Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sheriff   /ʃˈɛrəf/  /ʃˈɛrɪf/   Listen
Sheriff

noun
1.
The principal law-enforcement officer in a county.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sheriff" Quotes from Famous Books



... not insist upon tearing you up by the roots. Well; the late prime favourite of England, who wielded her general's staff and controlled her parliaments, is now a rural baron, hunting, hawking, drinking fat ale with country esquires, and mustering his men at the command of the high sheriff—" ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... part of the Filipinos were Pantaleon E. del Rosario, Melquiades Lasala and Andres Jayme. After the peace, Mateo Luga and P. E. del Rosario accepted employment under the Americans, the former as Inspector of Constabulary and the latter as Sheriff of Cebu. A few months later, the Americans, acting on information received, proceeded to Tuburan on the government launch Philadelphia, arrested Arcadio Maxilom and his two brothers, and seized the arms which they had secreted ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... these notes to be relied on? Manchon appears to have been honest in his writing, but Cauchon was not to be trifled with in what he wished noted, as the following instance will show. A sheriff's officer, named Massieu, was overheard to say that Joan of Arc had done nothing worthy of the death sentence. It was repeated to Cauchon, who threatened to have Massieu drowned. When Isambert de la Pierre advised Joan to submit herself to the Council then holding meetings at ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... the Judge, "but dangerous-looking. His face is indictable at common law. Do you know, my dear, I think there is a blank at the Sheriff's office, with a place for ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... in the cinematograph who tracks the villain to his mountain retreat, or finds the hero, bound with cords, lying in the brushwood, and then rides off post-haste to inform the sheriff. She always catches a wild-looking horse, and gallops full speed!" ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... and the accuser fought it out, and from certain tolls. He also gave the citizens the county of Middlesex to farm on payment to the Crown of 300l. a year—a payment still made: they were to appoint a Sheriff for the county: and they were to have leave to hunt in the forests of Middlesex, Surrey, and the Chiltern Hills. They were also empowered to elect their own justiciar and allowed to try their own cases within their ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... them read his letters to Emerson's little daughter, or hear Dr. Emerson tell about the Thoreau home life and the stories of his boyhood—the ministrations to a runaway slave; or let them ask old Sam Staples, the Concord sheriff about him. That he "was fond of a few intimate friends, but cared not one fig for people in the mass," is a statement made in a school history and which is superficially true. He cared too much for the masses—too much to let his personality be "massed"; too much to be unable to realize the futility ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... sheriff is prohibited from holding the same office for a succeeding term, neither can he hold any other office at the same time. Const., Art. ...
— Civil Government for Common Schools • Henry C. Northam

... office to get the night's receipts. Alas! they were already in the hands of the deputy sheriff. Another opera manager had gone down into the vortex which had swallowed up Ebers, and Taylor, and Delafield, and others of their tribe in London, and Montressor and Rivafinoli in New York. Palmo, it is said, had literally to return to his pots and kettles; ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... passage, he is termed the "immediate heyre" of William Elderton. This personage,—who is said to have been, at different periods of his life, an actor, the master of a company of players, and an attorney in the Sheriff's Court, London,—obtained great notoriety by his ballads. See a list of his pieces in Ritson's Bibl. Poet.: vide also Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poet. iv. 40, ed. 4to. His song "The God of love," &c. (of which a puritanical moralization ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp

... that the sheriff was seen but two days ago on the eastern side of the wood," said ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... of the romantic movies. If we were the cinema kind of ranchers Pee-Wee would be cutting his teeth on a six-shooter, little Dinkie would be off rustling cattle, Poppsy would be away holding up the Transcontinental Limited, and Mummsie would be wearing chaps, toting a gun, and pretending to the sheriff that her jail-breaking brother was not ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... they hunt YOU; when you hunt THEM you've got the advantage, allus provided you know how to get at them ez well as they know how to get at you. This yer coach is bound to go regular, and on certain days. THEY ain't. By the time the sheriff gets out his posse they've skedaddled, and the leader, like as not, is takin' his quiet cocktail at the Bank Exchange, or mebbe losin' his earnings to the sheriff over draw poker, in Sacramento. You see you can't prove anything agin ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... indictment Mrs. Douglass was arraigned as a necessary matter of form, tried, found guilty of course; and Judge Scalaway, before whom she was tried, having consulted with Dr. Adams, ordered the sheriff to place Mrs. Douglass in the prisoner's box, when he addressed her as follows: 'Margaret Douglass, stand up. You are guilty of one of the vilest crimes that ever disgraced society; and the jury have found you so. You have ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... desperate and trying occasion, which qualities were soon put to the test, by the sudden and boisterous arrival of the Hue & Cry, consisting of 8 or 10 mounted troops, accompanied by an officer belonging to the Sheriff. As that which followed relating to this rencontre is described minutely, and in the most simple manner, I will give it verbatim, as I find it recorded in the family document, from which I have taken the whole narrative. Colonel Hunt and the Collier ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... "Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, help ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... avenge the death of Cummins. Henry Francis presided; but the meeting was informal. These men had not met to pass resolutions, but to decide upon some line of action. So far not a trace of the murderers had been found, except for their discarded clothing. Sheriff Carter's blood-hounds had followed a hot scent to Deer Creek, several miles above Nevada City, and the posse who followed the dogs were led to a pool, in the bottom of which, weighted with stones, ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... fellows weren't doing any more talking; they had their secret committees that were ready to take charge of things as soon as they had put the capitalists and their governments out of business. Meantime, if there was a sheriff or prosecuting attorney that got too gay, they would "bump him off." This was a favorite phrase of "Blue-eyed Angell." He would use it every half hour or so as he told about his adventures. "Yes," he would say; "he got gay, but we bumped ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... that he was born in London about the year 1118 or 1119, and that his father, Gilbert Becket, was probably a respectable merchant and sheriff, or portreeve, of London, and was a Norman. His parents died young, leaving him not well provided for; but being beautiful and bright he was sent to school in an abbey, and afterwards to Oxford. From Oxford he went into a house of business in London for three ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... behalf of the Belgian refugees was held at Wimbledon yesterday. A procession was formed in front of the Town Hall headed by the High Sheriff of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various

... is reason to believe that any woman, or female child, has been inveigled or enticed to a house of ill-fame as aforesaid, upon complaint thereof being made, under oath, by any overseer of the poor, sheriff, deputy sheriff, town sergeant or constable, or by the parent, master or guardian of such woman or female child, to any justice or clerk of a district court authorized to issue such warrants, such justice or clerk may issue his warrant, to enter ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... sheriff impatiently. "Half the valley is owned by newcomers, men of substance, who, with the votes they influence or control, will decide the election. Foy is half a hero with them, because of these vague old stories. But let him be stirred up to violence now ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... in a wagon passed the Kennedy farm. Ebenezer Waldstricker was driving and beside him sat Lysander Letts. Alone on the back seat sprawled the big sheriff, a half-smoked ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... example of Mr. Baillie, who, when some years ago he found that one of his tenants had pulled down and carried off, for building purposes, some portions of the walls of the four grand old burgs standing in Glenelg, in Inverness-shire, prosecuted the delinquent farmer before the sheriff-court of the county, and forced him to restore and replace in situ, as far as possible, and at his own expense, all the stones which he ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... after their first coming into England, the Franciscan Friars are heard of at Coventry, Ranulph, Earl of Chester, having granted them land for their oratory, and the Sheriff of Warwickshire, on behalf of the King, giving them shingles from the woods of Kenilworth wherewith to cover it. In 1359 the Black Prince, then owner of the Manor and Park of Cheylesmore, just outside the walls of the city ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse

... now lives at French Corral, Nevada County, California. John Stark, the younger brother, started from Monmouth County, Illinois, in the spring of 1846, but taking the Fort Hall road, reached California in safety. He was a powerfully built man, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds. He was sheriff of Napa County for six years, and in 1852 represented that county in the State Legislature. He died near Calistoga, in 1875, of heart disease. His death was instantaneous, and occurred while pitching hay from a wagon. He was the ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... Bench. But even he can be "tres mechant" at a pinch. When Mr. WATT renewed his complaint that sheriffs-principal in Scotland had very little to do for the high salaries they received, Mr. MUNRO replied that "it would just be as unsafe to measure the activities of the sheriff-principal by the number of appeals he hears as to measure the political activities of my hon. friend by the number of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various

... trustees, and directed them to educate his children in due time to some useful trade. Thomas, the eldest son, went to London. He was apprenticed to a trade, and succeeded in business, as we find him Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1727, when in his forty-second year. He was also knighted in the same year, most probably on the accession of George II. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... forty years back, people swore that old Quill and the other people who croaked up there used to come back during the dark of the moon and hold high revels, as the novel writers would say. Strange to say, they suddenly stopped coming back when the sheriff snook up there one night with a couple of deputies and arrested a gang of male and female mortals and confiscated a couple of kegs of beer at the same time. Shortly after old David Windom confessed that he killed Alix's father and ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... her financially was the sale of her interest in the Backus Oil Company to your people. She does not know that five more years of the then increasing desperate competition would have bankrupted the company, and that with the big debt that she was carrying on the lot on Euclid Avenue, near Sheriff Street, she would have been swamped, and that the only thing that ever saved her and the oil business generally was the plan of John D. Rockefeller. She thinks that you literally robbed her of millions, and feeds her children on that diet three times ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller

... sheriff waved a hand in friendly greeting. Ba'tiste returned the gesture. Thayer, scowling, black-faced, dropped slightly to the rear, allowing the two officials to take the lead—and evidently do the talking. The sheriff grinned as he noticed the cant hook on the ground. Then ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... HIGGINS, and other members of the Organising Operatic Committee, ready to charge the mob at a moment's notice, to charge up to two guineas a stall, if necessary. Not necessary, however. Calls for the Sheriff-elect. DRURIOLANUS, not having the official costume ready, cannot appear in it, but uses his authority and his persuasive powers in clearing lobbies, saloons, and hall. At any moment he is ready to march out with all the Huguenot soldiers and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various

... of parliament?—Well, and what harm have I said? I am sure I meant no harm; and, if his honour is offended, I ask his pardon; to be sure his honour must know that the sheriff is answerable for all the writs in the office, though they were never so many, and I am answerable to the sheriff. I am sure the captain can't say that I have shewn him any manner of incivility since ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... very orderly, and have made no disturbance of any kind, but as they were principally foreigners who are ignorant of our laws and customs, it was thought best to have men on hand ready to check them if they attempted any lawless act. The sheriff of Luzerne County, in which Hazleton is situated, was therefore notified to be on the alert, and in his turn sent word to his deputies to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... there is a rule that is known unto all, and which teaches, that an 'eye must be returned for an eye,' and a 'tooth for a tooth.' I am no troubler of countyhouses, and least of all do I like living on a plantation that the sheriff has surveyed; yet there is a reason in such a law, that makes it a safe rule to journey by, and therefore it ar' a solemn fact that this day shall I abide by it, and give unto all and each that which is his due ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... absent for a few moments, and had left the charge of the prisoners to Fred and myself, one of the men, carried away by sudden rage at the taunts which the bushrangers hurled at him, raised his carbine, and if Fred had not struck up the barrel just as he did, the sheriff of Melbourne would have been spared the necessity of finding hemp for one robber. As it was, the ball whistled harmlessly over ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... and prayed earnestly, and I thought that my prayers were heard. Such was my state of mind on the day before the one appointed for my execution, when the gaoler and one of the sheriff's officers came into my cell, accompanied by the Roman Catholic priest whom I have before mentioned. I perceived by the countenance of the gaoler, who was a humane man, that he had no unpleasant news. The sheriff's officer delivered to him an order for my liberation, and to my astonishment ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... being four-thirty; and Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main, he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did, saying that it was preferable to a return ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... person able in body, and under the age of sixty, not having means of maintaining himself, is bound to serve whoever shall be willing to employ him, at the wages which were usually paid during the six years preceding the plague; and if he refuses, and it is proved by two witnesses before the sheriff, bailiff, lord, or constable of the village where the refusal is given, he is to be committed to jail, and continue there till he finds surety to enter into service in terms of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... assemblies are symmetrical "shams". They are elected by a universal suffrage, by the ballot, and in districts once marked out with an eye to equality, and still retaining a look of equality. But our English Parliaments were UNsymmetrical realities. They were elected anyhow; the sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the strongest local party got it, whether few or many. But in England ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... permits the villain—who's no more use on the surface of Arizona that a-way than one of them hydrophoby polecats whose bite is death—to get a law sharp to plead an' call for a show-down before a jedge an' jury. It takes days to try Silver Phil, an' marshals an' sheriff gents is two weeks squanderin' about gettin' witnesses; an' all to as much trouble an' loss of time an' dinero as would suffice to round-up the cattle of Cochise county. Enright an' the Stranglers would have turned the trick in ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... everything has grown stronger that appertains to the land. Heraldry, for instance, and genealogy, county history—people don't want to be sheriffs now, but they would very much like to be able to say one of their ancestors was sheriff so many centuries ago. The old crests, the old coats of arms, are more thought of than ever; every fragment of antiquity valued. Almost everything old is of the country, either of the mansion or of the cottage; old silver plate, and old ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... proceeded to the place designated and entered upon the required operations. Being thus employed, he was on the 29th day of May last arrested by the authorities of the Province of New Brunswick and conveyed to Woodstock, in the county of Carleton, in said Province, but the sheriff of the county refused to commit him to jail, and he was accordingly discharged. He immediately returned to the Madawaska settlements to enter again upon the duty intrusted to him. On the 6th day of June last he was arrested a second time by the same authorities and committed to the jail at ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... farm first, and the downfall of Jim second. They took no account of Alice, who must be the greatest loser. And after they were married, both mothers-in-law were disappointed, for the Leigh farm was heavily incumbered and sold by the sheriff the same fall, and the Shirley House fell into Uncle Francis Aydelot's hands in about the same way. Love of property can be the root of much misery." Miss Jane paused, for the story brought bitterness to ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... they had just killed. Said I to my friend, Now we have 'em!' and I took aim at Bridekirk with my gun. My friend was a LAW man, so he said, No, don't shoot; there is some law left, and we have EVIDENCE now. Let's go and indict them. Then if the sheriff won't arrest them, we can find plenty of chances to pull the trigger on them. I go in for law first, and LYNCHING afterwards.' Well, it was a hard thing to lose such a chance when we were boiling over, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... writing of his birth says: 'My father being that year sheriff of Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of the county [Mr. Croker suggests city, not being aware that 'the City of Lichfield was a county in itself.' See Harwood's Lichfield, p. 1. In like manner, in the Militia Bill of 1756 (post 1756) we find entered, 'Devonshire with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... fashion, of thought, and of opinion openly rejoiced in the breezy unconventionality, the fascinating daring, and the genial personality of this new variety of American genius. His English publisher, John Camden Hotten, wrote in 1873: "How he dined with the Sheriff of London and Middlesex; how he spent glorious evenings with the wits and literati who gather around the festive boards of the Whitefriars and the Savage Clubs; how he moved in the gay throng at the Guildhall conversazione; how he ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... assured her. "Ten to one as a County magnate he stickled for it, and the High Sheriff put him on the panel ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Mackenzie. What was to be done with Baubie now? It was hardly fair that she should be sent to a reformatory among criminal children. She had committed no crime, and there was that empty bed at the home for little girls. She determined to attend the sheriff-court on Monday morning and ask to be given ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... outran even the hatred of Cayrol. What would the judges call Herzog's underhand dealings? Would it be embezzlement? Or forgery? Would they come and arrest the Prince at her house? The house of Desvarennes, which had never received a visit from a sheriff's officer, was it to be disgraced now by the presence ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... Dufftown (1823). The county returns one member to parliament; the royal burghs, Banff and Cullen, belonging to the Elgin group of parliamentary burghs. Banffshire, with Aberdeen and Kincardine shires, forms a sheriffdom, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Banff, who sits also at Keith, Buckie and Dufftown. Most of the schools are under school-board jurisdiction. Several of them earn grants for higher education, and the county council, out of the "residue grant," subsidizes classes in agriculture, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... real intimation that there might be trouble that would occasion the use of cartridges. The idea did not displease him. They drove to town, bought some provisions and ammunition, and incidentally the old man visited the sheriff and retailed the conversation that Pete ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... plain clothes. Why not wear his uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in the street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for these lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku-Klux Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were rumours ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... grim-visaged deputy sheriff, conversing with an auctioneer on whose face the grin had ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... subjects by the authorities of the State of Pennsylvania, at Lattimer, while suppressing an unlawful tumult of miners, September 10, 1897. In view of the verdict of acquittal rendered by the court before which the sheriff and his deputies were tried for murder, and following the established doctrine that the Government may not be held accountable for injuries suffered by individuals at the hands of the public authorities while acting in the line of duty in suppressing disturbance of the public peace, this ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... does not follow that we hate him whom we thus destroy. On the contrary, we may feel compassion, and even love for him. The magistrate sentences the murderer to suffer the penalty of the law; and the sheriff carries the sentence into execution by taking, in due form, the life of the prisoner: nevertheless, both the magistrate and the sheriff may have the kindest feelings towards him whom they thus deprive ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait even ten days,—for when we lose the confidence of such as you, credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... is not in a condition to attempt a rescue," said Joe; "but, all the same, I don't think you ought to keep this man here all night. The sheriff is now at Mr. Warren's house, and it is your duty to hand the prisoner over to him at once. Be careful how you point those ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... opportunity I had ever had to see a man hung, we stayed and saw it through. We rode up to the edge of the crowd, which was about forty yards from the scaffold where the hanging was to take place, and had been there but a few moments when we saw the sheriff coming with the prisoner, having a very strong guard of some two hundred men all well armed. As soon as the prisoner stepped on to the platform some one handed him a chair to sit ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... be the county or the city. Here the legislative body would consist of the presiding officers of the township or ward governments. The sheriff of a county or the mayor of a city would be chosen by these legislative bodies from their own number and should hold office for a term of several years, while the local governments, and therefore the legislative bodies of the county or the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... confessed, I suggested it: it was just after I had seen your men and the sheriff's ready to fly at one another's throats. I was miserably afraid, and I asked Uncle Somerville if he could not make terms with you in some other ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... be premised that Deadwood had recently chosen a sheriff. He did not look much like a sheriff, for he was small and weak and bald, and most childlike as to expression of countenance. But when I tell you that his name was Alfred, you will know that it was all right. To him the community looked for ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... one paying office in the county held by an American, unless you except the office of Sheriff which is held by a Frenchman who speaks broken English, ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... The Sheriff of Manzaneta County, for such was the newcomer's office, raised his steely grey eyes inquisitorially to Nick's who, with a hostile stare ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... prophetess. Thus Hugh Scott's cloak could not be returned, because the thieves had gained time to make it into a kirtle. James Jamieson and James Baird would, by her advice, have recovered their plough-irons, which had been stolen, had it not been the will of fate that William Dougal, sheriff's officer, one of the parties searching for them, should accept a bribe of three pounds not to find them. In short, although she lost a lace which Thome Reid gave her out of his own hand, which, tied round ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... tenures. Nineteen years after his Conquest, he held a council at Gloucester, the result of which was a great "numbering of the people"—a general census. To every city or town, commissioners were sent forth, who collected together the Shire reeve or Sheriff—the Viscount, as the Normans called him—the thegus, the parish priests, the reeves, and franklins, who were examined upon oath of the numbers, names, and holdings of the men of their place, both as they were in King Edward's days, and at that time. The lands ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Barlow County, who composed the capturing party, were deaf to the admonitions of the crowd. They filed solemnly up the street, and delivered their prisoners to the keeper of the jail, sheriff, by courtesy, and scamp by the seal of Satan; and then quietly dispersed. There was something ominous in their ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... jurisdiction, judicature, administration of justice, soc; executive, commission of the peace; magistracy &c. (authority) 737. judge &c. 967; tribunal &c. 966; municipality, corporation, bailiwick, shrievalty[Brit]; lord lieutenant, sheriff, shire reeve, shrieve[obs3], constable; selectman; police, police force, the fuzz [sarcastic]; constabulary, bumbledom[obs3], gendarmerie[Fr]. officer, bailiff, tipstaff, bum-bailiff, catchpoll, beadle; policeman, cop [coll.], police constable, police sergeant; sbirro[obs3], alguazil[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... troops on their way to Holbeach, but it was not for succour. Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff, Sir John Folliott, a few gentlemen, and a party of the King's troops, with all the force of the county, were on the track of the wretched fugitives. They had chased them from Northamptonshire into Warwickshire, from Warwickshire into Worcestershire, and ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... very scant information on which to proceed," deplored Mrs. Gray. "I confess that I made a mistake in keeping our trouble a secret. Since that newspaper spread the news abroad I have done my best to amend the error. I have seen to it that the sheriff of the county in which the camp is located took up the matter. I have also offered a large reward for the finding of Tom, or the positive proof that he is dead." Her voice dropped despairingly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... (vol. xviii. p. 335), we learn that "Richard Evelyn, Esq., High Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1634, held a splendid Christmas at his mansion at Wotton, having a regular Lord of Misrule for the occasion: and it appears it was then the custom for the neighbours to send presents of eatables to provide ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... By the act commonly called the replevin law, any person whose goods are seized or detained by the collector for the payment of duties may sue out a writ of replevin, and, by virtue of that writ, the goods are to be restored to him. A writ of replevin is a writ which the sheriff is bound to execute, and for the execution of which he is bound to employ force, if necessary. He may call out the posse, and must do so, if resistance be made. This posse may be armed or unarmed. It may come forth with military array, and under the lead of military men. Whatever number of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... that Scott seemed to derive more consequence in the neighborhood from being sheriff of the county ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... one thing dat happen down dere befo' I left. Dere was a powerful rich family down dere name Cockrell; I forgits de fust name. Him brudder tho', was sheriff and live in Winnsboro. Dere was a rich Mobley family dat live jinin' him, two miles sunrise side of him. One day de Cockrell cows got out and played thunder wid Mr. Mobley's corn. Mr. Mobley kilt two of de cows. Dat made de Cockrells mad. They too proud to go to law 'bout it; they ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... Sheriff is made a mighty lord, Of goodly gold he hath enow, And many a sergeant girt with sword; But forth will we and bend the bow. We shall bend the bow on the lily lea Betwixt the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... which makes the whole world kin. He must introduce the quarrelling cat and dog into the office scene between West and Goodchild, or the feline visitant whose apparition through the chimney disturbs Thomas Idle's unhallowed slumbers; he must accentuate the gormandising guests in the Sheriff's banquet, and the humours of the crowd even in a Tyburn execution. And in other subjects—where the moral lesson is either absent or less intrusive—the man's fancy runs absolutely riot in humorous observation. "The Distressed Poet," with the baby squalling in ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton

... every male of draft age. To effect this registration each State was divided into districts containing a population of approximately 30,000, in each of which a registration board was appointed by the governor. Usually this board consisted of the sheriff, the county health officer, and the county clerk; and where the county's population, exclusive of cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants, exceeded that number, additional registration boards were appointed. Cities of over 30,000 were treated as separate units. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... say the sheriff, or the mayor and corporation, or some of those sort of people, would give him money enough, for the use of it, to run him up a mighty pretty neat little box ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... could not be found, a fine of 46 marks (L30 13s. 4d.) was to be paid into the Treasury by the township and hundred. The Pipe Rolls contain many instances of payments for murders of which the doers were not taken red-handed, the fines varying in amount. In 14 Henry II. the Sheriff of Devon accounted for 100s. for one murder in Wonford Hundred, 10 marks for several murders in Axminster Hundred, and 20s. for a murder in North Tawton Hundred. Another sum of 20s. was remitted by the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... fours, and the crowd howled and hooted as they proceeded to the first house, McCallion's. The policemen took up a position convenient to the house, and a few were stationed at the door. The under sheriff was on ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... before Crow Dog was to be executed, he asked permission to visit his home and say farewell to his wife and twin boys, then nine or ten years old. Strange to say, the request was granted, and the condemned man sent home under escort of the deputy sheriff, who remained at the Indian agency, merely telling his prisoner to report there on the following day. When he did not appear at the time set, the sheriff dispatched the Indian police after him. They did not find him, and his wife simply said that ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... a criminal did not occur to him at all. Like the foolish, romantic boy he was, he was simply pleased to think of his father as a man of iron determination, cool wit, unshakable courage, whom no deputy sheriff could over-match, and who was leading a life full of excitement and danger—the smuggler king! The only thing that Jim regretted was that his father did not let him share in these exploits. He knew he could be useful! But his father's manner was habitually so ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... view that one who is a medium Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays must also be a medium Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and we have neglected to learn the lessons of our own experience. I was talking recently to a gentleman of prominence, twice sheriff of his county, who was narrating with glee how he had mesmerised a young man, and then told him, 'At noon to-morrow you will be lame, and it will last two hours.' Of course it happened much to the poor fellows perplexity, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... called loyalty in England. In the Records of the Scottish Parliament he was, in the days of Charles the Second, described as a lawless and rebellious man, who held lands masterfully and in high contempt of the royal authority, [330] On one occasion the Sheriff of Invernessshire was directed by King James to hold a court in Lochaber. Lochiel, jealous of this interference with his own patriarchal despotism, came to the tribunal at the head of four hundred armed Camerons. He affected great reverence for the royal commission, but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Chinese took possession of the northern parts of Borneo, under the Emperor Songtiping, about the year 1375, the daughter of that prince was married to a celebrated Arabian chief named Sheriff Alli, who visited the shores of Borneo in quest of commerce. The descendants of this marriage extended their conquests not only over the Sulu Archipelago, but over the whole of the Philippines, and rendered the former tributary to Borneo. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... HIM; each side could bring in witnesses; old Joel could have a lawyer if he wished, and Jack's case would go before a jury. If pronounced innocent, Jack should go free: if guilty—then the dog should be handed over to the sheriff, to be shot at ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... of it, we have here perhaps a truer explanation of Frank's failures. Had he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater compliment, because Mr. Scott would have been a friend worth making. Dand, on the other hand, he did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while he tried to flatter. Condescension ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... born in Glasgow, a lawyer and literary man, sheriff of Lanarkshire; wrote a vindication of Mary, Queen of Scots, and some volumes of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... by fire, on the night of the twelfth of January last," said the man who had ordered the arrest, whom the major now recognized as the sheriff of the county. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... to this day chuckle over the mishap of the sheriff who tried to get possession of a large warehouse through a secret aperture in the cellar wall. He did succeed in effecting an entrance, with several of his deputies. But as soon as they were inside the building, the patriots outside closed ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... The sheriff, Mr. Dudley Fereday, had before dismissed that portion which guarded the gaol: he affected to believe that the prisoners were not safe. There was small chance of escaping, so observed the newspapers, while the civilians ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... be a deep thinker. He thought, for instance, that he had already been shot three times, at the instance of slave-holders. The first time he was shot was for refusing a flogging when only eighteen years of age. The second time, he was shot in the head with squirrel shot by the sheriff, who was attempting to arrest him for having resisted three "young white ruffians," who wished to have the pleasure of beating him, but got beaten themselves. And in addition to being shot this time, Anthony was still further "broke in" by a terrible ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... the letter intrusted to him was lost; the cargo stolen—so his comforters had said—and the raw country lad murdered and thrown out into the river. What wonder that he should shun the light of day! And when big Peter with Rolf in the living flesh, instead of the sheriff, stood before him and told him to come out of that and get into the canoe, he wept bitter tears of repentance and vowed that never, never, never, as long as he lived would he ever again let liquor touch his lips. A frame of mind which lasted in strength for nearly one day and a half, and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... wife's name, as scoundrels and fraudulent debtors usually do. All that Jack and his mother had to show for the one thousand dollars with four years' interest due them, was a judgment against Francis Gray, with the sheriff's return of "no effects" on the back of the writ of execution against the property "of the aforesaid Francis Gray." For how could you get money out of a man who was nothing in law but an agent for ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... discretion, the fine inuring to the royal exchequer. For obstinate heresy or relapse, involving under the canon law abandonment to the secular arm, the bishops and their commissioners were the sole judges, and on their delivery of such convicts, the sheriff of the county, or the mayor and bailiffs of the nearest town, were obliged to burn them before the people on an eminence. Henry V followed this up, and the statute of 1414 established throughout the kingdom a sort of mixed secular and ecclesiastical Inquisition ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... of the consignees was given in the morning (November 30); and after declaring that it was out of their power to send back the teas, they expressed their readiness to store them until otherwise advised. In the midst of the meeting the Sheriff of Suffolk entered, with a proclamation from the Governor, warning the people to disperse; but the message was received with derision and hisses, and a unanimous vote not to disperse. The master and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... to Mynyddshire, however, a very invidious distinction was drawn between the gentlemen named in the Royal Commission. The two first named, simply because they were knights and judges, went down in state, were met at the station by the high-sheriff of the county, and escorted by twenty javelin-men in gay attire to the comfortable lodgings prepared for them. The other three, for no other earthly reason than because their position was less exalted, had to get down as best they might, scramble into cabs with their portmanteaus, ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... it's no one's duty.... Well, I'll tell you why.... I don't make a complaint, because neither the district attorney nor the prosecuting attorney would entertain it. If he did entertain it and issued a warrant, the sheriff would refuse to serve the warrant. If the sheriff served the warrant, there would be no witnesses unless I got them. If I could get the witnesses, they wouldn't testify to the facts on the stand. If they did testify to the facts, the jury wouldn't bring in a verdict of ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... attack.[84] A similar case occurred in 1730, when Mr. Solomon White entered complaint in the Princess Anne County court against Rodolphus Melborne for challenging him "with sword and pistoll." The court ordered the sheriff to arrest Melborne and to keep him in custody until he entered bond in the sum of 50 pounds as security for good behavior for ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... carrying the sentence into effect, a message was received at the London Bridge terminus, from the Home Office, requesting that an order should be sent by the electric telegraph instructing the Under-Sheriff at Maidstone to stay the execution two hours. By the agency of the electric telegraph the communication was received in Maidstone with the usual rapidity, and the execution was for a time stayed. Shortly after the transmission of the order deferring the ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... him while in the performance of his duty as a sub-agent of the Reservation. By this means he procured a warrant for his arrest by the civil authorities, to be placed in the hands of the newly elected sheriff of the newly organized and sparsely settled country. Things looked desperate indeed. To add to the agony of the crisis, a sharp and bitter winter now wrapped the whole world in snow and ice. It was ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... heard before, but why he should have flown first, and flown so suddenly, I did not in the least know till I returned. When I got back with the gig, the house and furniture were all in the charge of the sheriff's officers. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... the Laws, his Love for Justice and Equity, and his Affection to the Government, rais'd him to all the Posts of Honour, that are consistent with a Country Life. Mr. Wood assures us (E), that he was made Justice of the Peace in 1581, High-Sheriff of Cornwall in 1586, and about that time was the Queens Deputy for the Militia. And indeed we find in his Survey of Cornwall, that he was Justice of the Peace, and one of the Quorum (F) : and that in ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... badge; but now I hated the species in advance. One of them came one morning to ask me to meet some eleven bills that I had scrawled my name upon. My signature was worth three thousand francs! Taking me altogether, I myself was not worth that amount. Sheriff's deputies rose up before me, turning their callous faces upon my despair, as the hangman regards the criminal to whom he says, 'It has just struck half-past three.' I was in the power of their clerks; ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... destruction of these relics is now so far provided against; for by a Government ordinance, the finder of any relics in ancient coins, or in the precious metals, is now entitled by law, on delivering them up to the Crown for our National Museum, to claim "the full intrinsic value" of them from the Sheriff of the district in which they chance to be discovered—a most just and proper enactment, through the aid of which many such relics will no doubt be ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... looked at one another till they couldn't look any longer, and then they varied the amusements by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time. "Hundred and fifty pounds, I see," said the gentleman at last. "Hundred and fifty pound," said Fixem, "besides cost of levy, sheriff's poundage, and all other incidental expenses."—"Um," says the gentleman, "I shan't be able to settle this before to-morrow afternoon."—"Very sorry; but I shall be obliged to leave my man here till then," replies Fixem, pretending to look very miserable over it. "That's very unfort'nate," ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... with Matt Peasley for the Tillicum. He read it over carefully, tucked it in his breast pocket and slipped quietly out the door. One hour later a suit against the Pacific Shipping Company was filed in the county clerk's office, and at five minutes after ten a deputy-sheriff appeared at the paying-teller's window in the Marine National Bank and filed a writ of attachment on ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... yeoman," Robin Hood, who wages war against mediaeval capitalism, as embodied in the persons of the abbot-landholders, and against the class legislation of Norman game laws which is enforced by the King's sheriff. The lyric poetry of the century is not the courtly Troubadour song or the Petrarchian sonnet, but the folk-song that sings from the heart to the heart of the beauty of Alysoun, "seemliest of all things," or, in more ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... The sheriff gave him leave to tell The broken-hearted dame farewell! About his neck her arms she flung, And cried, "Why must my ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you this: If you don't send Little Frank's—Miss Morley's trunks to Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the sheriff and the police." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... himself on being an expert detective, and for many days he had been investigating the murder at Ridgewood, with a view to winning the five thousand reward offered by the county sheriff. ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... the cafe, we were pursued and overtaken at the hotel door by no less a person than the Juge de Paix: a functionary, as far as I can make out, of the character of a Scots Sheriff-Substitute. He gave us his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, very neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he; and although ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the archbishop and the collective clergy of the province, and the King's consent had to be asked before it was executed. The decision was now committed to the bishop and his commissary, and the sheriff was instructed to inflict the punishment without further appeal, and to commit the guilty to the fire on the high grounds in the country, that terror might strike all the bystanders. It is clear how much ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... fortified; and bloodhounds were trained for the purpose of tracking the cattle-reavers to their retreats in the hills. The Judges of Assize rode from Carlisle to Newcastle guarded by an escort armed to the teeth. A tribute called "dagger and protection money" was annually paid by the Sheriff of Newcastle for the purpose of providing daggers and other weapons for the escort; and, though the need of such protection has long since ceased, the tribute continues to be paid in broad gold pieces of the time of Charles ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... creditors began to get uneasy, and in the latter part of 1834 a man named Van Bergen, who held one of the Lincoln-Berry notes, refusing to trust him any longer, had his horse, saddle, and surveying instruments seized by the sheriff and sold at public auction, thus sweeping away the means by which, as he said, he "procured bread and kept soul and body together." Even in this strait his known honesty proved his salvation. Out of pure friendliness, James Short bought ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... Robert, baron of Bothal, whose son Richard joined the confederate barons against King John. A descendant of his, of the name of Robert, lived under Edward III. and enjoyed the title of Lord Bothal, and was sheriff of Northumberland, and governor of Newcastle. He was present at the battle of Durham, where he made William Douglas prisoner. His only daughter, the heiress to his property, married Sir Robert Ogle; and thus the family of Bertram ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... not to be caught napping. My previous adventures and hairbreadth escapes had rendered me unusually wary, and perceiving a number of people, among whom were two or three sheriff's officers, approaching my house, I at once interpreted their mission, and climbing through a trap-door leading on to the roof of the building, nimbly made my way to the end of the row, and slipping down a waterpipe easily eluded my enemies. London, however, being now too hot to hold me, I booked ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... of indescribable misery to Nathan Fairfield passed away; but no trace of the robber or the money had been obtained. The constables and the deputy sheriff had visited the premises, and carefully considered all the facts, without affording the miserable man a particle of consolation. He groaned from morning till night, forlorn and desolate, declaring that he should come to want, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... vials of his wrath against all this class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;— a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both political parties naturally disowned. Comical as all this was, it was pathetic ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... seeing a sheriff, denotes that you will suffer great uneasiness over the uncertain changes which loom ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... countless dangers. How are we to know that in another couple of hundred feet of the reel Buck will escape the officers of the law who have him for that hold-up of the Wallahoola stage—of which he was innocent—leap from a second-story window of the sheriff's office onto the back of his old pal, and be carried safely over the border where the hellhounds can't touch him until his innocence is proved by Estelle St. Clair, the New York society girl, whose culture demanded a gentleman ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... was born at Allington Castle in 1503, and in his youth was a prominent and very popular member of the court of Henry VIII. He was knighted in 1536, and in 1537 became high sheriff of Kent. In April of the same year he was sent as ambassador to Spain, and in 1539-40 was with the court of Charles V. in the Low Countries. Returning to England he lived for the next two years in retirement, and ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... Goodenough, who had been under-sheriff of London when Cornish was sheriff, offered to swear against Cornish; and also said, that Rumsey had not discovered all he knew. So Rumsey to save himself joined with Goodenough, to swear Cornish guilty of that for which the Lord Russell had suffered. And this was driven on so fast, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... such controversies as arose between men of different hundreds. Formerly, the alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but Alfred, sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility dangerous and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county, who enjoyed a co-ordinate authority with the former in the judicial function [k]. His office also empowered him to guard the rights of the crown in the county, and to levy the fines imposed; which ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... going the rounds, Hal Willett, after whispered words of good-night to a tall and slender shadow at Darrah's door, came swiftly up the steps of his new quarters, and was surprised to find a little group at the adjoining veranda. Two civilians were there, one of whom he knew to be the sheriff. Strong was there and Wickham was giving some instructions in low ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... king and the prince, he could hear mass nowhere but in Barnsdale, while he was devoutly occupied with the service, (for this was his wont, nor would he ever suffer it to be interrupted for the most pressing occasion,) he was surprised by a certain sheriff and officers of the king, who had often troubled him before, in the secret place in the woods where he was engaged in worship as aforesaid. Some of his men, who had taken the alarm, came to him and begged him to fly with all speed. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... always, as recording Smith's opinions on this, and Jones's commentaries on that. There was a hand bill tacked on the wall, which at first offered hilarious suggestions of a circus or a steamboat excursion, but which turned out only to be a sheriff's sale. There were several oddly-shaped packages in newspaper wrappings, mysterious and awful in dark corners, that might have contained forgotten law papers or the previous week's washing of the eminent counsel. There were one or two ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... the Danes, but he was no traitor, and he showed the fellow the door. He went next to the King's sheriff; he would be bound to help. To be sure, he would claim the lion's share of the blood-money, but something was better than nothing. The sheriff came soon enough with a score of armed men. But Arendt Persson had not reckoned with his honest wife. She guessed his errand and let Gustav down from the ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... set apart by a low railing, and containing a desk of diminutive size. Between the clerk's desk and the left-hand jury box was the witness stall, raised to a level with the highest seats provided for the jurors. A seat for the sheriff was placed a short distance to the right of the throne of justice, and on a ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... all three," said the judge. But when he learned that the criminal had chosen a certain hill on the downs for the place of execution, and an hour before midnight for the time, he sent to beg the sheriff to bear him company on ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... memory of Thomas Deacon, Esq., a native of this city; sometime high sheriff of this county: a person eminent for his morality and good life; a true son of the established church: a constant attendant on her worship and service: his piety consisted not in empty profession, but in sincerity and unaffected truth. He had an ample estate, which he fairly acquired, and ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... in-born love of legendary lore, his vivid imagination and keenness of sympathy all fitted him to appreciate and to put into enduring form the latent romance which pervaded his beloved Scotland. His practical experience as a lawyer and as a sheriff, gave him a clear insight into the institutions of his country. Previous to the publication of "Waverley," Scotland was a comparatively unknown land. Even Englishmen had little knowledge of its national habits, of its traditions, or its scenery. To Scotchmen, the history of their country ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... spurred his horse along the canyon road, he knew that his days at Saugus were over. He had gone too far. The sheriff would never stand for a hold-up. Prison threatened him. What was more he would be the laughing stock of the whole country. Kie Wicks, the man who had boasted of his cleverness had been outdone ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... to Kenwith Castle, a mile away on his left hand; and not three fields away, are the old stones of "The Bloody Corner," where the retreating Danes, cut off from their ships, made their last fruitless stand against the Saxon sheriff and the valiant men of Devon. Within that charmed rock, so Torridge boatmen tell, sleeps now the old Norse Viking in his leaden coffin, with all his fairy treasure and his crown of gold; and as the boy looks at the spot, he fancies, and almost hopes, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... built in the street, just in front of the house, and was occupied for the double purpose of watching and prayer through the day; and before night the sheriff closed the saloon, and the proprietor surrendered; thus ended the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Saturday, but the next day "Being Sunday, and the People living on my Land, apparently very religious, it was thought best to postpone going among them till to-morrow." On Monday, in company with several persons including the high sheriff, Captain Van Swearingen, or "Indian Van," captain of one of the companies in Morgan's famous rifle corps, he proceeded to the land and found that, of two thousand eight hundred thirteen acres, three hundred sixty-three were under cultivation and forty more were in meadow. ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... He hesitated for a moment, staring at her as if trying to penetrate the thick, wet veil. "I may have brought you on a fool's errand. You see, I—I have seen Mr. Wrandall but once, in town somewhere, and I may be wrong. Still, the coroner,—and the sheriff,—seemed to think you should be notified,—I might say questioned. That is why I called you up. I trust, madam, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... terror he imagined he could hear the sheriff read the sentence, see the priest present the cross to the condemned men, and Froloff, before putting on the black caps, degrade the gentlemen by breaking ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... coming of a merry crowd. Here is the prince of outlaws, clad in Lincoln green and followed by a score of lusty fellows, and at once there are songs, wrestling matches, and merry jests, till your heart is filled with joy. Little John, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Friar Tuck, and Robin Hood, and last of all, the King himself—these are the actors in the play that you see through your magic glass. And so it goes through all these stories of adventure—they become a part of your experience, and you live more lives than one. Last ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... cried the judge. "Six of you take those other two outside, quite apart, and mind, you are answerable to your sheriff for bringing them back." ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... her own home, and the tortures inflicted upon her, that she died the next day in prison. Happily for the persons she had named in her confession, Dundas of Arniston, at that time the king's advocate-general, wrote to the sheriff-depute, one Captain Ross of Littledean, cautioning him not to proceed to trial, the "thing being of too great difficulty, and beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior court." Dundas himself examined the precognition with great care, and was so convinced of the utter folly of the whole case, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... moment the trot of a horse coming from the direction of Soulanges was heard, and five minutes later the sheriff's officer fastened his horse to a post placed for the purpose near the wicket gate through which the cows were driven. Then he showed his head at the door ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... of the election was drawing near, and a new sheriff was to be jockeyed into office by the traditional practice of corralling all the male adult Mexicans who could be reached, and making them vote just so. The voice of the people was about to be ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge



Words linked to "Sheriff" :   peace officer, lawman, law officer



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com