"Hangman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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: he sent them back, with "ah, well, give them five-and-twenty all round." It was common to send a note with the man whom it was intended to punish: ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... upon me. And then, when they have well wearied me, they will lead me out one morning in a shirt without a collar and drop me through the trap. Oh, I know. The rope they will do it with is well-stretched. For many a month now the hangman of Folsom has been stretching it with heavy weights so as to take ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... It is the hour of execution. Dorothea begins to sob, and Gentleman Jim clenches his hands. The back of the stage opens to disclose a street, a crowd, a hangman, and the fatal Tyburn tree. Faint cheers are heard from the wings. The sheriff enters, bearing in his hand a reprieve, written apparently on a window-blind. He is attended by the comic servant, through whose mysterious agency a pardon ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... are the scum of the earth, and what you would, or wouldn't do, could only interest the hangman." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... considers a thief the patron saint of honesty, nor is a liar expected to champion the truth. The hangman is not elected as president of a society for the preservation of human life; why, then, in the name of common sense, do people continue to see in the State the seat of justice and the patron saint of those whom it ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between them and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman's cart to bear them to the gallows of which they had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and the doubt weighed upon their heart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not the orders of a soldier!" shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. "They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion—no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... victorious over frankness and confidence. The struggle for the means of existence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire space of the menagerie with an infernal noise. Among the methods which are used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ones are the hangman, the judge with his mechanical: "In the name of the king," or his more hypocritical: "In the name of the people I pass sentence"; the soldier with his training for murder, and the priest with his: "Authority ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... Elsa," gasped the Heer, for he was still breathless with fright and exhaustion, "but that ruffian—may the hangman have him—gave me a dig in the shoulder with his knife as he rose to run. However," he added with satisfaction, "he got nothing from me, for I am an old traveller, and he never thought ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... circumstance, that the civil authorities were not as entirely superseded by the Netherland, as by the Spanish system, was rather a difference of form than of fact. We have seen that the secular officers of justice were at the command of the inquisitors. Sheriff, gaoler, judge, and hangman, were all required, under the most terrible penalties, to do their bidding. The reader knows what the edicts were. He knows also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... beings could be made pets, like Miss Tabitha's snake or toad, Selwyn would have fondled a hangman. He loved the noble art of execution, and was a connoisseur of the execution of the art. In childhood he must have decapitated his rocking-horse, hanged his doll in a miniature gallows, and burnt his baubles at mimic stakes. The man whose calm eye was watched for the quiet sparkle that announced—and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... horse whereon the stately figure of Marcus Aurelius sat in triumph before the door of the Pope's house, as it sits today on the Capitol before the Palace of the Senator. And Otto caused the body of murdered Roffredo to be dragged from its grave and quartered by the hangman and scattered abroad, a warning to the Regions and their leaders. They left Pope John in peace after that, and he lived five years and held a council in the Lateran, and died in his bed. Possibly after his rough experience, his rule was more gentle, and when he was dead he was spoken of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... would take such terms?" asked Balian in dismay. "Rather, I think, would she choose to die by her own hand than by that of your hangman, since she can ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... shallow look faded out; he half smiled, looking in the dog's eyes. A curious smile, unspeakably tender and sad. It was the idiosyncrasy of the man's face, rarely seen there. He might have looked with it at a criminal, condemning him to death. But he would have condemned him, and, if no hangman could be found, would have put the rope on with his own hands, and then most probably would have sat down pale and trembling, and analyzed his sensations on ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... That would be equivalent to delivering himself over to the hangman. If he hesitated, the woman would die, under all circumstances. Who would believe him, if he said that the woman's own son was the murderer? Appearances were against him, and, if the murdered woman really recovered consciousness again, and she should be asked who raised the knife against ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... upon its fountain-head. It has a volume and an arrow-like rapidity that communicate the feeling of exuberance and life. In passing, let it not be forgotten that it was somewhere or other in this 'chiaro fondo di Sorga,' as Carlyle describes, that Jourdain, the hangman-hero of the Glaciere, stuck fast upon his pony when flying from his foes, and had his accursed life, by some diabolical providence, spared for future butcheries. On we go across the austere plain, between fields of madder, the red roots of the 'garance' ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... herald, bedellus, or chief crier, to the lord of the manor, his office being to make proclamations at the court and the cross, where the use of his capacious lungs was oft in request. He was hangman, too, upon occasion, being never so well pleased as when employed in the due chastisement of his master's lieges. He was, moreover, a man of infinite humour, generally consoling his dear unfortunates under their visitations by some coarse and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... which has too long been monopolised by the cottage and the drawing-room, has been the aim and the achievement of many recent authors of distinction. How they have succeeded, let the populous state of the public jails attest. The office of 'dubsman' [hangman] has ceased to be a sinecure, and the public and Mr Joseph Hume have the satisfaction of knowing that these useful functionaries have now got something to do for their salaries. The number of their pupils has increased, is increasing, and is not likely to be diminished. But much remains ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Demosthenes, so elegant and attractive in style, and so clear and popular that a child might understand them, gained immediate attention; but the Jesuits, whose policy and doctrines they attacked, finally induced the parliament of Provence to condemn them to be burned by the common hangman; and the Port Royalists, refusing to renounce their opinions, were driven from their retreat, and the establishment broken up. Pascal's masterpiece is the "Pensees de la Religion;" it consists of fragments of thought, without ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... at these bold doctrines, seldom heard across the channel since the days of Patrick Darcy and the Catholic Confederacy. They ordered the book to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, as of "dangerous tendency to the crown and people