"Raff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can hardly tell you, if you won't have Wagstaff, or Pugsby, or Sniggins, or Goldman, or somebody that's respectable, to do what's proper, the child sha'n't be christened at all. As for Prettyman, or any such raff—no, never! I'm sure there's a certain set of people that poverty's catching from, and that Prettyman's one of 'em. Now, Caudle, I won't have my dear child lost by any of your spittoon acquaintance, I can ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... foreign invasion; Homo, the human being, remained on the farm and in the workshop and begat the new generations. "Vir gave place to Homo," says the Latin author. Men of good stock were replaced by the sons of slaves and camp-followers, the riff-raff of those the army sucked in but ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... connected with the prison. In some way that hasn't yet been discovered he got possession of clothes to cover his prison uniform and got away one day from the yard in which he was working. Probably with his help, two others got away at the same time. Their names are Jake Raff and Toppy Gillen, both of them desperate criminals and in for long terms. Likely enough the three of them are operating together somewhere. We made a careful search for them and have sent out descriptions ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... himself, his name has become depraved and corrupted till you would not know it. A varlet, then, is just short and sharp for a scoundrel who is ready for anything; and the worse the thing is the more ready he is for it. There are riff-raff and refuse always about who are ready to volunteer for any filibustering expedition; and that full as much for the sheer devilry of the enterprise as for any real profit it is to be to themselves. Wherever mischief is to be done, there your ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... came the oral substitutes for kitchenware. "Ye can apollygise to riff-raff of the streets for settin' yer unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye'd walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes-line without so much as a 'Kiss me fut,' and I'm sure it's that long from rubberin' out the windy for ye and the victuals cold ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... have one or two spicy news papers, which picture in horrid colors the blackest side of human life. This is necessary to guard the young against the riff-raff of humanity, such as tramps, sharpers, sewing machine and book agents, the lightning rod man, and a dozen other sharp swindlers that prey on the farmer and his family for an existence. The Sanitary Journal treats of health, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... on; but you are as well aware as I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by Jews and Christians. And as to the connection of our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as demoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts. We must look where they point; that's what I call rationality. The most ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the drinking-shops in the Greek quarter came sounds of singing and noise, for every one was earning high wages, and the place was full of Maltese, Alexandrians, Smyrniotes, and, indeed, the riff-raff of all the Mediterranean cities, who had flocked to the scene of action to make money as petty traders, hucksters, camp-followers, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... papers, ransacked his shop and brought a great heap of old posters and picture papers to her. Captain Morton brought a beloved picture of his army Colonel to adorn the room, and deaf John Kollander, who had a low opinion of the ignorant foreigners and the riff-raff and scum of society, which Laura was trying to help, wished none the less to help her, and came down one day with a flag for the schoolroom and insisted upon making a speech to the tots about patriotism. He ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... me the crazy building formerly known as the Joy-Shop and once the nightly resort of the Asiatic riff-raff from the docks— was silent, save for the squealing and scuffling of the rats. The melancholy lapping of the water frequently reached my ears, and a more or less continuous din from the wharves and ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... different. This was anarchy. And in every city it was going on, this rallying of the malcontents, the idlers, the envious and the dangerous, to the red flag. Organized labor gathered together the workmen, but men like Doyle were organizing the riff-raff of the country. They secured a small percentage of idealists and pseudo-intellectuals, and taught them a so-called internationalism which under the name of brotherhood was nothing but a raid on private property, a scheme of pillage and arson. They allied with themselves imported ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ants, and we have to pick every piece over because of weevils. Existence at night is an unequal fight with rats and cockroaches, and at meals with the stewards for time to eat. The stewards outnumber the passengers, and are the veriest riff-raff I have seen on board ship. At meals, when the captain is not below, their sole object is to hurry us from the table in order that they may sit down to a protracted meal; they are insulting and disobliging, and since illness has been on board, have shown a want of common humanity which places ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... him that Big Jem and the pack o' blackguard riff-raff come and 'sulted yer and said what you wouldn't tell me. The captain wouldn't want you to put up with that. I know the captain 'most as well as you do. 'Hullo!' he says; 'what ha' you been doing—how did you get in that condition?' he ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... wish to be Sosia, be Sosia yourself, by all means. Now that I am he, you either pack, or take a thrashing, you unknown riff raff. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... his lordship. "And now, if you please, we shall approach this business with a little more parteecularity. I hear that at the hanging of Duncan Jopp - and, man! ye had a fine client there - in the middle of all the riff-raff of the ceety, ye thought fit to cry out, 'This is a damned murder, and my gorge rises at the man that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (G. Apacible) and Raff (Sixto Lopez) duly carried out your last instructions given at Tarlac. Senor Del Pan, sailing by way of Japan, about the middle of October, and Senor Caney (G. Apacible), sailing by way of Europe about the 1st of November, met in Toronto about the middle of February ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... but young as you are, you know full well that our paths do not lie parallel with each other. I am a gambler, and although Mrs. Bradley is as good a woman as ever lived, (and I'd kill the first man that said she wasn't) we are not recognized by society; no, not even by the riff raff that live in Hallville. You have your way to carve in the world, don't ruin it right at the outset by letting people know you are friendly with gamblers. No matter how good your motives may be, this scoffing world will always misconstrue them ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... hoofs—the men from Gloucester! Windybank noted with some degree of satisfaction that they ware well armed and well mounted. In the darkness he counted nearly a score of men. A few were "riff-raff;" some, like himself, were perhaps forced; but the majority seemed to be of some substance and courage. Prospects were looking brighter. Master Andrew ventured to ask Basil a question. "What of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... still small, straggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in the old keel-boating and early steamboating times—plenty of drinking, carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the river, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; has always been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Marion was seated at the piano, playing a rhapsody of Raff's, and Mrs. Armour and Lali were seated side by side. Frank thrilled at seeing his wife's hand in his mother's. Marion nodded over the piano at the men, and presently played a snatch of Carmen, then wandered off into the barbaric strength of Tannhauser, and as suddenly again into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... painted women-folk with stony, Medusa-like gambling eyes, a Turk or two, Jews and cosmopolitan sharks and sharpers, flamboyant Americans, Brazilian, Peruvian, Chilian, Bolivian rastaqueros with names that read like a nightmare (see "List of Arrivals" in New York Herald)—the whole exotic riff-raff enlivened and perfumed by a copious ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... so? Listen: to-night I got as far as the manor house, being fool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her. God help me, Jack! I had it. They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side of the river—Falconnet and the others—and are holding high revel at Appleby. Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scant enough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like any light o' love with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... as we were—four willing men upon a bit of craggy rock rising sheer out of a thousand fathom sea, and commanded to hold the gate for our lives and for another life more precious against all the riff-raff that Ken's Island could send against us. Out on the shimmering sea I counted twelve boats with my own eyes, and knew that every one of them was full of cut-throats. In the half of an hour or sooner that devil's crew would knock at our ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... Ser Jorg, the worthe Loumle, a knyghte of great renowen, Ser Raff, the ryche Rugbe, with dyntes wear ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... eccentric, the ill-balanced, the blackguardly, the unprincipled, the hapless, the shiftless, the unclassed, the sensual and the besotted that shoulder and hustle one another in the world of the theatre; all the riff-raff recruited from the greater world without by the fascinating ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... confines of St. James' Park—and, as more daring explorers aver, to the river Thames itself. Here is a very town of tunnels and arches, of odd angled rooms, of veritable caves and depths as dark as Styx. If, in a common way, it be shut by the circumstance of the buildings above to the riff-raff and night-hawks who would frequent it, there are seasons, nevertheless, when the laying of new foundations, the building of hotels and the demolition of ancient streets in the name of "improvement" fling its gates open to the more cunning of the "destitutes," and they flock there as ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... already held the position of first mate after becoming part owner of the brig, "Five Sisters," on which he had made five voyages. It had not been easy for a youth with the down of manhood scarcely visible upon his cheeks to rule a crew gathered in that day from the riff-raff and scum of the sailing-ports. Yet the Jewish lad, who one day was to make it his boast that he had abolished the barbarous custom of corporal punishment from the United States Navy, by resorting to force ruled without difficulty when his ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... de little Will'm, I 'pose. I reck'n dat 'ere lad hab gone to de bott'm ob de sea long afore dis, or else he get off on de big raff. I know he no go 'long wi' de cappen, 'case I see de little chap close by de caboose after de gig row 'way. If he hab go by de raff dem ruffins sure eat him up,—dat be if dey get hungry. Dey sure do dat! Hark! what's dat I heer? Sure's my name be Snowball, I hear ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... buck, whom we will willingly suppose harmless, you see specimens of the French raff, who goes aux eaux: gambler, speculator, sentimentalist, duellist, travelling with madame his wife, at whom other raffs nod and wink familiarly. This rogue is much more picturesque and civilized than the similar person in our own country: whose manners betray the stable; ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came to Jim's cheek. "So," he said, facing her quickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's drifted here around us—jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell before them—you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was a Spanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... RAFF, JOACHIM, musical composer of the Wagner School, born at Lachen, in Switzerland; began life as a schoolmaster; was attracted to music; studied at Weimar; lived near Liszt, and became Director of the Conservatorium at Frankfort-on-Main; his works include symphonies, overtures, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... like this? It shall not—it is humiliating! "Miss Leyburn has been jilted and cannot see visitors,"—that is the kind of thing. Catherine, when you have finished that document, will you kindly come and hear me practise my last Raff—I am going. Good-bye.