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Rifling   Listen
noun
Rifling  n.  
1.
The act or process of making the grooves in a rifled cannon or gun barrel.
2.
The system of grooves in a rifled gun barrel or cannon.
Shunt rifling, rifling for cannon, in which one side of the groove is made deeper than the other, to facilitate loading with shot having projections which enter by the deeper part of the grooves.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rifling" Quotes from Famous Books



... open highway of an honest life." Altering his tone again and speaking in measured accents, he admitted that, although the Government's witnesses had not been able to identify the prisoner by his face, he having concealed himself in the bushes while the rifling of the pouch was in progress, yet so full a view was gotten of his enormous back and shoulders as to leave no doubt in his mind that the prisoner before them had committed the assault, since it would not be possible to find two such men, even in the mountains of Kentucky. As his ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... doctor. Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly; none of your ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... spring. But it is the lesson the spring teaches, the lesson of fulfilling your nature, of waking from your slumbers, of finding the air, of giving yourself to the rifling fingers of the sun, of yielding all your scent to others, and of taking all their scent to you. That's the lesson of your strength, Julian, and of all the strength of the spring. Lie out in the showers, and let the clouds cover you with shadows, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... near he saw that the German's rifle had been hurled quite ten yards. The barrel was partly wrenched from the stock, and for a distance of about a foot from the muzzle the steel had been split, revealing the glittering rifling. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... their own, and what they may become under French domination; but between what the Spaniards may do (and, in all likelihood, will do) for themselves, and what Frenchmen would do for them. But,—waiving this,—the sweeping away of the most splendid monuments of art, and rifling of the public treasuries in the conquered countries, are an apt prologue to the tragedy which is to ensue. Strange that there are men who can be so besotted as to see, in the decrees of the Usurper concerning feudal tenures and a worn-out Inquisition, any other ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... strewed with boughs, amid the acclamations of the people, entered the apartment in the Tower which the venerable Laud now in his turn occupied. The unsparing Puritan sternly performed the office of rifling his papers,[104] and persecuted the helpless prelate till he led him to the block. Prynne, to use his own words, for he could be eloquent when moved by passion, "had struck proud Canterbury to the heart; and had undermined ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... children, drawer, and curiosities all went rolling over together on the floor with a hubbub that brought all the household together, exclaiming and scolding. Madame de Ribaumont's displeasure at the rifling of her hoards knew no bounds; Eustacie, by way of defence, shrieked 'like twenty demons;' Beranger, too honourable to accuse her, underwent the same tempest; and at last both were soundly rapped over the knuckles with the long handle ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... magnitude. But there is no nation beyond us; nothing but waves and rocks, and the still more hostile Romans, whose arrogance we cannot escape by obsequiousness and submission. These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... 2,000 feet per second to a bullet, requires a pressure of at least 15 English tons in the chamber of a gun. This would be a dangerous pressure in an old-fashioned shoulder arm; while a bullet made only of lead would strip on striking the rifling and pass right through the barrel of the gun without taking any rotary motion whatever. It might at first seem that the powder is the only thing to be considered; but high ballistics can only be obtained when everything else ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... you! It's the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise, got up to investigate, found me here, rifling ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... after watching the operations of the other robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune with dignified indifference until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and seizing Mauleverer, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... contrary to the laws of the Citie. If the people had found him, they had surelie have stricken off his head; but when they found him not, the watermen and certain young preests that were there, fell to rifling, and some ran to Blanch-apelton, and broke up the strangers' houses and spoiled them. Thus from ten or eleven of the clock these riotous people continued their outrageous doings, till about three of the clock, at what time they began to withdraw, and went to their places of resort; and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... minutes he was lying in the cellar, beside our other victim. Very little blood flowed from the wound; he bled internally. He had on a very fine shirt; and after rifling his person, and possessing myself of his pocketbook, I took off his shirt, and put on the one I had bought of ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... class of post-office thieves who make a specialty of rifling the registered letters that pass through their hands in transit on journeys of greater or less length. Some of them have managed operations very shrewdly, in the evident belief that they had discovered an infallible method for doing ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... from making their own dicker with the King of the Belgians or with the Congo government, and rifling the hoard on a fifty-fifty or ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... rear of the troops as they fell down the river; their intention being to remain concealed in the vicinity of any point at which an engagement might take place, and then trust to chance for an opportunity of rifling the dead or picking up whatever spoils happened to drop in their way. While deliberating upon this creditable resolve, about noon, as they had made a detour and pushed ahead of the troops, who were going into camp, their attention was arrested by the noise ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... length. The muzzle is rounded to protect the rifling. Any injury here would allow gases to escape around the sides of the bullet ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... they received the Vitellians' reckless and disordered charge, and at once flung them into confusion. Antonius pressed hard on the fugitives and cut down all who blocked his path. The others followed each his inclination, rifling the dead, capturing prisoners, seizing arms and horses. Meanwhile, summoned by their shouts of triumph, those who had just now been in full flight across the fields came hurrying back ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... that hapned of more fatal consequences was this:—it being that time of the year when young lads are busie in rifling jackdaws nests to get their young, a scholar of the free-school, a son to a parliament officer, was got upon the top of the minster about this employment; who going along the cieling in the body of the church, and treading unwarily on some rotten boards, fell down from thence, upon the loft ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded hilariously once more in ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... in the prospect, not only of getting rid of him, but of being revenged for her old humiliation. A thousand times she imagined herself in Bob's lurking-place, raising the weapon, striking the murderous blow, rifling the man's pockets to mislead those who found his body, and had laughed to herself triumphantly. Joseph out of the way, the next thing was to remove Pennyloaf. Oh, that would easily have been contrived. Then she and Bob would have ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... across her: 'Suppose it's he! Gone out to do something desperate, as Tryst did!' If it were, he would come up-stairs and pass her door, going to his room. She opened it an inch, holding her breath. At first, nothing! Was it fancy? Or was some one noiselessly rifling the room down-stairs? But surely no one would steal of Uncle Tod, who, everybody knew, had nothing valuable. Then came a sound as of bootless feet pressing the stairs stealthily! And the thought darted through ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... guns were at first fitted with a number of gun-metal studs arranged around them in a spiral manner corresponding to the twist of rifling. This was defective, as it allowed, as in the old smooth-bore guns, the powder gas to escape by the clearance (called "windage") between the projectile and the bore, with a consequent loss of efficiency; it also quickly eroded ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the benefit of you boys who have never seen a big, modern cannon, that it consists of a central core of cast steel. This is rifled, just as a small rifle is bored, with twisted grooves throughout its length. The grooves, or rifling, impart a twisting motion to the projectiles, and keep them in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... Hall, in Philadelphia, and defied the city authorities in this service of slavery. President Jackson and Amos Kendall, his Postmaster General, had openly set the Constitution at defiance by justifying the rifling of the mails and the suppression of the circulation of anti-slavery newspapers in the South. The "gag" resolutions had been introduced in the House of Representatives in 1836, which provoked the splendid fights of Adams, Giddings and Slade for the right of petition and the freedom of speech. Dr. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... zeal of Potsdam's agents, seeking the bearer of this secret, which had caused the rifling of Miss Brooke's luggage when she fell under suspicion, thanks to her clandestine way of coming aboard; and through the same agency young Thackeray had been all but murdered when suspicion, for whatever reason, shifted ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... leaning on his staff, and surveying the havoc of the field, was instantly aware of the enemy's manoeuvre. His people were employed rifling the pockets of the National Guard, and had made a tolerable booty, when the great Duke, taking a bell out of his pocket, (it was used for signals in his battalion in place of fife or bugle,) speedily called his scattered warriors together. "Take the muskets of the Nationals," said ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... matter of fact, you're annoyed and surprised. But you're suspicious as well: 'Why should that confounded Lupin hand the business over to me,' say you, 'instead of keeping it for himself, hunting down the murderer and rifling his pockets, if there was a robbery?' The question is quite logical, of course. But—there is a 'but'—I have no time, you see. I am full up with work at the present moment: a burglary in London, another at Lausanne, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... by the time that O'Gorman had finished rifling the barque, by which time he had secured all the provisions out of the unfortunate craft's lazarette, had taken four brass nine-pounder guns, two dozen stand of muskets, the same number of cutlasses and boarding pikes, together with a considerable quantity ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... time Spikeman was rifling his house, and injuriously treating its inmates, the Knight, unsuspicious of harm, was lying in the wigwam of Sassacus, which was distant but a mile or two from his own residence. Lying on his side, with his head supported on one hand by the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... daughter would have done to her mother, feeling with exquisite joy that they would thus, between them, inflict the last turn of the screw of cruelty, in robbing M. Vinteuil, as though they were actually rifling his tomb, of the sacred rights of fatherhood. Her friend took the girl's head in her hands and placed a kiss on her brow with a docility prompted by the real affection she had for Mlle. Vinteuil, as well as by the desire to bring what distraction she could into the dull and melancholy ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... How this was to be done is not quite clear, since it is plain that this letter is really and chiefly an order for rifling sepulchres in search of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... was going on at Brent Rock, Paul Balcom was rifling his father's papers in the apartment where Balcom had lived. He had unceremoniously thrown letters and documents all over the floor in his mad search for something. Finally he found what he was looking for, and, smiling ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... spot at which he had left his friend, and at first thought that he perceived a mob of people in the dusk. But as he got nearer, he saw that there were a man and two women. Wharton was on the ground, on his back, and the man was apparently kneeling on his neck and head while the women were rifling his pockets. Lopez, hardly knowing how he was acting, was upon them in a moment, flying in the first place at the man, who had jumped up to meet him as he came. He received at once a heavy blow on his head from some weapon, which, however, his hat so far stopped as to save him from being ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... been given a glimpse of that large scheme that Harry was carrying forward somewhere out of her sight—such a glimpse as Clara had given her in the rifling of her room, as Ella had shown in her hysterical revelation. Again she felt the threat of these ominous signs of danger, as a lone general at a last stand with his troops clustered at his back sees in front, and behind, on either side of him, the glitter ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... would only throw them farther off-course. If worst came to worst, they could roll Valier over and use the six o'clock auxiliary; there was a small arc through which the motors could turn on their mounts. But the trouble was unknown, and they might end up rifling or pinwheeling if they ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing

... displays itself in high places. Intrigue enters the charmed circle of the palace. The monarch himself is satirized in indecent drawings. Presently, the whole idea of a divinity hedging in the king departs; and a "thieves' society" is formed for rifling the royal tombs, and tearing the jewels, with which they have been buried, from the monarchs' persons. The king's life is aimed at by conspirators, who do not scruple to use magical arts; priests and high ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... which, owing to his haste, awkwardness, and the frosty atmosphere and ground, had resulted in a compound fracture of his right leg; that he had been borne off in a state of insensibility; on recovering from which he found himself in Wyatt's power, who, by rifling his pockets, had found some memoranda that left no doubt of Lee's treason towards the smuggling fraternity. The bearer of the note would, he said, further explain, as he could not risk delaying sending it for another moment—only ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... dress And watched her hand at play there. "Here," she said, "There is no child," and sighed. Into his dead And wasted heart there leaped a flame and caught His hollow eyes. "Rememberest thou naught, Nothing regrettest, nothing holdst in grief Of all our joy together ere that thief Came rifling in?" For all her answer she Lookt long upon him, long and earnestly; And misty grew her eyes, and slowly filled. Slowly the great tears brimmed, and slowly rilled Adown her cheeks. So presently she ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... but how about the rifling in the barrel? I guess there wouldn't be much of that stuff left on by the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... demaunded of the sayd English ambassadours, at their being in Prussia, on the behalfe of them of Liuonia, who are the sayd Master his liege people, to haue restitution of their losses, vniustly (as he sayth) offered vnto them by the English, namely, for the robbing and rifling of three ships. [Sidenote: These ships were taken by the English the 20. Iuly 1404.] The value of which ships and of the goods contained in them, according, to the computation of the Liuonian marchants, doeth amount vnto the summe of 8037. pound, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... Negro railway mail clerk according to Willis' knowledge running from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, was Benjamin F. Cox. The first colored mail clerk in the Jacksonville Post Office was Camp Hughes. He was sent to prison for rifling the mail. Willis Myers succeeded Hughes and Willis Williams succeeded Myers. Willis received a telegram to come to Jacksonville to take Myers' place and when he came expected to stay three or four days, but, after getting here was retained permanently ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... 900 to 1,000 deg.F. in an automatic furnace 25 ft. long, this operation taking about 2 hr. The purpose of hot straightening was to prevent any stresses being put into the blanks, so that after rough-turning, drilling or rifling operations they would not have a tendency to spring back to shape as left by the ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin

... asked if they had seen them lately. It was all in vain; for if they had seen him go out of his house, so universally beloved was Noor ad Deen by the people, that not one of them would have said the least word to his prejudice. While they were rifling the house, and levelling it to the ground, he went to acquaint the king with the news. "Look for them," said he, "every where; for I am ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... enlist Lyman's help in the matter of Wilbur's future. Lyman was flaccid in the matter. The boy had once stolen into the Penniman parlour while Lyman and Winona were out rifling the ice box of delicacies, and enticed by the glitter of Lyman's flute had thrillingly taken it into his hands to see what made it go, dropping it in his panic, from the centre table to the floor, when he heard their returning steps. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... master's lodgings, accompanied by the Hebrew; was heard to make inquiries as to the route the man intended to take on his way homewards; followed him, or preceded him rather, and was found in the act of rifling his victim by my police in the Kaiserwald. The man will confess nothing; but, on being searched, a large sum in gold was found on his person; and though it is with the utmost pain that I can bring myself to entertain such an opinion, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... click, with chickens clucking in a field near by, the big breech-block which held the shell fast, sending all the power of the explosion out of the muzzle, was swung back and one looked through the shining tube of steel, with its rifling which caught the driving band and gave the shell its rotation and accuracy in its long journey, which would close when, descending at the end of its parabola, its nose struck building, earth, or pavement ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... fallen into our hands at Norfolk, and he conceived the idea of turning some of this ordnance into rifles. In order to enable them to stand the additional bursting strain we forged wrought-iron bands and shrank them over the chambers, and we devised a special tool for rifling the bore of the guns. ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... the slate and primer. Then, she took tenderly from its corner the rifle, which the boy had confided to her keeping, and unwrapped its greasy covering. She drew the cartridges from chamber and magazine, oiled the rifling, polished the lock, and reloaded ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... to remove metal fouling. After scrubbing out the bore with the soda solution, plug it from the breech with a cork at the front end of the chamber or where the rifling begins. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... some three hours being in Carthage I rusht into a Temple. Starr'd all with lights; Which with my drawne sword rifling, in a roome Hung full of Pictures, drawne so full of sweetnesse They struck a reverence in me, found I a woman, A Lady all in white; the very Candles Took brightnesse from her eyes and those cleare Pearles Which in aboundance ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... to you?... On approval; certainly.... Of course it's an original flintlock; I didn't list it as re-altered, did I?... No, not at all; the only replacement is the small spring inside the patchbox.... Yes, the rifling is excellent.... Of course; I'll ship it at once.... Good-by, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... slightest excuse. These men could not help knowing that she was rich, and it was reasonable for them to suspect that she carried money and jewels with her. In her mind's eye she could picture these traitors rifling her bags and boxes in some dark pass, and then there were other horrors that almost petrified her when she allowed herself to think ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... was by this time so vivid to her mind, that she began making a pen-and-ink sketch of him, as a dark-browed villain in the act of rifling the pocket of a very haughty young woman proceeding along the street with an air of extreme self-consciousness. The drawing was on a very small scale, and when it was finished to her satisfaction there was still half the page unoccupied. Madge hastily wrote under the sketch the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-tug, so useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and watched him as if it were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all he wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in Mr Pancks's eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations in his mind. After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... glittering helmet he had pressed down as low as he could on his forehead, and I could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... in your murderous scheme," the Superintendent thundered. "You were found in the War Office by the night watchman, rifling a safe of valuable documents. You shot him with a pistol equipped with a silencer. You shot down two more who, hearing his cries, rushed to his aid. And you attempted to stroll out of the building, apparently under the belief that you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... ruinates: Him as a childe I dayly winne with words, So that for proofe, he barely beares the name: I execute, and he sustaines the blame. The Mother Queene workes wonders for my sake, And in my love entombes the hope of Fraunce: Rifling the bowels of her treasurie, To supply my wants and necessitie. Paris hath full five hundred Colledges, As Monestaries, Priories, Abbyes and halles, Wherein are thirtie thousand able men, Besides a thousand ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe

... against whom Lowther firing his guns, hoisted the piratical Colours, which Captain Edward bravely returned; but at length finding the Pirate too strong for him he yielded, and the Pirate came on Board, and not only rifling the ship, but beat and cut the men in a cruel manner. In crusing about the Bay, they took several other vessels without any resistance, particularly a Sloop of 100 Tons, which they mounted with 8 carriages and 10 swivel guns. With this fleet, Lowther in the Happy Delivery, Lowe ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... a gyroscopic effect, being reversed in direction by a change from a right to a left-handed twist of rifling, and being increased by an increase ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... After it has passed through, another auger, a trifle larger, is substituted in its place, and thus the calibre of the barrel is gradually enlarged to nearly the required size. Formerly, six borings were given to each barrel, but at the present time only four are permitted, aside from the rifling, which is a distinct operation, performed at the works on the till, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... Dunscombe and the maid, that they