of England, by denying the power of the King and Parliament of England to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland, and the subordination and dependence that Ireland had, and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... that derrick is an ancient British word: perhaps he will be kind enough to let us know its signification. I always understood that a derrick took its name from Derrick, the notorious executioner at Tyburn, in the early part of the seventeenth century, whose name was long a general term for hangman. In merchant ships, the derrick, for hoisting up goods, is always placed at the hatchway, close by the gallows. The derrick, however, is not a nautical appliance alone; it has been long used to raise stones at buildings; but the crane, and that excellent invention the handy-paddy, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... superstitious fear. She recovers consciousness, and voices from invisible singers, tell her of the selfish inspirations of Osaka, Kyoto, and her blind father; Osaka's desire baffled by fate—such is life! Kyoto's slavery to pleasure and a hangman's reward;—such is life! The blind man's dependence on his child for creature comforts;—such is life! Iris bemoans her fate as death comes gently to her. The sky grows rosy and the light brings momentary life. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... another's passion, and he found his own in the bringing of it. It was as when children play at the hanging of a murderer or a thief, and one is set to play the part of prisoner and another to hang him, and then at the end when all is prepared they turn upon the hangman and bid him prepare himself for whipping and death instead of the other, or maybe both are to be hanged. But our Lord is not cruel, like such children, but kind, and I think that He acts so to shew us ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... about a year ago this very day, when a gentleman came in, well dressed, an eyeglass stuck in his eye, impudent like a hangman's assistant, in fact a thoroughly fashionable young man. He said he had seen the notice that there was a room for rent up stairs, and wanted to see it. Of course I told him it was a wretched garret, unfit for people like him; but he insisted, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... a sword, sharp beyond compare, was set upon his neck ten times, but it always slipped away, because his neck was as hard as ivory. And a still greater miracle came to pass. God sent down the angel Michael, in the guise of a hangman, and the human hangman charged by Pharaoh with the execution was changed into the form of Moses. This spurious Moses the angel killed with the very sword with which the executioner had purposed to slay the intended victim. Meantime Moses took to flight. Pharaoh ordered ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Macpherson, a cateran 'of great personal strength and musical accomplishment,' is said to have played and sung at the gallows foot; thereafter breaking his violin across his knee and submitting his neck to the hangman. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Wood, the Weed, the Wag: The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree; The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag; The Wag, my pretty ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... earned more than you'll ever get paid in this life, and there's a tolerably heavy bill against you for the next. It looks to me as if it would be a good thing if you went off there to settle up the account right now. But I'm not going to take upon myself to be your hangman. I'm just going to give you a chance of pegging out, and I sincerely hope you'll take it. I've brought our friend here to be your room mate for the evening. It's just about nightfall now, and you've got to stay with ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Again, saith God of his people, 'I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses' (verse 24). For the truth is, this work is too bad for men either of reason or conscience to be found in the practice of. The hangman is usually none of the best: The witnesses are also to be slain; but not a man, but a beast must slay them; 'a den of thieves, a hold of foul spirits,' must ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... road seems almost to overhang the water, blue-green with undertones of grey, and the foam splashing on the broken rocks. All around is a sense of wide spaces and freshness. Headland beyond headland rises to the east, the Little Hangman, Great Hangman, and Highveer Point, softened by a transparent grey haze. A little to the right of them are the first ridges of Exmoor, some long, some short, ending in full curves and slopes clearly ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... agreed, that Hell's Spawn should break trail for his master across the last divide, and the court was adjourned down to the river bank, where a big spruce tree stood by itself. Slackwater Charley put a hangman's knot in the end of a hauling-line, and the noose was slipped over Leclere's head and pulled tight around his neck. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was assisted to the top of a cracker box. Then the running end of the line was passed ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... not a heller; my father was hangman of Lucerne, and when he died, his body was seized to pay ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... will. Where is this monument? I was riding on an English stage-coach when we passed a handsome marble column (as I remember it) of considerable size and pretensions.—What is that?—I said.—That,—answered the coachman,—is the hangman's pillar. Then he told me how a man went out one night, many years ago, to steal sheep. He caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope over his head, and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope slipped, caught ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... made short by hangman's hand, That this my breast, a shield against thy foe— But that thou ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... cried to his comrade in presence of Marie Antoinette: "If the hangman does not guillotine this accursed family, I will ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... hundred reals now, and some time of the day to-morrow quit the island under sentence of banishment for ten years, and under pain of completing it in another life if you violate the sentence, for I'll hang you on a gibbet, or at least the hangman will by my orders; not a word from either of you, or I'll make ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... quite near,—indeed nothing is very far away in this old town,—is the house attributed to Tristan l'Hermite, who held the unenviable position of hangman-in-chief to His Majesty, King Louis. There is no foundation for this tradition, which probably owes its origin to a knotted rope and some hooks on the wall, which are sufficiently suggestive of hanging. This sculptured cord, or ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... to do with it, Mr. Westwick. How do you suppose the criminal feels on the scaffold, while the hangman is putting the rope around his neck? Cold and faint, too, I should think. Excuse my grim fancy. You see, Destiny has got the rope round my neck—and ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... substituted for it a placard in which the pope was described as Antichrist. Having been arrested on the spot, he was, by decree of the Parliament of Paris, whipped publicly, three days consecutively, and branded on the forehead by the hangman in the presence of his mother, who cried, "Jesus Christ forever!" He was banished, and retired in July, 1525, to Metz; and there he was working at his trade when he heard that a solemn procession was to take place, next day, in the environs of the town. In his blind zeal he went and broke ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the frighten'd monarchs come back, Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, Soldier, lawyer, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... of her ruin and your own, [Footnote: In the diamond-necklace affair.] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son of the Condes, shall live long enough to see your royal race overthrown, and shall die by the hands of a hangman. [Footnote: He was found hanging in his own bed- room.] You, oldest son of St. Louis, shall perish by the executioner's ax; that beautiful head, O Antoinette, the same ruthless ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... was named Richmond, and was the common hangman. He used to parade the provost with coils of ropes, requesting the prisoners to choose their own halters. He it was who hung the gallant Nathan Hale, and was Cunningham's accessory in all his brutal midnight murders. In Gaine's paper for August ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... when he was out of the way. When those posthumous works appeared, the grand jury of Westminster presented them to the judicial authorities as subversive of religion, morality, and government. They were burnt by the common hangman. ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... Dennis," said Quill, overhearing him, "but we are both useful in our way, as the hangman said to Lord Clare." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... "Come out, Hangman of Schonburg!" they shouted, "come out, murderer of a defenceless prisoner. Come out, before we drag you forth, for the rope is waiting for your neck and the gallows tree is waiting ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Bolton, Eng., I met Billington, the official hangman, who was convinced that I could not escape from the restraint he used to secure those ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... precious rogue! If the Jaylors be so pregnant what is the hangman, troe? By the time my misery hath brought me to climbe to his acquaintance I shall find a frend to the last gaspe. What's here? a Lady? are the weomen so cruell here to insult ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... out, mister," said the goldsmith, quietly, "and don't call the lady names, or you'll repent it. She happens to be my particular friend. And let me tell you before you go, that the one thing that will save you from the hangman's noose is that you don't set foot inside this door ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... thinke that there were twoo or three of the said gredyrons garnished with the like furniture. And for that they cried oute piteously, whiche thinge troubled the capitaine that he coulde not then slepe, he comaunded to strangle them. The serjeant, which was worse then the hangman, that burned them, (I knowe his name and frendes in Civill,) woulde not have them strangled, but hymselfe puttinge bulletts in their mouthes, to the ende they shoulde not crye, put to the fire, until they were softly roasted after his desire. I have seene all the aforesaide ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... there were detestable books which ought to have been burned by the hands of the common hangman, for they contained questions and answers to be learned by heart, of this sort, "What is a horse? The horse is termed Equus caballus; belongs to the class Mammalia; order, Pachydermata; family, Solidungula." Was any human being wiser ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... virtues. The debate was hot. The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of course not forgotten. It was asked whether a man who had proclaimed that England was a conquered country, a man whose servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burned by the hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Some reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and some for being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought his battle gallantly. "Grant," they said, "that it is possible to find, amidst an immense mass of eloquent ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this I attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to write, and not a satire. Were I to sing as you would have me, the town would tear the poet in pieces, and burn his book by the hands of the common hangman. Do you not use tobacco? Of all the weeds grown on earth, sure the nicotian is the most soothing and salutary. We must paint our great duke," Mr. Addison went on, "not as a man, which no doubt he is, with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... case I'll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a quick despatch," he said promptly; "Though I shouldn't be worth the expense of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... a precious swell. His curly poll will grace the hangman's pole, A charming barber's block, upon my soul! 'Twill cut a figure in our "Rotten Row;" I think that jest is witty—Ho, ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... rebellion was easily put down, and the revenge was stern. To the men who had risen at the instigation of the Pope and in the cause of Mary, Elizabeth gave, as she had sworn "such a breakfast as never was in the North before." The hangman finished the work on those who had escaped the sword. Poetry, early and late, has recorded the dreary fate of those brave victims of a mistaken cause, in the ballad of the Rising of the North, and in the White Doe of Rylstone. It was the signal given ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... bad living with these brothers of mine who are thieves to the very bone. Moreover, you know the rhyme, 'Though the thief may thrive for many a day, he becomes at last the hangman's prey.' So it is my wish and counsel that we separate from them at once and for ever, and go and live at your father's house, where, though we may not be so rich, we shall at any ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... town had been weakened in the late church conflict. The reins of affairs were being swept from his hands. He could not speak out more emphatically than he had against Skinner. On all sides, friends were rising mushroom-like to rescue the fisherman from the hangman's noose. ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... for harmony, But daggers only do I see; I search a heart for love and hope, But find a ghastly hangman's rope. Woe! Woe!" ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... shoulders. "He'd be an over-bold man who'd venture into the alleys and courts of Alsatia with less than fifty good swords at his back. The hangman would be busy for a month if all who merited his rope were dragged out of yonder dens. But we must be going; the captain is almost out of sight, and thou hast matters on hand that are of greater moment than ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... [board games: list] chess, draughts, checkers, checquers, backgammon, dominos, merelles[obs3], nine men's morris, go bang, solitaire; game of fox and goose; monopoly; loto &c. [obs3] scrabble[word games: list], scribbage, boggle, crossword puzzle, hangman. morra[obs3]; gambling &c. (chance) 621. toy, plaything, bauble; doll &c. (puppet ) 554; teetotum[obs3]; knickknack &c. (trifle) 643; magic lantern &c. (show) 448; peep show, puppet show, raree show, gallanty show[obs3]; toy shop; "quips and cranks and wanton wiles, nods and becks and wreathed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... manifestly tending to alienate the affections of the people from his Majesty, to withdraw them from their obedience to the laws of the realm, and to excite them to traitorous insurrection against his Majesty's Government.' They also ordered the libel to be publicly burned by the common hangman, in front of the Royal Exchange. The authorities attempted to carry out this order, but an enormous mob assembled, drove off the officers, rescued the journal from the flames, and, in revenge, built a huge bonfire at Temple Bar, into which they threw the jackboot, the favorite emblem for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... better chance to make their getaway than the boy himself had, especially if he "shot to kill", as he had been commanded to do, which would have meant a long term behind the prison bars if not a trip by the route of the hangman's rope. ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... frequent in Sweden there are a great number of towns in that country without an executioner. In one of these a criminal was sentenced to be hanged which occasioned some little embarrassment, as it obliged them to bring a hangman from a distance at a considerable expense, besides the customary fee of two crowns. A young tradesman, belonging to the city council, giving his sentiments, said, "I think, gentlemen, we had best give the malefactor ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my teeth, and spare him.' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and he had them. I fancy that Death took, these two teeth out of the savings bank of life, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... with rage. "You hangman!" she muttered savagely. "You've got a hangman's face all right! Anybody would know what you are without ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... stern sheets, and pointing with his finger, roared out, "A shark! a shark!" Away started all the bathers for the beach, puffing and blowing, from their dreaded enemy; nor did they stop to look for him until they were high and dry out of his reach. Then, when we all laughed, they called us "all the hangman tiefs," and every other opprobrious name which they could select from their vocabulary. I was very much amused with this scene, and as much afterwards with the negroes who crowded round us when we landed. They appeared such merry fellows, always laughing, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... a prodigious riot: are not you impatient to know the particulars? It was so prodigious a tumult, that I verily thought half the administration would have run away to Harrowgate. The north Briton was ordered to be burned by the hangman at Cheapside, on Saturday last. The mob rose; the greatest mob, says Mr. Sheriff Blunt, that he has known in forty years. They were armed with that most bloody instrument, the mud out of the kennels: ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the weight of the great banner he carried, marched proud, happy, and elated past all telling. Hugh was at his side, and next to Hugh came a squat, thick-set personage called Dennis, who, unknown to his companions, was no other than the public hangman. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Accordingly, the hangman took him and bringing out the knife, offered to cut off his hand, what while El Muradi said to him, "Cut and sever the bone and sear[FN24] it not for him, so he may lose his blood and we be rid of him." But Ahmed, he who had aforetime been the means of his deliverance, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... and activity. Claims advanced rapidly in price, and the discoverers reaped fortunes. A city rose like an exhalation. Yet I never saw better order than in the earliest days of Helena, though I am afraid that Hangman's Tree could tell some stories of too much haste and injustice in taking the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... make the laird understand that his proportion of stipend must be paid so soon as it became due. The payment came next term punctual to the time. When the messenger was introduced to the minister, he asked who he was, remarking that he thought he had seen him before. "I am the hangman of Stirling, sir." "Oh, just so, take a seat till I write you a receipt." It was evident that the laird had chosen this medium of communication with the minister as an affront, and to show his spite. The minister, however, turned ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Ketch! call you by his name! I never thought of such a thing," politely retorted Bywater. "You are not promoted to that honour yet. D.H., stands for Deputy-Hangman. Isn't it affixed to the cathedral roll, kept amid the archives in the chapter-house"—John Ketch, D.H., porter to the cloisters! "I hope you don't omit the distinguishing initials when ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as this, coming, as it did, from one who had shed the blood of a fellow-creature upon very slight provocation; who had been tried for murder, and acquitted because the crime was sanctioned by the usages of society; and who, moreover, in the estimation of many people, richly deserved the hangman's noose—such language, under the circumstances, was not merely injudicious and unfeeling, but positively revolting. The only conceivable excuse that can be made for it arises from the fact that Jarvis was at the time irritated by a succession of attacks ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... inkstand. This may enflame my zeal against Bankrupts—but it was my speculation when I could see better. Half the world's misery (Eden else) is owing to want of money, and all that want is owing to Bankrupts. I declare I would, if the State wanted Practitioners, turn Hangman myself, and should have great pleasure in hanging the first after my salutary law should be establish'd. I have seen no annuals and wish to see none. I like your fun upon them, and was quite pleased with Bowles's sonnet. Hood is or was at Brighton, but a note, prose or rhime, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... He knotted a hangman's noose at one end of the rope, tried it to make sure it worked properly and ordered the estate slaves to hang the body to a convenient limb of a near by tree. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... in his business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay, "Why do you not dun him?" that is, Why do not you set Dun to arrest him?—Hence it became a cant-word, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII. Dun was also the general name of hangman, before that ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... a precious pair of donkeys because they wouldn't eat any form of shell-fish, and your replying that, though I was in the habit of grandiloquently describing my ancestor who used to execute people as 'the sheriff of the county,' he was only a common hangman?" ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... line's the hangman's rope, savin' your presence. You'll learn to-morrow how we rethreated to dhraw thim on before we made thim trouble, an' that's what a woman does. By the same tokin, we'll be attacked before the dawnin' an' ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the light av ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... to the Watergate, Hard bound with hempen span, As though they held a lion there, And not a 'fenceless man. They set him high upon a cart— The hangman rode below— They drew his hands behind his back, And bared his noble brow. Then, as a hound is slipped from leash, They cheered the common throng, And blew the note with yell and shout, And ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... at Liege in 1712; no printer's name. Ah, mon Dieu! what amusement can Christians possibly find in reading such books? It would be better if they were all burned in the Place de Greve by the hand of the public hangman! Chut! What name have I been pronouncing there! I wonder who this Prince de Listhnay, who has made me copy such things, is; and the young man who, under pretense of doing me a service, introduced me to such a scoundrel. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... heard—neither the beginning nor the end of a wail, but something like it. Minute by minute it came more clearly, now growing in volume, now almost dying away, but every instant approaching—the distant hunting call of the wolf-pack! What the hangman's noose is to the murderer, what the leveled rifles are to the condemned spy, that hunt-cry of the wolves is to the wounded animal ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... that an attempt was made to resuscitate Brodie immediately after the execution. The operator was Degravers, whom Brodie himself had employed. His efforts, however, were utterly abortive. A person who witnessed the scene, accounted for the failure by saying that the hangman, having been bargained with for a short fall, his excess of caution made him shorten the rope too much at first, and when he afterwards lengthened it, he made it too long, which consequently proved fatal ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... in silence. A cold fear was at his heart. That terrible Grodman! As the hangman's cord was tightening round Mortlake, he felt the convict's chains tightening round himself. And yet there was one gleam of hope, feeble as the yellow flicker of the gas-lamp across the way. Grodman had obtained an interview with the condemned late that afternoon, and the ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... all right. After a preliminary flurry of ejaculation, he locked the door behind him and began to talk.... Don't ask me what he said, because I didn't hear. When the rope's round your neck, you're apt to miss the subtleties of the hangman's charge. After a time I realised that he was asking me a question. I stared at him dully and shook my head. With a gesture of despair, he glanced at ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... feelings would be attributed to him by a gaping, vulgar crowd, and he must suffer it. And this was to be the end of life. A few weeks more and the end would come, and he, Paul Stepaside, who had such hopes of a brilliant future, would end his life on the scaffold. A hangman's cord would be around his neck, and he would drop into Eternity, reviled ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... the opinion of Dr. Price, and not wishing to add to her mistress's distress, was secretly oppressed by forebodings which she was unable to shake off. The child was born for bad luck. The mole under its ear, just at the point where the hangman's knot would strike, had foreshadowed dire misfortune. She had already observed several little things which had rendered ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... marked uneasiness, and remained standing with the air of one in readiness for the punctual call of the hangman. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... fait. I know what kind of life you lead at Naples, and am dissatisfied with you. The son of a shop-keeper and a banker would act more like a gentleman than you. People talk of you here no better than they do of the deputy of the hangman. I had hoped the Marquis de Maulear would behave more correctly in a foreign country. I was no older than you are, when I went as secretary of legation to Madrid. Three months afterwards I was recalled. I had run away with three women, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... afraid of anything, except the hangman's rope! I don't mind telling you that I have reasons to be afraid ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... commission sent over from England to look into conditions which brought about Bacon's Rebellion complained, 1677, that Governor Berkeley had sent them from his plantation "Greenspring" to Jamestown, a distance of three miles, in his coach with the common hangman as a postillion. William Fitzhugh, a well-to-do planter of Stafford County, owned a calash, a sort of a cab imported ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... afterward. One of a small bunch of chestnut trees west of the road where it tops the hill is pointed out as the gallows tree, although early accounts speak of a rough gallows having been erected. There is a story to the effect that one Hans Anderson, a farmer of the neighborhood, was the hangman, and that he was finally worried into his grave by the ghost of this same spy, who would not leave him in peace; but no mention is made of the tough old ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... it may end just where we want to go. 'Journeys end in lovers' meetings' the poet sings, but not this kind of a journey—no, not exactly. We'll find the hangman's rope at the end of this riddle, Dollops, or I'm very much mistaken; and I've an uncomfortable idea as to who will ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... by influential relatives of the prisoner, induced the court to delay sentence until the culprit should be ninety-nine years old, but it was ordered that, while released on his own recognizance, in the interim, he should keep a hangman's noose about his neck and show himself before the judges in Catskill once every year, to prove that he wore his badge of infamy and kept his crime in mind. This sentence he obeyed, and there were people living recently who claimed to remember ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... imprisoned by virtue of a warrant from the Governor and Council; and a concurrence of the House of Representatives in the prosecution was requested. The House, however, declined. The Governor and Council then ordered the libellous papers to be burned by the common hangman, or whipper, near the pillory. But both the common whipper and the common hangman were officers of the corporation, not of the Crown, and they declined officiating at the illumination. The papers were therefore burned by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knife into his heart. "I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates," she said. "It would have saved the hangman trouble." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Not a word to George for the world. I want to talk to you. If it hasn't turned me sick! I should make a poor hangman. But it was in ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... attentive to their studies, which were of a severely practical turn. Their teacher, Mr. David Willard, who was a resident of the university settlement in its old Delancey Street home has his own sound view of how to head off the hangman. Daily and nightly he gathers about him, in the house on Chrystie Street where he makes his home, half the boys and girls of the neighborhood, whom he meets as their friend, on equal terms. Mr. Willard, though a young man, is one of the most unique ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... in that country. One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had "dealt in tall recruits," as a kind of by-trade, and played foul in some slight measure), the King was clear for hanging; his poor Wife galloped to Potsdam, shrieking mercy; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by the hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau. Still more tragical—was poor Hesse's case. Hesse, some domain Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned with moneys, was found with account-books in a state of confusion, and several ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... headsman.) What are you hanging about here for, you hangman, you? Up on the wall with you, by Hikey Mo! Up on the wall or I'll ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... Yes, my lord, he dies without the force of a terrifying sentence, without the grim reproaches of an angry judge, without the soon consulted arbitrary——guilty of a severe and hasty jury, without the ceremony of the scaffold, axe, and hangman, and the clamours of inconsidering crowds; all which melancholy ceremonies render death so terrible, which else would fall like gentle slumbers upon the eye-lids, and which in field I would encounter ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... statutes call crime, and what judges, sleek as their ermine, preach upon as rebellion to the government—the government that, in fact, having stung starvation into treason, takes to itself the loftiest praise for refusing the hangman—a task—for appeasing Justice with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... be otherwise?" asked the constable. "Or why was he so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?" Here he related the strange behavior of the third stranger on entering the house during the hangman's song. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... friend, noble 'squire. Just now, it was all idiot, cub, and run me through the guts. Damn YOUR way of fighting, I say. After we take a knock in this part of the country, we kiss and be friends. But if you had run me through the guts, then I should be dead, and you might go kiss the hangman. ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... you it were well done," answered Smith; "but it were a robbing of the hangman and the pillory; and I am an honest fellow, who would give Dun[*] and the devil his ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... be certaine pieces of canes, cleft in the middle, in such sort that they seeme rather plaine then sharpe. He that is to be whipped lieth groueling on the ground: vpon his thighes the hangman layeth on blowes mightily with these canes, that the standers by tremble at their crueltie. Ten stripes draw a great deale of blood, 20. or 30. spoile the flesh altogether, 50. or 60. will require long time to bee healed, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... husband, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen—I should seek him, and find him among the band of 'atheists' to which I refer. I have known some of the most pronounced among them not only in life but in death seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a 'hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended upon their ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... people rather disliked the famous British hangman, and thought he hadn't made a great record for himself, but he performed a duty that had to be done by someone, and no one ever complained much about Marwood's work. He warranted every job and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... in the meane tyme, takin no head or cair of the cruell tormentis which war then prepared for him. Then, last of all, the hangman, that was his tormentour, sat doune upoun his kneis, and said, "Schir, I pray yow, forgive me, for I am nott guiltie of your death." To whome he answered, "Come hither to me." When he was come to him, he kissed his cheik, and said, "Lo! hear is a tokin that I forgeve thee: My harte, do ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... I heard a man once, when he was upon the Ladder with the Rope about his Neck, confess (when ready to be turned off by the Hangman) that that which had brought him to that end, was his accustoming of himself, when young, to pilfer and steal small things. To my best remembrance he told us, that he began the trade of a Thief by stealing Pins and Points, and therefore did forewarn all ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... experience such a revulsion of feeling as upon this occasion. The place was crowded with people of all descriptions, and a strong guard of soldiers, three deep, surrounded the gallows, forming a circle, the area of which was about two hundred feet in diameter. The hangman was habited in a red jacket and trousers, with a cap of the same color upon his head. This fellow had been formerly condemned to death for parricide, but was pardoned on condition of turning executioner, and becoming close prisoner for life, except when the duties of his profession occasionally ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... 'I am no foreign murderer to kill a defenceless man. You shall away to the justice to answer for yourself. The hangman has a rope for ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... The hangman turned and bowed in mock reverence to the spectators beneath him. He had not yet learned in a land of puny archers how sure and how strong is the English bow. Half a dozen men, old Wat amongst them, had run forward toward the wall. They were too late to save their comrades, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be respected, A Judge you mustn't knock, Or else you'll be detected And shoved into the dock. You'll get a nasty shock When gaolers turn the lock. In prison cell you'll give a yell To hear the hangman knock.' ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... how often the mother regards the advent of her child with loathing and horror; how the discovery that she is about to become a mother affects her like a nightmare; and how nothing but the dread of the hangman's rope keeps her from strangling the babe on the very hour of its birth. What chances has such a child? ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... giving Skoonly the promised "hoss-licken," and running him out of town the next morning, with a warning never to show his cowardly face on their streets again, unless he was looking for the job of dancing the hangman's hornpipe at the end of ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... stood aside to let them pass through the little door. I noticed that one of them seemed to be somewhat under the influence of drink. They passed on into the confines of the jail. I then asked the gatekeeper who those men were. He said, "That one is the hangman." He was the one whom I had noticed. My wish, or my intention rather, to step inside those gates vanished. I thanked the gatekeeper and told him that I would not trouble him to let me through. The little door was then shut, and I was more than glad to remain outside. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... contempt, that the king, the clergy, or the courts felt it necessary to prevent their circulation. The parlement of Paris now and then ordered some offensive writing to be burned by the common hangman. Several distinguished writers were even imprisoned for expressing themselves too freely, and some booksellers and printers banished. But the attempted suppression of free discussion seemed an outrage to the more thoughtful among the public, and rather promoted than prevented the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... one another to the death. If Starling, to save himself, were to disclose the name of the real murderer, he would simply make his exit from this life with a knife through his heart instead of the hangman's rope about his neck. These fellows, I believe, seldom commit crimes, but they are very much in earnest and very dangerous. If you ever happen to meet one of them with a red signet-ring upon his fourth finger, you can look out ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... take it. Montmorency pressed him once more; and losing all patience at his continued refusal, turned on his heel, and exclaiming, "Die, then, as thou wilt, mean-spirited wretch! thou art fit only to perish by the hands of the hangman!" left him to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... true as gospel what I'm a-tellin' on you. The hangman chap don't seem to make no more account of them poor devils than if they wos so many wooden dummies, like them 'Quaker guns' as they call—cos they can't hurt nobody, I s'pose—that them silly artful Chinese mounted in ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... are tired of your life, young man! All the more reason have you to live. Anyone can die. A murderer has moral force enough to jeer at his hangman. It is very easy to draw the last breath. It can be accomplished successfully by a child or a warrior. One pang of far less anguish than the toothache, and all is over. There is nothing heroic about it, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the Thames were receiving-ships on which were crowded men and women to be transported. When the ship was full, crowded to her utmost, she sailed away with her living cargo. From Sixteen Hundred Fifty to Seventeen Hundred Fifty, over forty thousand people were sent away for their country's good. The hangman worked overtime, all prisons were crowded, and the walls of Newgate bulged with men and women, old and young, who were believed to be dangerous to the stability and well-being of the superior class—that is, those who had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... hears his pursuer upon the threshold, as the fugitive from justice who feels upon his shoulder the sudden hand of arrest, as the poor wretch in the condemned cell when the hangman enters—as the feelings of these, so, at this sound, the emotions of my ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the dram; Oh it came of a dainty cask! But, whenever it came to his turn to pull, "Your leave, good sir, I must ask; But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve, When a hangman ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... assigned. Not that from death absence might save my mind, But that it might take death more patiently; Like him, the which by judge condemned to die, To suffer with more ease, his eyes doth blind. Your lips in scarlet clad, my judges be, Pronouncing sentence of eternal "No!" Despair, the hangman that tormenteth me; The death I suffer is the life I have. For only life doth make me die in woe, And only death I for ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... religion of the prince; the true God is the God, whom the prince desires his people to adore; the will of the priests, who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A wit justly observed, that the true religion is always that, on whose side are the prince and the hangman. Emperors and hangmen long supported the gods of Rome against the God of Christians; the latter, having gained to his interest the emperors, their soldiers, and their hangmen, succeeded in destroying the worship of the Roman gods. The God of Mahomet has dispossessed the God of ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... standard of their sovereign. But his name had now lost that magic influence which success had once thrown around it; and the several clans shunned his approach through fear, or watched his progress as foes. In the mean time his declaration had been solemnly burnt[d] by the hangman in the capital; the pulpits had poured out denunciations against the "rebel and apostate Montrose, the viperous brood of Satan, and the accursed of God and the kirk;" and a force of four thousand ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... me fast, bind me fast, for pity's sake.' But the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion; all began capering, and no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first bar of the tune, all were dancing together—judge, court, and miser, and all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... poison the king; and accordingly she was condemned to suffer the most cruel death that could be invented, and her sentence was, to be nailed to a cross, and kept alive as long as possible. The sentence was put in execution; when she fainted with the cruel torment, the hangman gave her strong liquors, &c. to revive her; the sixth day she died. Her long sufferings, youth, and good constitution, made her flesh so tender, delicious, and valuable, that the executioner sold it for above eight tallies; for there was such ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... he apply'd Unto his neck, on northeast side, Just where the hangman does dispose, To special friends, the knot or noose; For 'tis great grace, when statesmen straight Dispatch a friend, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... all I say—when we have told what you have done there will be no need of courts, or judges, or lawyers for you. Like a wild beast you will be hunted down; you will be trampled under foot; you will be torn to pieces! Fire, the sword, the hangman's noose, clubs, and crowbars will not be enough to satisfy the vengeance of an outraged people upon a cold-blooded wretch who came to this country solely for the purpose of perpetrating a crime more awful than ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... Foyle, eager and alert, was leaning forward, anxious not to miss a word. A great deal of what had been obscure was being cleared up. But so far nothing that Grell had said but could be interpreted as a motive—and a singularly strong one—which might in other circumstances weave a hangman's ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... with a shrug. "He'll be hard put to dodge the hangman yet; but he's a right good fellow in his way, and he has ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... offered what might be euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising members. True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick could pick up a living by threats ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... or movement. He was dressed in a long skirtlike garment of black cloth—true priest garb—and for a girdle he wore a length of hempen rope tied in the peculiar and sinister fashion known as the "hangman's knot." Around his neck, suspended like a priest's stole, hung a steel chain with pendent manacles or handcuffs that jangled unmusically as he moved. A grotesque, almost ridiculous figure this priest of the Doomsmen, but with the first look into ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... protest was followed by the publication of his Case Stated, which is a classic on the general relations between Ireland and England, and contained arguments so irrefutable that it drove the English parliament to fury and was by that body ordered to be burned by the common hangman. It is a remarkable coincidence that Molyneux opens his argument by laying down in almost identical words the principles which stand at the beginning of the American Declaration ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the prisons would be attended with fatal results but that these receptacles are cleared from time to time by the flight of the prisoners. It also frequently happens that sentences of death, tardily pronounced by the Audiencia of Caracas, cannot be executed for want of a hangman. In these cases the barbarous custom is observed of pardoning one criminal on condition of his hanging the others. Our guides related to us that, a short time before our arrival on the coast of Cumana, a Zambo, known for the great ferocity of his manners, determined ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... that these operations are unnecessary. They may be. It may also be necessary to hang a man or pull down a house. But we take good care not to make the hangman and the housebreaker the judges of that. If we did, no man's neck would be safe and no man's house stable. But we do make the doctor the judge, and fine him anything from sixpence to several hundred guineas if he decides ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... drew near they felt this was an easy business. Two of them sprang out upon him, and one, seizing his twisted stick, dragged it violently out of his hands. Warrenton flashed a dagger at his breast, saying sinisterly: "Friend, if you utter any alarm I will be your confessor and hangman. Come back with us forthwith and you may end your fight properly with our companion. He waits greedily ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... "Ah, Hangman," said Pierre, putting out his tongue at him, "are the books firm? I thought I felt them ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... perish. At a distant point of the sea-coast the monster spewed him forth unharmed. He was found by compassionate passers-by, and grew up ignorant of his descent. The government appointed him to the office of hangman. As luck would have it, he had to execute his own father. By the law of the land the wife of the dead man fell to the share of his executioner, and Joshua was on the point of adding to parricide another ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... swear," passionately returned Afy. "Make myself a companion of my father's murderer! If Mr. Calcraft, the hangman, finished off a few of those West Lynne scandalmongers, it might be a warning to the others. I said so to ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to commit unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed, and disunited Covenanters of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to play the same game on the numerous, united, dogged, and warlike Independents of England. To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman dishonour the corpses of some of his father's judges, before whom, when alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost their all in supporting his father's cause, to pine in misery and want. He would give to a painted ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... masters did to recover a fugitive to bondage. It has been beautifully said that he did kind deeds stealthily, as if he were afraid of being found out. He became a shield above the fallen; he stood between the soldier, condemned for the sleep of exhaustion, and the hangman's noose. He refused to attend a cabinet meeting because he was trying to find a reason for reprieving a soldier. "It is butchery day," he said one Friday morning, and he denied himself to a committee because he did not think that hanging would help the boy who was condemned ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the end of it all?" demanded Mistress Nutter, sternly. "Erelong, they will be unable to furnish victims to their insatiate master, who will then abandon them. Their bodies will go to the hangman, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... barkers, will you—quick! Oh, damnation. Dig, y-you know G-Gaunt and his hangman are hard on my heels! Quick, then, and g-get it over and done with—d'you hear, D-Dig?" So saying, Barrymaine crossed to the hearth and stood there, warming his hands at the blaze, but, even so, he must needs turn his head so ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Book; smallest of Duodecimos to have so much wildfire in it, This MAN A MACHINE, though tumultuous La Mettrie meant nothing but open-mouthed Wisdom by it, gave scandal in abundance; so that even the Leyden Magistrates were scandalized; and had to burn the afflicting little Duodecimo by the common hangman, and order La Mettrie to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Mr. Gavin Cochrane of Craigmuir, who lived at no great distance from the place of encounter. Here he was seized and removed to Edinburgh, where, after being paraded through the streets bound and bare-headed, and conducted by the common hangman, he was lodged in the tollbooth on July 3rd, 1685, there to await his trial as a traitor. The day of trial came, and he was condemned to death, in spite of the most strenuous exertions of his aged father, Earl ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... were at the same time severely lacerated by the brute's claws. During the brief moments in which this struggle lasted, Big Ben had leaped from his steed; detached the stout line which always hung at his saddle-bow; made a noose as deftly as if he had been a British tar or a hangman, and passed it quickly over the bear's muzzle. Drawing it tight he took a turn round its neck, another round its fore-legs, and a third round the body. After this the work of subjugation was easy, and Bruin was finally reduced ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... chandler's basket, on his shoulder borne, With tallow spots thy coat; resign the way To shun the surly butcher's greasy tray— Butchers whose hands are dyed with blood's foul stain, And always foremost in the hangman's train. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... others! May they all be blinded—Attilio, Gaspare, Roberto! The hangman will get them, surely. Briganti, indeed!" She snorted like a horse. "May Belisario Cardi roast them over these very fagots." Slowly she moved her head from side to side while the bundle swayed precariously. "It is a bad business, Si'or. The padrone is mad to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... through his default one of themselves might have to undertake the unpleasant office, that they would have given the prospective victim almost anything he liked, on the principle of letting the condemned criminal choose what he prefers for his final meal before that brief interview with the hangman. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... remembrance' sake. These I took from their repository when the attraction of my watch showed signs of failing. The child pounced on them with her chubby hands, and screamed with pleasure. And the hangman was waiting for her mother—and, more horrid still, the mother ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... organ Pokrok in Prostejov, Mr. Joseph Kotek, was sentenced to death on Christmas Eve of 1914. The sentence was passed at noon, confirmed at half-past four and carried out at half-past six. As no one could be found to act as hangman, Kotek was shot. The reason given for the verdict was that the accused editor of the Pokrok, which was suppressed as being dangerous to the State, delivered a speech at a meeting of a co-operative society in which he said that all Czechs were unanimous that ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... with the lark—Oh, no doubt —you'll get up with the hangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing here like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of the Alps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the public seem to have acquiesced that thus it shall ever be. There is an allowed and constant connection between the criminal and the officer engaged in suppressing crime, but whether it be necessary and unavoidable, or the best disposition possible, deserves some consideration. The hangman is in general only a little more fortunate than his culprit. The leader of a band of Regulators is commonly more ferocious, and as lawless as the victim against whom his fury is directed. The lawyer unscrupulously pockets a fee, which ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... my father," replied she, "that my wrongs cry aloud for vengeance. To begin with, I shall have this trollop thrown into the river, sewn up in a sack, for having diverted the seed of the House of Cande from its proper channel. It will be saving the hangman a job. For ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... pugilistic encounter. His hair is of a yellowish clay colour, lighter in tint upon the eyebrows. There is none either on his lips or jaws, nor yet upon his thick hog-like throat; which looks as if some day it may need something stiffer than a beard to protect it from the hemp of the hangman. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... calculated to promote the views of those who advocate the abolition of capital punishment, it is the fact of a woman meeting her death at the hands of the common hangman. There is something abhorrent, especially to the mind of the stronger sex, in the idea of a female suffering the extreme penalty of the law. On the other hand, the crime for which Margaret Waters suffered—which is ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... staff over him; albeit, since he freely confessed the deed of death, and had done it with no evil intent, they were content to make him pay a fine in money. But some said that they likewise commanded the hangman to nail up a gallows-cord behind his house door; others, rather, that he had taken upon himself the penance of ever wearing such a cord about his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish buffoons; their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did also the most ill- famed company of the troops of Cesare in the war of 1500; and even his hangman, Don Micheletto, and his poisoner, Sebastiano Pinzon Cremonese, seem to have been of the same nation. Among his other achievements, Cesare, in true Spanish fashion, killed, according to the rules of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... been taken to York to be hanged; she was brought out on the scaffold, and the hangman said, "Now, lass, thou must hang by the neck till thou be'st dead." ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds: It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed: And it overflows, when, to even the odd, Men I helped to their sins, help ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... family with me, for which I thank my Deliverer from the jaws of the lion of oppression, and praise the Lord of hosts for a free country, where I can vote as well as preach according to the dictates of my own conscience without the torturing whip or the hangman's rope." ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... at her stupified. Her whole beauty seemed to be focussed in one passionate protest. Knouted to death! I saw the form before me stripped, and lashed to the triangles, while the knotted thong, wielded by the hangman's hands, buried itself in the ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward |