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... this, was a favourite resort for mealmen and country waggoners. There was in this street also a tavern called the Turk's Head, where Haggart Hoggarty planned the murder of Mr. Steele on Hounslow Heath in 1802. Walford mentions also Rat's Castle, a rendezvous for all the riff-raff of the neighbourhood. Dyott Street was named after an influential parishioner of Charles II.'s time, who had a house here. It was later called George Street, but has ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Jawamard made an end of his verses when there came out upon him from among the trees a horseman of terrible mien covered and clad in steely sheen, who cried out to him, saying, "Stand, O riff-raff of the Arabs! Doff thy dress and ground thine arms gear and dismount thy destrier and be off with thy life!" When Jawamard heard this, the light in his eyes became darkest night and he drew his sabre and drove at Jamrkan, for he it was, saying, "O thief of the Arabs, wilt thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... forward and said, "Know that I am a Bedouin, who use to lie in wait, by the way, to steal children and virgin girls and sell them to merchants; and this I did for many a year until these latter days, when Satan incited me to join these two gallows-birds in gathering together all the riff-raff of the Arabs and other peoples, that we might waylay merchants and plunder caravans." Said the two Kings, "Tell us the rarest of the adventures that have befallen thee in kidnapping children and girls." "O ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... the boys a little money, and a letter of introduction to his friend at Valence, the Abbe (or Reverend) Saint Raff. ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... no playwright, then, make it his boast that he cannot disburden his soul within the three hours' limit, and cannot produce plays intelligible or endurable to any audience but a band of adepts. A popular audience, however, does not necessarily mean the mere riff-raff of the theatrical public. There is a large class of playgoers, both in England and America, which is capable of appreciating work of a high intellectual order, if only it does not ignore the fundamental conditions of theatrical presentation. It is an audience of this class that ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... each with a piece of broken pine box across his knees and a whisky bottle or a short stick in either hand. Some of them were undoubtedly half-breeds, swarthy of skin and very unkempt; some bore the scars of knife wounds on their faces—riff-raff of the cities mixed with the off-scourings of railway and lumber camps. The whole motley crew were in various stages of drunkenness and it was evident that the whisky-traders' song they were singing appealed to them as about the funniest and ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... to the chatter of certain scribblers, to give to every individual a share in the throne or to adopt certain revolutionary ideas, which are mere Punch and Judy shows for the public, manipulated by a band of self-styled patriots, riff-raff, always ready to sell their conscience for a million francs, for an honest woman, or for ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Kharu of the old Egyptians, meaning a "mixed multitude," were originally Phoenicians and domiciled from earliest ages about Lake Menzalah. So the "mixed multitude," or mingled people, which followed Israel from Egypt would be a riff-raff of strangers. D'Herbelot says (sub voce Midian): "Quoyque les Madianites soient reputez pour Arabes, neanmoins ils ne sont pas du nombre des Tribus qui partageoient l'Arabie, et dont les Auteurs ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... soul will respond at once with alacrity. Do you not note your brother's character, proud and frank and sensitive to honour? He is not a mean and sorry rascal to be caught by a bribe—no better way indeed for such riff-raff. No! gentle natures need a finer treatment. You can best hope to work on them ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... was a strange, restless populace, the majority here to-day, disappearing to-morrow—cowboys, half-breeds, trackmen, graders, desperadoes, gamblers, saloon-keepers, merchants, generally Jewish, petty officials, and a riff-raff no one could account for, mere floating debris. The town was an eddy catching odd bits of driftwood such as only the frontier ever knew. Queer characters were everywhere, wrecks of dissipation, derelicts of the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... riff-raff of many ports they were; and now with them it was every man for himself. This feeling without proper knowledge worked their undoing. The ropes were released, one before the other, and the loaded ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... of upholding a minority government—were great public shows for the howling rabble and leering sansculottes, the hoodlums of Paris whom even the masters dared not offend. The riff-raff acted exactly as at any of their own ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... Sherman done caught on by dat time 'bout how to fin' things. Dey got ever'thing an' burned Marse Greer's barn. Day lef' de house an' didn' bother de fam'ly 'cause dey called deyse'fs company. De good Lord knows Marse Greer didn' 'vite 'em! But de Cap'ns bein' dere kep' de rip-rap[FN: riff-raff] ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the "J. P." "But we ain't playin' for the prohibition vote; and we ain't playin' for the labour vote—tryin' to stir up the riff-raff in these coal-camps, promisin' 'em high wages an' short hours. Don't he know he can't get it for 'em? But he figgers he'll go off to Washington and leave us here to deal with ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... a skirt dance, which happily closed a very exciting day. I went to bed in my cell. It was a fine, moonlight night, and a three-cornered contest soon started between donkeys braying, jackals howling and dogs barking; but we were very tired, and they made no more impression on us than would Raff's Cavatina played on the violin ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Arden by Thomas Hennage of the Cardinal's household. To this Hennage, Arden grants the wardship of his son Peter; and, if he should die, the wardship of Raffe; failing whom, the wardship of John, his third son, 1533. His wife was Margery. Sir Raff Ellerker married Jane, daughter of John Arden, Esq. (Visitation, Yorks, 1563). There is also noted the Inquis. P. M., of Peter Arden, of York, 22 Henry VIII.,[542] and William Arden's lease of Yaresthorpe, Yorks. The priory of nuns at Arden, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The first thing Haase ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... soldiers to fight in the King's battles. After drafting a number of well-to-do farmers, whom he knows will pay him snug sums of money rather than to serve under him, he pockets their money and proceeds to fill his company from the riff-raff of the country ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... to spend the night in the notorious section of the city. Maria Mondmilch allowed every possible kind of riff-raff, to speak to her, but she ran away from most of the men. She was not yet fifteen years old when she permitted a ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... remarked Reedy on the way, "your uncle is very generous to want to help these fellows across the line that are broke. But they are riff-raff. He will lose every dollar of it. I know them. Good Lord! haven't I befriended them, and helped them fifty ways? And do they appreciate it? Well, I should ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... Farewell, riff-raff Of Customs' clerks who laugh And shout: "Farewell!" We'll quaff One bout To thee, young lass, with kisses sweet! Farewell, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... dowdy, drab, slut, malkin^, slattern, sloven, slammerkin^, slammock^, slummock^, scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark^, dust-man, sweep; beast. dirt, filth, soil, slop; dust, cobweb, flue; smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff^; sossle^, sozzle^. sordes^, dregs, grounds, lees; argol^; sediment, settlement heeltap^; dross, drossiness^; mother^, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders. recrement^, slag; scum, froth. hogwash; ditchwater^, dishwater, bilgewater^; rinsings, cheeseparings; sweepings &c (useless ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... offspring of a sound New England stock, but they sometimes show strong points of resemblance to that "white trash" which has come to be a recognizable strain of the English race; and one cannot help suspecting that while the New England colonies made every effort to keep out such riff raff, it may nevertheless have now and then crept in. However this may be, it cannot be said that this element ever formed a noticeable feature in the life of colonial New England. As regards their social ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... to circuit, where found my old friend and schoolfellow, D. Monypenny.[510] Nothing to-day but a pack of riff-raff cases of petty larceny and trash. Dined as usual with the Judge, and slept at ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... be barren of any desired result. There was a law in the country, and that law would see the man through who had properly filed on his claim. And yet, for all that, his blood grew hot at the thought of all of this riff-raff of Jim Courtot squatting here upon that which by ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... The auld boy, whilst in his cups, is bettin' she can beat anythin' on four legs, even jack rabbits an' antelope. The precious gamblin' riff-raff are fillin' ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... such success that a second concert was at once announced. Two were next given at Hildesheim. Then came Leipsic, Hanover and after that Weimer, where Franz Liszt and his retinue of famous pupils held court. Here Johannes became acquainted with Raff, Klindworth, Mason, Pruekner and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... yelled. 'Allie Lee! Flesh an' blood yez can't deny! Her baby! ... An' she's been my slave—my dog to beat an' kick! She's been through Benton! A toy fer the riff-raff of the camps! ... She's as vile an' black an' lost as her ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Dick Ellison fuddled himself upon it was notorious, and on her last visit to Wroote she had heard scandalous tales of John Romley, who had come to haunt the taverns in and about Epworth, singing songs and soaking with the riff-raff of the neighbourhood until turned out at midnight to roll homeward to his lonely lodgings. She connected drunkenness with uproarious mirth, boon companionship, set orgies. Of secret unsocial tippling she ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... (that same Upper Housemaid who had spoken of the riff-raff of Cluhir) heard him, in the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... to see you, captain," the insurgent chief ran on quickly. "This riff-raff of mine can't hit a hillside. Hammer the artillery into ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Rios and Escobar and a lot of other riff-raff I don't know. She is instrumental in Betty Gordon's ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory |
