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Convict   /kˈɑnvɪkt/  /kənvˈɪkt/   Listen
Convict

noun
1.
A person serving a sentence in a jail or prison.  Synonyms: con, inmate, yard bird, yardbird.
2.
A person who has been convicted of a criminal offense.



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"Convict" Quotes from Famous Books



... unreliable, and only one of the witnesses could identify Kritzinger. We are, therefore, driven back to the evidence of Jan Louw. Even if Jan Louw had given his evidence in a way that could not be shaken, it would be dangerous to convict on the evidence of one witness alone. Natives have no idea of dates, time, or distances. They find it difficult to identify prisoners. We have seen that in the case of Jan Jonkers, and that shows how much reliance can be placed ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... threat I don't understand. I despise his machinations. I defy him utterly; and the time is coming when, in spite of his manoeuvring, I'll drive him into a corner and pin him to the wall. He very well knows that flitting and skulking from place to place, like an escaped convict, he is safe in writing what insults he pleases through the post. I can't tell how or where to find him. He is not only no gentleman, but no man—a coward as well as a ruffian. But his game of hide-and-seek cannot go on for ever; and when next I can lay my hand upon him, I'll ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... it is you are inviting to your father's house? Do you know that I am an escaped convict, with a price on my head this minute? Do you know the penalty of giving me shelter, or even ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... hours. It does not often occur that one is doomed to bear the same bore both by day and night; any change gives some ease; but poor Alaric for three days had had no change. He felt like a liberated convict as he stepped freely forth into the sweet evening air, and made his way through the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... know!" said Mrs. Powle impatiently; "but just look at that girl and see what she is. She might be presented at Court now, and reigning like a princess in her own house; yes, she might; and to-morrow she is going off as if she were a convict, to Botany Bay!" ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the following spring, which, though the matter is hardly important, was not that of the Queen's memorable visit. The Irish experiences are probably the fruit of several expeditions, and Penelope has chosen to include this vivid impression of Her Majesty's welcome to Ireland, even though it might convict her of an anachronism. Perhaps as this is not an historical novel, but a 'chronicle of small beer,' the trifling inaccuracy may be ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... not very much frightened. He told her that he had powerful financial friends who would appeal to the governor to pardon him in case he was convicted; and, anyhow, that he did not think that the evidence was strong enough to convict him. He was merely a political scapegoat through public clamor and her father's influence; since the latter's receipt of the letter about them he had been the victim of Butler's enmity, and nothing more. "If it weren't for your father, honey," ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... 'em out. Your Uncle Silas is a friend of mine—he has to be. I'm going to send him a telegram." He smiled, and chucked her under the chin. "I'm not much on Christmas myself," he said, "but an obligation's an obligation." He shook hands with her, nodded in a friendly way to the ex-convict, and passed out of the car on his return journey, consulting ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... not in the least interested in the personality of the convict thus described. Her mind had flown to another aspect of the case—the case ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... her to her place. There were ten faces; but she had eyes for one alone. She had not forgotten, could not mistake, him—that pale head, so proud and fine, but now thin with suffering; the beautiful mobile eyes, now encircled with the signs of sorrow and watching. The convict's shirt, open in large, broad folds, left bare the neck, delicate as a woman's, and made for that youthful face an aureole, of innocence, of martyrdom. His looks [149] met hers. Did he recognize her? She could ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... want to tell you what it is, George—you've lost your mind. You've let a single message from Mollenhauer frighten you to death, and because of that you're going to risk your fortune, your reputation, your standing—everything. Do you really realize what this means if I fail? You will be a convict, I tell you, George. You will go to prison. This fellow Mollenhauer, who is so quick to tell you what not to do now, will be the last man to turn a hand for you once you're down. Why, look at me—I've helped you, haven't I? ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... balanced by the isles of the cursed. The radiant Garden of Hesperides has found its antithesis in the black hell of Norfolk Isle, peopled by the "doubly condemned" criminals whom not even the depraved convict citizens of Botany Bay could tolerate.[903] There is scarcely an island of the Mediterranean without this sinister vein in its history. The archipelagoes of the ancient Aegean were constantly receiving ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don't be brought before me. You'll have children—boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I'll convict 'em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... that his task was hard. He had to convict himself and must do so logically, since Challoner was by no means a fool. As he nerved himself to the effort he was conscious of a ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... only crimes. No crime to steal from each other, only from the Chief. The sun as a great Chief. The coming of the ship. The natives on the seashore. Casting of the anchor. Sutoto sees the Chief's daughter. George's captors on the way to the convict colony. Intercession on the part of the boys. The food at the banquet. The natives' aversion to fish. Snake worshippers. Witch doctors. The bad god Baigona. Peculiar ideas of right and wrong among the natives. The survey of the southern part of the island. Triangulation from the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... matter quite unnecessarily," the Governor declared with a wave of the hand. "I can see that yours is a sensitive nature, with imagination highly developed. You were in your own house, and had every right to be there; and certainly no jury would ever convict you of murder where you were only defending yourself against a scoundrel who did his best ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... book; not containing all those writings which we deem to be of authority in describing our faith, but such as are most needful. It is from reading this, and noting as you read the inward marks of honesty, and observing how easy it were, even now, by visiting Judea, to convict its authors of error and falsehood, had they been guilty of either, that your minds will be best able to judge of the truth and worth ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... beautiful and highly-accomplished young female, imbued with every virtue, but slightly addicted to bigamy! Let her stew through the first act as the bride of a condemned convict—then season with a benevolent but very ignorant lover—add a marriage. Stir up with a gentleman in dusty boots and large whiskers. Dredge in a meeting, and baste with the knowledge of the dusty boot proprietor being her husband. Let this steam for some time; during ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a clue,—some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of curiosities from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers in charge of the convict-guard there." ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... considerable difficulty, indeed, in distinguishing him from his mates, though Josephine declares that she singled him out the moment he appeared on the scene. He suggests to me a compromise between a convict and a hod-carrier. Nevertheless, my eyes begin to water as I follow his every movement, and my pulses throb eagerly. At the same time I am impelled to link my arm affectionately in my son David's, next to whom I am sitting. I cannot help ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... transported by sex-trafficking rings to Europe tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Cameroon is on the Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat human trafficking in 2007, particularly in terms of efforts to prosecute and convict trafficking offenders; while Cameroon reported some arrests of traffickers, none of them were prosecuted or punished; the government does not identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations nor does it monitor the number ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... surprised the general, for the man was dressed in a yellow tunic, with blue tights, and a red ruffle about his neck. In fine, it must be confessed that this Don Perez Goneti bore a much stronger resemblance to an escaped convict, or a street juggler, than to a great lawgiver. A consultation now took place between this great lawgiver and the general, as to whether the speech of the latter would be acceptable to his majesty. "For," said the lawgiver, "his majesty is ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... since faltered when he came to give his evidence in public, and seemed unable to afford any positive testimony on the subject. The presumption against the prisoner, without the evidence of the Spaniard, was considered by the other judges strong enough to convict him; but Marino had objected that since the attack was made by daylight—for it was in the summer, and the evenings were quite light—it seemed extraordinary that Mendez could give no more certain indications of his assailant. Added to this, although every means had been used to obtain a confession—such ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... we met the man whom we had so lately suspected. I felt a tinge of shame at the thought that, a few minutes previously, I had been sneaking into his house in the hope that I should find evidence to convict him of a crime. By this time dawn was sufficiently advanced to allow of recognition, and as he came level with us ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... birth of a child. It is true that Shelley is said to have believed that this child was not his, though later he acknowledged this belief was not correct. The name of a certain Major Ryan figures in the domestic history of the Shelleys at this time; but certainly there seems no evidence to convict poor Harriet upon, although Godwin at a later date informed Shelley that he had evidence of Harriet having been false to him four months before he left her. This evidence is not forthcoming, and the position of his daughter Mary may have made slender evidence seem more weighty at the ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... of the very iniquity which he had himself committed. Nothing, the doctor felt, would be too bad or too false for Barry Lynch; nothing could be more damnable than the proposal he had made; and yet it would be impossible to convict him, impossible to punish him. He would, of course, deny the truth of the accusation, and probably return the charge on his accuser. And yet Colligan felt that he would be compromising the matter, if he did not mention it to some one; and that he would outrage his own feelings if he ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... judgment was at once infallible and self-sufficing. Capable of reasonably setting forth and defining moral questions, (14) he was also able to test others, and where they erred, to cross-examine and convict them, and so to impel and guide them in the path of virtue and noble manhood. With these characteristics, he seemed to be the very impersonation of ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... mathematically the importance of the Ember Days: 'Who can tell,' he added, 'the degree of blessing lost to us in this land by neglecting, as we alone of Christian Churches do neglect, these holy days?' He then proceeded to convict the Reformers, not only of rebellion, but'—for my own part I see not how we can avoid adding—of perjury.' Every day his arguments became more extreme, more rigorously exact, and more distressing to his master. Newman was in the position of a cautious commander-in-chief being hurried ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... voluntarily ceded all his goods to his creditors in order to cheat them. When there has been a doubt, one has been content with putting the unfortunate man in the pillory, or with sending him to the galleys, although ordinarily a banker makes a poor convict. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... during, a period of ten years, together with observations on prison discipline, and the recruiting system, interspersed with comic songs and jokes translated from the Sanscrit. It is a complete guide in morals and manners for the young soldier, the intelligent convict, and the aspiring thief. It is well, it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various

... with vehement emotion, and her words brought some consolation to Edith. The horrible thought that had at first come was that her father had been a convict in some penal settlement, but this solemn assurance of his innocence mitigated the horror of the thought, and changed it into pity. She said not a word, however, for her feelings were still too strong, nor could ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... that the fact of Wordsworth's having dictated to Miss Fenwick (so late as 1843) a stanza from 'The Convict' in his note to 'The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots' (1817), justifies the inclusion of the whole of that (suppressed) poem in such ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... I want,' said Josephine. 'I wish it would snow five feet deep. I would like nothing better than to be snowed up. I would like to be desiccatedlike a man I was reading of yesterday; he's in a French novel. Do you know, he was desiccated; he was a convict, you see, and the men of science could try their experiments upon him; and they desiccated him and laid him by; and he was forgotten, and years passed, and everything changed in the world, and his children ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... "Up to this year," he said and smiled grimly, "I couldn't have made the trip without beating my way, and I guess if I went to some of those senators now and escaped being put down for an ex-convict, they'd say I was engineering a trust. They'd turn another key on ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... lad, after an apprenticeship of seven years to a convict's life that fellow knocking at my door, and Andrews coming up to say that he had called ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... to contradict the argument which he submitted. There was another reason why they should spare these men, although he hardly expected the Government to listen, because the Government sent down one of the judges who was predetermined to convict the prisoners; it was that the offence was purely a political one. The death of Brett was a sad mischance, but no one who read the evidence could regard the killing of Brett as an intentional murder. Legally, it was murder; morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a political captive. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... spells and incantations might, after all, not prove effective, and thus convict him for a charlatan, the man of science felt uneasy. Still, an order was an order, especially when it came from a King, and he promised to do his best. On the day that his patient arrived, he wrote to his married daughter, Emma Niendorf. A free translation of this letter, which ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... be no readier, sir," said the steward, who looked smart in a suit of white and a jaunty cap. Instead of a shirt, he wore a gaudy cotton sweater with stripes running athwart his body, red and blue, after the manner of a convict's clothes. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... told the Louds," she explained, "and the Louds told me. Her father thinks she has given in to him; but she hasn't—not an inch. He keeps her like a jailer; and she acts like a convict—always with an eye open for some way of escape. That man no more understands women than he ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... however, quite sufficient evidence to convict Delessert of the crime, notwithstanding his persistent asseverations of innocence. His known hatred of Destouches, the threats he had uttered concerning him, his conduct in front of the cathedral, Marguerite's evidence, and the finding the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... they heard a woman's voice cry out in, great anger: "I know that you love her and that you want to get rid of me, but you shall not do it! You murdered him, but you shall not murder me! I have all the evidence to convict you of murdering him! The Archbishop will have it to- morrow! They shall hang you! Do you hear me? They shall hang you for this murder!" that thereupon one of the policemen proposed that they should break into the house and see what was wrong, but the other had urged that it ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... to play the role of Gypsy Nan, because it was these associates of Gypsy Nan who were at the bottom of the crime of which she, Rhoda Gray, was held guilty, and because there was always the hope that in this way, through confidences to a supposed confederate, she could find the evidence that would convict those actually guilty, and so prove her own innocence. But in holding to the role of Gypsy Nan for the purpose of receiving those criminal confidences, she had not thought of this—that upon her would rest the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... plain sign that our nation is of late date because it is not so much as vouchsafed a bare mention by the most famous historians among the Greeks, I therefore have thought myself under an obligation to write somewhat briefly about these subjects, in order to convict those who reproach us of spite and deliberate falsehood and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal to instruct all those who are desirous of knowing the truth of what great antiquity we really are. As for the witnesses whom I shall produce for the proof of what ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... cried, as it rushed over me in that instant what I had been too heedless and slow to comprehend, the possible wretched meaning of her words. "What do you mean?" rising and standing over her, with a terrible sense of power to convict. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... Fourteen years passed. The convict was sent into the mines. The minister went down one day into a mine, and among the workmen saw a gigantic figure bent ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... in their characters may, I believe, in a great measure be attributed to the strong influence exercised among them by a white man, called by the natives "Wini," who has been living there for many years. This man, who is supposed to be an escaped convict from one of the former penal settlements in Australia, no doubt considers it politic to keep Europeans from visiting the island where he resides, "Badu". The natives of Cape York hold him and the Banks Islanders ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... ordinary life, the prima facie case, motive, &c., counts for evidence in a court of law—and where there is a strong antecedent improbability a proportionately greater weight of evidence a posteriori is needed to counterbalance it: so that, e.g. better evidence would be needed to convict the Archbishop of Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket-picking. And so it is with speculative philosophy. But in both cases our only guide is known analogy; therefore, the further we are removed from possible experience—i.e. the more remote from experience the sphere contemplated—the ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes

... burst of indignation, most unfamiliar to His lips. Three sentences, like triple lightning flash from His pained heart. With almost scornful subtlety He lays hold of the words which He puts into the Pharisees' mouths, to convict them of kindred with those whose deeds they would disown. 'Our fathers, say you? Then you do belong to the same family, after all. You confess that you have their blood in your veins; and, in the very act ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... crimes. A Russian doctor, who had passed ten years of his life in Siberia, condemned for political reasons to forced labor, used to find great pleasure in telling of the generosity, courage and humanity he had observed, not only among a large number of the condemned, but also among the convict guards. For the moment one is tempted to exclaim: Where will not the good hide away! And in truth life offers here great surprises and embarrassing contrasts. There are good men, officially so recognized, quoted among ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... "He will not," said Henry. "Then will I compel him," said the priest. "Not out of my mouth," said Henry, "or he will slay me too." And then the priest said that he was in a strait place, for he could not use the words of confession of one man to convict another of his sin. So he gathered his things in haste, and walked back to the church; but Henry went another way, saying "I made excuse to come away, and said I went elsewhere; but I fear my father much—he sees very deep; and I would not have him suspect ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... I has anythin' tuh say 'bout it," growled the shorter rascal, shaking his bullet-shaped head, which the boys now saw had been closely shaven, which would indicate that he must in truth be some escaped convict. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... at them for some time in silence, and for the first time in that savage nature, all instinct and appetite, there awoke a mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that seared and hardened heart, unmoved when the convict's cudgel or the heavy whip of the watchman fell on his shoulders, beat oppressively. In that sight he saw again his infancy; and closing his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... of the Governor of the island have a drunken headache. They long for a drink. They have no money. What is to be done? One of them, a convict who is serving his time here for forgery, devises a plan. He goes to the church, where a former officer, now exiled for giving his superior a box on the ears, sings in the choir, and says to him panting: ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

... a wild conflict of emotion raging in his mind. He shut himself into his study, and tried to distinguish clearly the threads of motive and conduct that had become so hideously entangled. It sounds a simple thing, doubtless, as well as a praiseworthy one, to discover the doer of an evil deed, to convict him, to bring home to him what he has done, and to prove the innocence of any other who may be suspected. Such a course, when spoken of in general terms, gives a praiseworthy and sustaining sense of a duty accomplished ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... things infamous and unreasonable. And this method is that men's moral and even physical tenacity actually give out under such a load of lies. They go on writing their leading articles and their Parliamentary reports. They go on doing it as a convict goes on picking oakum. But the point is not that we are bored with their articles; the point is that they are. The work is done worse because it is done weakly and without human enthusiasm. And it ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... heard of him as a great detective, and I hope that he will prove his name good in this instance. Surely it does seem as though this murder mystery might be cleared up. Of course there may be no evidence to convict him, yet it seems plain to me that Perry Jounce, the tramp, ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... interview that she had prepared herself on the night the keeper was killed. They did meet, and what passed between them may be imagined. He insisted that she renounce Darzac. She, on her part, affirmed her love for him. He stabbed her in his anger, determined to convict Darzac of the crime. As Larsan he could do it, and had so managed things that Darzac could never explain how he had employed the time of his absence from the chateau. Ballmeyer's precautions were ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... safe. Sir James Stephen's view of the law may be shared by other judges, and if a bigot sat on the bench he might pass a heavy sentence on a distinguished "blasphemer." Let it not be said that their manner is so different from mine that no jury would convict; for when I read extracts from Clifford, Swinburne, Maudsley, Matthew Arnold, James Thomson, Lord Amberley, Huxley, and other heretics whose works are circulated by Mudie, Lord Coleridge remarked ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... I prove it? The courts are closed against me. And even if they weren't, do you suppose it would be possible to convict the Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck of any crime? Nonsense! He's the most powerful man in France. He controls the banks, the bourse, the government. He can cause a money panic by lifting his hand. He can upset the ministry by a word over the telephone. He financed the campaign that brought ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... conspiracy to the bottom," said he to himself. "I must find out through whom and by what they wish to destroy her; and I must have sure and undeniable proof in my hands, in order to be able to convict them, and successfully accuse them to the king. Therefore it is necessary to be cautious and prudent. So let us consider what to do. The simplest thing would be to beg the queen not to wear the rosette. But that is only to demolish the web ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... The stranger was a convict, a thief perhaps. Why should she—A door slammed below, and there were excited voices in the hall, the tread of heavy steps on the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... Antonius, in spite of his known sympathy with Catiline, while Cicero was retained with special powers to protect the city. The result is too well known to be more than glanced at here. Catiline's partisans were detected by letters confided to certain envoys of the Allobroges, which were held to convict them of the guilt of treason, as instigating Catiline to march on Rome, and the senate of the Allobroges to assist the invasion by sending cavalry ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... implanted in her heart. The thought of revenge gave to her the first meager gleam of comfort that had lightened her moods through many miserable days and nights. Those seeds of revolt were to be nourished well, were to grow into their flower—a poison flower, developed through the three years of convict life to which ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... for any further advice. He grabbed his hat and flung out of the door. Deforrest followed him down through the pear orchard to the lane, and there he stood for a long time watching the ex-convict struggle up the hill to the ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... ye see," interrupted Sheehan, "the Tocsin's tried it and convicted him aforehand? And that if things keep goin' the way they've started to-day, the gran' jury's bound to indict him, and the trial jury to convict him? They wouldn't dare not to! What's more, they'll want to! And they'll rush the trial, summer or no ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... a moment and rejoined: "Indeed, fellow-criminal! And if you didn't smoke that horrid pipe, what a lovable convict you would make." ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... leisure than himself, I persuaded him that he might write at his ease in one of these rooms, as he could not then hear the door knock, or hear himself denied to be at home, which was sure to make him call out and convict the poor maid in a fib. Here, I said, he might be almost really not at home. So I put in an old grate, and made him a fire in the largest of these garrets, and carried in one table, and one chair, and bid him write away, and consider himself as much alone as if he were in a new lodging in the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... Spain. But when the officer who had charge of him and whose name was Villijo, had got out to sea and out of Bobadilla's sight, he wanted to take the chains off. For he loved Columbus and it made him feel very sad to see the old Admiral treated like a convict or a murderer. Let me have these cruel chains struck off, Your Excellency, he said. No, no, Villijo, Columbus replied. Let these fetters remain upon me. My king and queen ordered me to submit and Bobadilla has put me in chains. I will wear these irons until my king and queen ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks

... questions from Gobardhan, he told the story of Siraji's death—adding that he had decided to send Debendra Babu and Abdullah up for trial, but doubted whether he could adduce sufficient evidence to convict them of murder or ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... note. It was traced to the tailor, by him to the thief, with the means and opportunity of stealing it, and in a few days he was transported. His handsome dress was exchanged for the dress of a convict. Better by far would it have been for him to have worn his poorer garb, with the marks of honest labour upon it. He formed only another example of the intense folly of love of dress, which, exists quite as much amongst foolish young men as ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... much; you will have no patience with me. 'The Excursion' is accused of being lengthy, and so you will tell me that I convict ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... seventh from Adam, prophesied of them, saying, Behold, the Lord came with ten thousand of his saints [1:15]to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the wicked among them of all the deeds of impiety which they have impiously committed, and of all the hard speeches which impious sinners have spoken against him. [1:16]These are complainers, censorious, walking after their inordinate desires, and their mouth ...
— The New Testament • Various

... for his duties, amounted to little short of a tragedy. When the trial opened, Judge Pickering did not appear, but representations made by his son showed beyond a doubt that he was and had been for two years of unsound mind. To convict a man of misdemeanors for which he was not morally responsible seemed a travesty on justice. Yet there was no other constitutional device for removing him. Though Pickering never appeared in person, the managers for the House pressed the prosecution; and rather than leave the administration ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... the verge of millionaires, "buzzing" their rapidly acquired gains with a lavish magnificence which they imagined to be "princely"—were now uncertificated bankrupts, or had blown their brains out, or had come within the meshes of the law and the walls of a convict prison; while others, who at that time lived upon hope and the "whiff of an oiled rag," now fared sumptuously every day, and would do so unto their lives' end. But for those who had held on to the place through good and evil report, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... But so far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, "in love with her own ruin," that the illusion was transient as lightning; cold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness of her momentary pride would convict her, and recall her to ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... death of Philip, Major Chisholm and his family left Nyalong, and I was appointed Clerk to the Justices at Colac. I sat under them for twelve years, and during that time I wrote a great quantity of criminal literature. When a convict of good conduct in Pentridge was entitled to a ticket-of-leave, he usually chose the Western district as the scene of his future labours, so that the country was peopled with old Jack Bartons and young ones. Some of the young ones had been Philip's scholars—viz., the Boyles and the Blakes. They ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... the war. I am perfectly willing, on that count, to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is a crime under the American law punishable by imprisonment for being opposed to human bloodshed, I am perfectly willing to be clothed in the stripes of a convict and to end my days in ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing

... convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain ecstasy, everything can ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... she snapped her fingers—"out in the open air again—out on the little farm." She was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, but she went back to it again. "You don't know how I've longed for this—to get away from the mill. It's day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It ain't natural—it can't be—it ain't nature. If anybody thinks it is, let 'em look at them little things over on the other side," and she nodded toward the main room. "Why, them little tots work ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... promoted to additional privileges on the basis of behavior. In many prisons these privileges may include an "honor system" and "inmate self-government." The prison attempts to supply the deficiencies in the convict's early training. Prisoners are taught to take care of their bodies. They are taught useful trades, according to their abilities. If illiterate they may go to the prison school. Religious exercises and moral instruction are employed to develop ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... Minamoto family was ruined, and the reins of power were effectually transferred to Hojo hands. It would seem natural, in the sequence of events, that the office of shogun should now descend to the Hojo. But Yoshitoki understood that such a measure would convict him of having contrived the downfall of Yoritomo's progeny in Hojo interests. Therefore a step was taken, worthy of the sagacity of the lady Masa and her brother, the regent. The Bakufu petitioned the Kyoto Court to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... swindler—had been brought up for trial there. In her defence came out the story of a life, cradled in shame, nurtured in vice, and only working out its helpless destiny—that of a rich man's deserted illegitimate child. The report added, that "The convict was led from the dock in a state of violent excitement, calling down curses on her parents, but especially on her father, who, she said, had cruelly forsaken her mother. She ended by exclaiming that it was to him she herself ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, and they were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... halted in the first hall, waiting for some guard to unlock a door. Here and there, moving about, were convicts, with close-cropped heads and shaven faces, and garbed in prison stripes. One such convict I noticed above us on the gallery of the third tier of cells. He was standing on the gallery and leaning forward, his arms resting on the railing, himself apparently oblivious of our presence. He seemed staring into vacancy. My pal made a slight hissing noise. The convict glanced ...
— The Road • Jack London

... factories solely for the good of the working-class, would take care of the interests of these workers! Let us hear how they acted before the factory inspector was at their heels. Their own admitted testimony shall convict them in the report of the Factories' Inquiry Commission ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... right, after all. He wished to convict her of ignorance. Her cheeks were now burning, beyond a ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... Was she another Mademoiselle d'Arency? Had she thought that, after De Berquin's accusation, any attempt on her part to draw me from my men would convict her in my eyes; that indeed I might come at any moment to believe in the treachery of which he had warned me? Had this thought driven her to Clochonne, where she might be safe from my avenging wrath, where ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... what. But never mind that. I don't ask you to convict yourself. I sent for you to tell you I don't blame you for this." He touched the wound in ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... bartenders were dispensing all kinds of drinks, while at the tables of the hotel restaurant, liquors were openly bought and drunk. There are many indictments standing against this hotel, but in two test cases juries have refused to convict the proprietors. I am told it is the same in all of the principal hotels in the larger cities of this State. In this same State, the laws forbid the manufacture or sale of cigarettes, but they are openly displayed and sold in nearly all cigar