"Stealer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scandalous, and the ever-diminishing output of convicts marked the decadence of the country. Day by day the officials climbed to the topmost battlement in the hope that rural crime-hunters might be descried bringing in some turnip-stealer, some poacher, some blacker of his neighbour's eye, and day by day these faithful prison-keepers sadly descended to renew the weary round of mutual incarceration, so necessary if they wished to keep their hands in, and to apply somebody's ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the Flying-fox, while Bill was measuring him, "if a man can't go about his business without being measured by total strangers. A nice thing, indeed, to happen to Finglebury Flying-fox, the well-known and respected fruit stealer." ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... pebbles. Considered merely as a pretty story, the legend of the golden fruit watched by the dragon in the garden of the Hesperides is not without its value. But what merit can there be in the gratuitous statement which, degrading the grand Doric hero to a level with any vulgar fruit-stealer, makes Herakles break a close with force and arms, and carry off a crop of oranges which had been guarded by mastiffs? It is still worse when we come to the more homely folk-lore with which the student of mythology now has to deal. The theories of Banier, which ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... be in the highest degree pernicious. The testimony of Mr. DOUGLASS, on this point, is sustained by a cloud of witnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. "A slaveholder's profession of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... the connection; but by main force I made her go and take her leave of her protegee (which I only spell with a g because I can't make a pretty j). I thought, if she went no more, the Abactor or Abactor's wife (vide Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard something; and I have delicacy for a sheep-stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton-pie), which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. Per occasionem cujus I framed the sonnet; observe ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lacy, the cow-stealer, having thus got Aris, the intended highwayman, to be his comrade, they came on the 21st of the month called August, 1670, to the meeting of the people called Quakers, where Lacy, with Poulter, had been a month before; ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... a business career. Still, I have stamped this letter at the expense of the office, and entered it up under the heading 'Sundries,' which is a sort of start. Look out for an article in the Wrykynian, 'Hints for Young Criminals, by J. Wyatt, champion catch-as-catch-can stamp-stealer of the British Isles.' So long. I suppose you are playing against Ripton, now that the world of commerce has found that it can't get on without me. Mind you make a century, and then perhaps Burgess'll give you your first after all. There were twelve colours given three years ago, because one ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... which Mr. Lambert had taken, was admitted as evidence—the good citizens of Canterbury being in want of a little excitement, that interesting individual performed a dance upon nothing, in company with a sheep-stealer and a forger, for their especial behoof, one fine day in September, under the personal superintendence of that accomplished artist, Mr. John Ketch, in the presence of a highly respectable and numerous audience, who all retired to their homes in peace, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... dog-fish when the mandrake becomes the pearl's surrogate. The only discrepancy between the two stories is the point to which Josephus calls specific attention. For instead of the dog killing the thief, as the shark (dog-fish) kills the stealer of pearls, the dog becomes the victim as a substitute for the man. As Josephus remarks, "the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant away". This distortion of the story is true to the traditions of legend-making. The dog-incident ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... was a close, narrow, densely peopled lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women, who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head were the greetings with which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... spears. The frogs have leaves of willow on their legs, cabbage leaves for shields, cockle-shells for helmets, and bulrushes for spears. Their names are suggestive, as in a modern pantomime. Among the mice we have Crumb-stealer, Cheese-scooper, and Lick-dish; among the frogs, Puff-cheeks, Loud-croaker, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... acquittal of a horse-stealer, the thief, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, cried out, "Och, counsellor, I've no way here to thank your honor; but I wish't I saw you knocked down in me own parish,—wouldn't I bring a ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... had driven off the cattle of twenty clans, I should have thought it would have been a scandalous and low juggle, utterly unworthy of the manliness of an English judicature, to have tried him for felony as a stealer of cows. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... called a clever dog stealer, because he had no notion of how to preserve that which he stole. Putting aside their brutality, his methods were incredibly stupid; but when, five minutes later, he lay listening in his bed, the only reflection ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... direction, indicated the time of day, whenever the sun was not obscured by clouds. The sun-dial, which was an improvement upon this, was known to the ancient Jews and Greeks. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians possessed an instrument called the Clepsydra (water-stealer), which was merely a vessel full of water with a small hole in the bottom by which the water slowly escaped. There were marks in the inside of the vessel which showed the hour. An improvement upon this was made about two hundred and thirty-five years before Christ by an Egyptian, who caused the ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... at each other with blood in their eyes, and the long, yellow teeth of Red-Hair ground together, but no words passed between them till Red-Hair, poising a great stone on his shoulder, called out to Harry: 'Follow me, O boastful stealer of my wife, and drown thy ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... some degree of merit in myself to punish others for their transgressions, I am of opinion that both these girls are punishable for their breach of parental injunctions. And as to their letter-carrier, I have been inquiring into his way of living; and finding him to be a common poacher, a deer-stealer, and warren-robber, who, under pretence of haggling, deals with a set of customers who constantly take all he brings, whether fish, fowl, or venison, I hold myself justified (since Wilson's conveyance must at present be sacred) to have him stripped and robbed, and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors. A short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting at the table under the holy images. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern in Bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could. He too had been to the hospital more than once, not for medical treatment, but to see the doctor about horses—to ask whether he ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that ever went forth to conquest, won for himself a crown, and died the death of a soldier, leaving behind him a son, only inferior to himself in strength, in prowess, and in horsemanship. The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a novel writer, the panegyrist of great folks and genteel people; became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel to be mixed up with the business part of authorship; died paralytic and broken-hearted because ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... oppression and massacre made the Bhil a cruel and half-crazy thief and cattle-stealer, and when the English came he seemed to be almost as open to civilisation as the tigers of his own jungles. But John Chinn the First, father of Lionel, grandfather of our John, went into his country, lived with him, learned his language, shot the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... and many a pound, too, out of his small salary, were you not a little puzzled to make out what spell there could be in those "useless" moths, to draw out of his warm bed, twenty miles down the Eastern Counties Railway, and into the damp forest like a deer-stealer, a sober white-headed Tim Linkinwater like him, your very best man of business, given to the reading of Scotch political economy, and gifted with peculiarly clear notions on ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... labourer—carried some thousands of pounds for his master, faithfully delivering every shilling. He had, however, a little failing—a dangerous one in those days, when the gallows was the punishment for sheep-stealing. He was known to be a sheep-stealer, and actually after bringing home a hundred pounds would go and put his neck in danger the very same night by taking a sheep. This went on for some time, people shut their eyes, but at last patience was ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... other world in perfect health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my communicative companion of the preceding night—the horse-stealer of the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to the others, and we commenced our march ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... look as though he would, though, when the first man up, after receiving three and two, was allowed to walk. Joe felt a bit shaky, but he steeled himself to hold his nerve. The man at first was a notorious base-stealer, and Joe watched him closely. Twice he threw to the initial sack, hoping to nip him, and he almost succeeded. Then he slammed in a swift one to the batter, only to know that the runner started ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... in the woods, day or night, anywhere or anyhow, and I guarantee nobody won't hear a squeal. It's all in the way you grab hold of 'em and carry 'em atterwards. Some day,' goes on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens, 'I hope to become reckernized as the champion shoat-stealer ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... going to visit were practising cannibals, were notoriously treacherous, were violently hostile to all whites (on account of many cruelties bestowed by Belgians), and were especially exasperated against the stealer of their idol, it will be seen that from an ordinary point of view Captain Kettle's mission ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... always told that "Dry Head and Bloody Bones," a ghost who didn't like children, was in that wagon. It was not until later years that Florida and the other children learned that the driver of the wagon was a "nigger stealer" who stole children and took them to Georgia to sell at the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... R.G. Printed at London by John Danter for Thomas Nelson, dwelling in Silver Street, neere to the sign of the Red Crosse, 1592, Quarto." Fleetwood writes later of Browne: "This Browne is a common cousener, a thief and a horse stealer and colloureth all his doings here about this town with a sute that he hath in the lawe against a brother of his in Staffordshire. He ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... from thence called Claviger. A learned chronologist is about proving what wood this staff was made of, whether oak, ash, or crab-tree. The first trial of skill he ever performed, was with one Cacus, a deer-stealer; the next was with Typhonus, a giant of forty feet four inches. Indeed it was unhappily recorded, that meeting at last with a sailor's wife, she made his staff of prowess serve her own use, and dwindle away ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... and discussed this question. His conclusions are (i) that the pirates may have been influenced by a sense of business honour to the effect that the man-stealer should abide by his bargain, (ii) that these pirates may have received some large bribe, direct or indirect, from Rome, (iii) that the natural enmity between the slaves and the pirates may have hindered an agreement for transport, (iv) that the Cilician slaves, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard—and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a NIGGER-STEALER! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Stealer of the sacrament! Open not!—open not, I say, your lying Judas lips to me! Ah! half-breed, with the soul of a coyote!—Car-r-r- ramba!" With his passion reverberating among the consonants like distant thunder, he laid his hand upon the mane of his horse as though ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... always gave him the good word when they met, which was but seldom, for Jakoits and Kiti are far apart, and there was bad blood between the people of the two places. And then—so the girl Sipi afterwards told me—Franka was a lover of grog and a stealer of women, and kept a noisy house and made much trouble, and so Preston went not near him, for he was a quiet man and no drinker, and hated dissension. And, besides this, Franka took part in the wars of the Kiti people, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... direction in which, as he soon learned to his cost, neither the horses he had in hand, nor those that were to follow in freedom, had the slightest inclination to go; and there immediately ensued a struggle between the stealer and the stolen, which, in the space of a minute or less, resulted in the whole herd making a demonstration towards the centre of the village, whither they succeeded both in carrying themselves and the vainly resisting ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... off the child's good clothes, and wrapped it in rags, so that no one should discover the deceit. The queen had bound her by a solemn oath never to reveal to any one the place to which she had carried the prince. The child-stealer did not venture to travel by day, because she feared pursuit, so that it was a long time before she found a sufficiently retired spot. At last she reached a lonely house in a wood, where the feet of strangers rarely penetrated, and she thought this a suitable abode for ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... girl is gone! If you want to know where she is, apply to the police. Now, don't show your lying face here again! I will have you arrested! You are a child stealer! You and your ruffian had better never darken this ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... to its lowest terms, ran thus: those wishing to free the Negroes illegally imported declared that to enslave them would be to perpetrate the very evil which the law was designed to stop. "By the same law," they said, "we condemn the man-stealer and become the receivers of his stolen goods. We punish the criminal, and then step into his place, and complete the crime."[5] They said that the objection to free Negroes was no valid excuse; for if the Southern people really feared this class, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... A sheep-stealer might easily have fallen into temptation in Canterbury at that time. In three years the settlers owned 100,000 sheep; in four more half a million. Somewhat slower, the Otago progress was to ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... oftener before the Judges of New South Wales than any other, particularly since the punishment for it has been changed from death to banishment for life. When death was the penalty, many graziers put up with their loss, rather than prosecute the offender: now, the cattle-stealer is shewn no mercy, from one end of the Colony to the other. The Judge has no discretionary power with this class of offenders, but, in the event of a verdict of guilty, must pass the sentence of ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... are a liar, you stealer, They did not eat him, and they're taking Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful, You took him yesterday As Nora told me, And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... was terrible: it left the strong man as weak as a child, it turned the desperate criminal into a mumbling coward. Rogers staggered to the shaft and examined the rope. It had broken where one strand was cut; the other strands were frayed out. The gold-stealer fell upon his knees and tried to call, but a mere gasp was the only sound that escaped his lips. He remained for a minute or two gazing helplessly into the pitch blackness of the shaft; then, recovering ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... have to say without apologizing, please," said Gwendolen, with the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a reward for finding the dog he ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... raised Meer Jaffier was sifted with malignant care. Clive was subjected to the most unsparing examination and cross-examination, and afterwards bitterly complained that he, the Baron of Plassey, had been treated like a sheep-stealer. The boldness and ingenuousness of his replies would alone suffice to show how alien from his nature were the frauds to which, in the course of his Eastern negotiations, he had sometimes descended. He avowed the arts which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Some curious examples of magisterial equity are often told: one rose from the bench, when he heard his waggon in the street, and delivered his sentence in his progress towards the door—"I can't stop: give him fifty." A cattle stealer owed his life to the same impatience of enquiry: before the charge was half investigated, the magistrate said, "give him fifty"—an easy compromise with the hangman. A reverend gentleman met a party of men brought up for disobedience: ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... that Sullivan, the negro-stealer, and Monroe, her guardian, were the same, but where was he now, and why had he treated her so treacherously, when he had always seemed ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... stealer," cried Prudy. "Now, Gracie Clifford, I saw you once, and you was a-nippin' cream out of the cream-pot. You're ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... full moon, to be seen by everybody, bearing his load of cabbages to all eternity. Every Christmas Eve he is said to turn round once. Others say that he stole willow-boughs, which he must bear for ever. In Sylt the story goes that he was a sheep-stealer, that enticed sheep to him with a bundle of cabbages, until, as an everlasting warning to others, he was placed in the moon, where he constantly holds in his hand a bundle of cabbages. The people of Rantum say that ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... of a sheep-stealer who had rendered his dog so skilful an accomplice in his nefarious traffic, that he used to send him out to commit acts of felony by himself, and had even contrived to impress on the poor cur the caution that he should not, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... to make Lagardere break ground, and unable to get within Lagardere's guard, now began to taunt his antagonist savagely, calling him a child-stealer and a woman-wronger, with other foul terms of abuse that rolled glibly from his lips in the ugliness of his ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... time night was coming on, and Edward's attendant was sent off with one of Evan Dhu's men, that they might find a place to sleep in, while Evan himself pushed forward to warn the supposed cattle-stealer, one Donald Bean Lean, of the party's near approach. For, as Evan Dhu said, the Cateran might very naturally be startled by the sudden appearance of a sidier roy—or red soldier—in the very place of ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... English," she sprightlily announced. "I am appleed myself at to learn its by heart. Certainly you look for a needle in a hay bundle, my gentlemans. I am no stealer of the grand road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her presence will say ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... near dead myself. I tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey's, and at Scotton's Drive, but they didn't know me, and they bounced me. So I borrowed a horse off Weigall's paddock, to make for here—to you. I didn't mean to keep that horse. Hell, I'm no horse-stealer! But I couldn't explain to them, except that I had to git to Bindon to save a man's life. If people laugh in your face, it's no use explainin'. I took a roan from Weigall's, and they got after me. 'Bout six miles up they shot ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... miles, we landed in a district, which was the dominion of a chief called Maraitata, the burying-place of men, whose father's name was Pahairedo, the stealer of boats. Though these names seemed to favour the account that had been given by Tituboalo, we soon found that it was not true. Both the father and the son received us with the greatest civility, gave us provisions, and, after some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... I have heard the like," he said. "If the man complains, pay him. But if he is a man stealer, as is likely, you will hear naught of him, and he will get him from Norwich ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... had very few friends. Like many mischievous people, he has been more severely blamed than he really deserves. He has been called an egg-stealer, a bird-eater, and a corn-thief. I am afraid that this is all true, and yet it is not fair to forget ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... by night—through my two eyes! Are we not one? How often must I repeat it that you and I are one! One! One! O Loskiel—stealer of hearts, if you could only know how often on my knees I am before you—how truly I adore, how humbly, scarcely daring to believe my heart that tells me such a tale of magic and enchantment—after these barren, loveless years. Mark! Yonder ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... knowledge among his friends that he had acted as the company's agent, Boone himself consistently refrained from betraying the confidence of his employers. Upon a similar mission, Gist had carefully concealed from the suspicious Indians the fact that he carried a compass, which they wittily termed "land stealer"; and Washington likewise imposed secrecy upon his land agent Crawford, insisting that the operation be carried on under the guise of hunting game." The discreet Boone, taciturn and given to keeping his own counsel, in one instance ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... "You lie, O woman stealer; Muata freed himself;" and out of the water, out of the blackness, came the voice, without warning, "Muata is ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... bankers signed a petition praying that the vote of the Commons might be sustained, but in vain; still, in deference to public opinion, after this the death-penalty was not inflicted upon a forger. Nevertheless, there remained plenty of food for the gallows. An incendiary, as well as a sheep-stealer, was liable to capital punishment; and so severely was the law strained upon these points, that he who set fire to a rick in a field, as well as he who found a half-dead sheep and carried it home, was condemned without mercy. But the advocates of mercy continued their good work until, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... selection; they are drawn towards the kamic elements of men and animals, and it is here that we ought to place the list of those misdeeds, by reason of which these elements pass into bodies of animals or men of inferior development. "A drunken priest becomes a worm," says Manu, "a stealer of corn, a rat; the murderer of a Brahman, a dog, a tiger, or a serpent"—and this means that those elements which, in man, serve as a basis for the passions, at death, pass over into the bodies of animals that ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our thinking, is a thief's story, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various |
