expedients whereby to smuggle the contraband volumes into her chamber, as Amelia was to fulfil, at the time and place of tryst, the frequent engagements which she made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... up their lines, and made sail. I came up with them, and, firing a gun, they hove to and surrendered. I ordered them alongside; and, finding they had each a keg of wine on board, I condemned that part of their cargo as contraband; but I honestly offered payment for what I had taken. This they declined, finding I was "Ingles," too happy to think they were not in the hands of the French. I then gave each of them a pound of tobacco, which ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to Apia, January 15th. On the last voyage she had brought the ammunition already so frequently referred to; as a matter of fact, she was again bringing contraband of war. It is necessary to be explicit upon this, which served as spark to so great a flame of scandal. Knappe was justified in interfering; he would have been worthy of all condemnation if he had neglected, in his posture of semi-investment, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rocked, and dandled" with legislative fondness into a rickety nursling, some fifty millions of yards of cotton cloths are said to be painfully brought forth in the year; the value of which may probably be equal to the same or a larger quantity of French cottons introduced by contraband, and consumed in the provinces of Catalonia and Arragon themselves—the first being sole seat of the cotton manufacture for all Spain. And for this deplorable consummation, the superabundant harvests ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... cripple their Institution, hoping to destroy it; that we have striven to save the District of Columbia from their system as from corruption; that a thousand millions of dollars of their property we have treated as contraband, and have made it perilous for them to recover it; that we have lain in wait and molested them in their transit through our borders, with their servants, to embark for sea. We dispute their right to go with their servants into territories jointly acquired, and belonging by constitutional ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... that they were taken in the violation of a blockade of all the ports of those States. This blockade was declaratory only, and the inadequacy of the force to maintain it was so manifest that this allegation was varied to a charge of trade in contraband of war. This, in its turn, was also found untenable, and the minister whom I sent with instructions to press for the reparation that was due to our injured fellow-citizens has transmitted an answer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson



Words linked to "Contraband" :   merchandise, ware, black-market, illegal, product



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