stores. In the same State, whites and blacks live ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... offences which are often dealt with very harshly in England, pass in China almost unnoticed. No shopkeeper or farmer would be fool enough to charge a hungry man with stealing food, for the simple reason that no magistrate would convict. It is the shopkeeper's or farmer's business to see that such petty thefts cannot occur. Various other points might be noticed; but we must get back to taxation, which is really the crux of ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... the Old Trail Town post-office wall, between a summons to join the Army and the Navy of the United States, and the reward offered for an escaped convict—all three manifestoes registering something of the stage ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... the Lord hath ordered it so? Who can tell whether the blindly executed convict did not deserve his punishment after all? Who knows whether he was not worse at heart than he who actually committed the bloody deed? What if he wished his father's death, and therefore was guiltier than he who carried ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... as likely to take place in a week or less. In the meantime, he requests to be favoured with Mr. Blake's reasons for wishing to speak to him (as stated in the message) on the subject of the Moonstone. If Mr. Blake can convict him of having made any serious mistake, in the course of his last year's inquiry concerning the Diamond, he will consider it a duty (after the liberal manner in which he was treated by the late Lady Verinder) to place himself at that gentleman's disposal. If not, he begs permission to remain ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... The term convict is a taunt frequently applied to Englishmen by working-people in the United States, and its introduction into the argument did not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... you'd catch anybody reading a contract wrong to old Meakum? Oh, momma! Why, he's king round here. Fixes the county elections and the price of tomatoes. Do you suppose any Tucson jury'll convict any of his Mormons if he says nay? No, sir! It's been tried. Why, that man ought to be ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... continued Hurlstone hurriedly. "I don't remember what happened; she swore that I struck her! Perhaps—God knows! But she failed, even before a western jury, to convict me of cruelty. The judge that thought me half insane would not believe me brutal, and her application ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... of assuring strangers and one another that spying is "un-English"; that it "isn't done, you know, old top"; and the surest way of heaping public scorn and indignation on the enemies of England is to convict them, correctly or otherwise, of spying on England secretly. So it would be manifestly libelous, ungentlemanly and proof conclusive of crass ignorance to assert that Samson in his capacity of commissioner employed spies to watch Gungadhura Singh. He ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... going by what the photographs tell, Mrs. Propbridge. I'm merely saying to you what a smart divorce lawyer would say to you if ever he got you on the witness stand; only he'd be trying to convict you by your own words and I'm trying to give you every chance to clear yourself. And then after that you go and sit with him—this perfect stranger—in a lonely place alongside a deserted bath house and nobody ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... Inquisition, it is made to appear as if those condemned have the show of justice; for, although two witnesses are sufficient to warrant the apprehension of any individual, seven are necessary to convict him; but as the witnesses are never confronted with the prisoners, and torture is often applied to the witnesses, it is not difficult to obtain the number required. Many a life is falsely sworn away by the witness, that he may save his own. The chief crimes which are ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... overtures in the presence of a third person, had convinced her she was wrong. No man could have imagined that the revolting method of seduction employed could meet with success, and if the commander had desired to convict her of perfidy he would have come alone and made use of more persuasive weapons. No, he believed he still had claims on her, but even if he had, by his manner of enforcing them he had rendered them void. However, the moment ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... almost a score of years, escapes and lives an honest life. He wins the respect and admiration of friends; he is elected mayor of his town, and honors are heaped on him. At the height of his prosperity he reads one day that a man has been arrested in another town for the escaped convict, Jean Valjean, and is about to be sent to the galleys. Now comes the supreme test in Jean Valjean's life. Shall he remain the honored, respected citizen and let an innocent man suffer in his stead, or shall he proclaim himself the long-sought criminal and again have the collar riveted ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... told himself, bitterly, "Cantor, if he is the one who has done this contemptible thing, may yet devise a way clever enough to convict me, or at least to ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... charging them with having entered into a conspiracy to betray the principal fortresses of the island into the hands of some foreign power. This scheme secured him in two ways, as it seemed to manifest his great zeal for the interest of the Company, and enabled him to convict those he hated of high treason, and to deprive them at once of life and fortune. To manage this the more easily, he contrived to change the members of his council, into which he brought creatures of his own, on whose acquiescence in his iniquities he could depend upon. The confiscations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... let you use violence, Andrew," said Eleanor, firmly. "It would do no good. He won't talk; that is his nature. You have him now, and the law will take him from you. There isn't any question of his guilt; there will be evidence enough to convict him anywhere, and he will go to prison, as he deserves to do. All I hope is that he won't be the only one, that we can get the man who bribed him to do this, and see that he gets ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart

... libel against the defender refers to his conduct as a clergyman and a Christian. He was charged in the libel with the most gross and vulgar behavior, with drunkenness, blasphemy, and impiety; yet all the evidence which the appellants have been able to bring forward tends only to convict him of three acts of drunkenness during the course of fourteen years: for even the Presbytery, severe as they have been, acquit him quoad ultra. But the attention of the Reverend Court is earnestly ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... remained unvisited until 1788, when, owing mainly to Banks' influence, Botany Bay was pitched upon as a convict settlement, and a squadron, consisting of H.M.S. Sirius, the Supply brig, 3 storeships, and 6 transports, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, R.N., which had sailed from England on May 13th, 1787, arrived in that bay on January 18th, 1788, but ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... friend and crony, for his two sons have been playmates with my brothers and myself, who were all born in this quaint old-time seaport of the first colony in Australia; this forgotten remnant of the dread days of the awful convict system, when the clank of horrible gyves sounded on the now deserted and grass-grown streets, and the swish of the hateful and ever active "cat" was heard within the walls of the huge red-brick prison on the bluff facing the sea. Oh, the old, old memories ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... a great deal of time in a false attack when they labour to convict the Romanists of false doctrines. Destroy the Papacy, and help the priests to wives, and I am much mistaken if the doctrinal errors, such as there really are, would not very soon pass away. They might remain in terminis, but they would lose their sting and body, and lapse back ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... to me. Janouille—that's my old woman —suspected nothing, though she has a sharp nose, and told him to come in. He held out the package, I went up to take it, when pif! paf! off went two pistol-shots. The package was a revolver wrapped up in oilcloth, and the porter was a convict escaped from Cayenne, caught by me last year. Ah, I put ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... to be prisoners! No—no; they never will be, av' there's a ghost of a conscience left in one of them Protesthant raps, that they've picked so carefully out of all Dublin to make jurors of. They can't convict 'em! I heard Ford, the night before last, offer four to one that they didn't find the lot guilty; and he knows what he's about, and isn't the man to thrust a Protestant half as far ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... villas; her sorely tried and hapless lover, Stenio, the poet, who pours forth odes to his own accompaniment on the harp, and lingers the night long among Alpine precipices brooding over the abyss; Trenmor, the returned gentleman convict and Apostle of the Carbonari, whose soul has been refreshed, made young and regenerated at the galleys; and the mad Irish priest, Magnus, are impossible personages, inviting to easy ridicule, and neither wisdom nor folly from their ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... that sent his hopes crashing in ruin about him. For even if he escaped the hangman, he was still a criminal—a criminal of the worst sort, perhaps, next to the man who kills another. If he proved that he had not killed John Barkley, he would convict himself, at the same time, of having made solemn oath to a lie on what he supposed was his death-bed. And for that, a possible twenty years in the Edmonton penitentiary! At best he could not expect less than ten. Ten years—twenty years—in prison! ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... mystery to you. I have found out this, at least, since I have been here—that you know the murderer, and that you determine to shield him, even at your own expense. Now, I warn you that if you deny me your confidence, I will convict the real man, ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... were not satisfied, and in a few days had him up again. They tried hard to prove that he was opposed to the Confederacy, but he had kept about his own business, had refrained from talking, and they could not convict him. They allowed him to go for several months. One day, in September, 1861, while at work in his field, the ruffians came again. Their leader had a red face, bloated with whiskey, chewed tobacco, had two pistols in ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... very near the spot from which they started, his answer was that he had no settled course, and that he merely proposed to himself to pay visits to places which he had not seen, and so long as they could not convict him of traversing the same path twice, or revisiting a point already seen, he could perceive no harm in his plan. As to Rome, he cared less to go there, inasmuch as everybody went there; and he said that he never had a lacquey ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the most populous world of all. The miser lives in a world of imagination and fruition; his whole life and all that he is, even his sex, lies in his brain. A man's first thought, be he leper or convict, hopelessly sick or degraded, is to find another with a like fate to share it with him. He will exert the utmost that is in him, every power, all his vital energy, to satisfy that craving; it is his very ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... decline to interfere," said the Governor, with asperity; "a man who abuses his office by making it serve a private end and purvey a personal advantage is unfit to be free. By the way, Mr. Warden," he added to that official, as the Convict slunk away, "in appointing you to this position, I was given to understand that your friends could make the Shikane county delegation to the next State convention solid for—for the present Administration. Was ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... name! It suggests a convict of the worst type. It is a name bad enough, young gentlemen, to condemn any ruffian. Huggins! Why, it literally smells of villainy. But as I was going to say, this Huggins has placed himself completely in our hands by firing upon his Majesty's forces, and ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... was "The Prisoner of the Bastile," which would, for certain, have been one of Dickens's most powerful delineations. The fourth, if only in remembrance of the Old Bailey attorney, Mr. Jaggers, of the convict Magwitch, and of Joe the blacksmith, the majority would probably have been disposed to regret almost more than Mrs. Lirriper. Though the lodging-house keeper would have been welcome, too, for her own sake, as who will ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge



Words linked to "Convict" :   prisoner, offender, sex offender, label, captive, evaluate, lifer, wrongdoer, acquit, first offender, judge, law, jurisprudence, trusty, pass judgment, pronounce



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