could hardly contain themselves. She did not find out that Miss Margaret's fingers were busy with her paper of sweets, which only a good string and a sound knot kept her from rifling. Yet she felt very well that nobody there cared in the least for her sorrow. It mattered nothing; she wept on in her loneliness, and knew nothing that happened, till the carriage stopped on the wharf; even then she did not raise her head. Mrs. Dunscombe got out, and saw her daughter and servant ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... here the space to enter upon a disquisition concerning these progressive changes; but suffice it to say that nearly all the peculiar styles of fire-arms were well known at an early period, and that the rifling, etc., of guns and cannon, with the other modifications now adopted, are merely the development and consummation of old ideas. For instance, the rifled arquebuse was known and used at the close of the fifteenth century, and, although the rifled musket was not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... the road, where the ants swarmed to the attack. Not the Tigers alone, but a number of Ashby's men as well engaged in the general business. The latter, either not so hungry or more valiant to abstain from the smaller rifling, turned to the plunder of horses. There were horses enough, dead and wounded, along that frightful road. Others were unhurt, still harnessed to wagons, or corralled in fence corners, or huddled with prisoners in the trodden fields. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... learn what had happened. These carried off the few who remained unhurt, but there was no means of taking off the wounded. These, however, were treated kindly and sent on shore when the ship was picked up at daylight by the English, who, on rifling her, found to their delight that there were still many powder barrels on board that had ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... Harry, "and five to one the seam, which, however neatly it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will cross the direction of the grooving, and give the ball a counter movement; either destroying altogether the rotatory motion communicated by the rifling, or causing it to take a direction quite out of the true line; accordingly as the counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or near ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... glimpse she caught of a restless fawn, glancing in the distance across the avenue, as he silently changed the tree under which he slept?—Then the gentle breeze would enter her window, laden with sweet scents of which he had just been rifling the coy flowers beneath, in their dewy repose, tended and petted during the day by her own delicate hand!—Beautiful moon!—cold and chaste in thy skyey palace, studded with brilliant and innumerable gems, and shedding down thy rich and tender radiance upon this ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... known here, also returned home yesterday, and had much to say of the treatment of those caught in the act of rifling ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... of the suspicious type of mind that it suffers from its own activity. From the moment he detected Mr. Peters in the act of rifling the museum and marked down Ashe as an accomplice, Baxter's repose was doomed. Nor poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, could ever medicine him to that sweet sleep which ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... in the palm of his hand, a little out of shape through passing the rifling, but still ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... village was in possession of the English, its brave defenders prisoners, or fled, or drowned, many of them, in the neighbouring waters of the Donau. But for honest Lockwood's faithful search after his master, there had no doubt been an end of Esmond here, and of this his story. The marauders were out rifling the bodies as they lay on the field, and Jack had brained one of these gentry with the club-end of his musket, who had eased Esmond of his hat and periwig, his purse, and fine silver-mounted pistols which the dowager gave him, and was fumbling ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his pockets, and those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... rifling of his honey-pot Awoke our Elfin's wrath full hot. He made a rope of linden bast, By either end he held it fast, And creeping up behind the beast, Intent upon the honey feast, Before it had the slightest inkling, The rope was ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... whole holiday, with satchel, bag, and basket, to enjoy the fresh air and bright sunshine, and to leap, and jump, and rejoice in all the wild vagaries of youth among the fresh uplands and hills, scrambling over all obstruction—the elder climbing the old trees, and rifling them of their spoil—the younger and less adventurous hooking down the branches, and claiming the right of all they can collect 'by hook or by crook.' But wo to the poor mothers who have to mend the garments in which the onslaught has been made!—wo to the little boy or girl ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... or rather braid, on a 15-inch gun; beyond again there are workmen and inspectors testing and gauging another similar giant. Look down this shining tube and watch the gauging, now with callipers, now with a rubber device which takes the impression of the rifling and reveals any defect. The gauging turns upon the ten-thousandth part of an inch, and any mistake or flaw may mean ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "Lucy" so well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is the sweetbriar enamoured of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... plate 165. There is one necropolis in Assyria that, in the employment of terra-cotta coffins, resembles the graveyards of Chaldaea; it is that of Kaleh-Shergat, which has long been under process of rifling by the Arabs, who find cylinders, engraved stones, and jewels among its graves. PLACE judges from the appearance of the coffins and other objects found that this necropolis dates from the Parthian times (Ninive, vol. ii. pp. 183-185). LAYARD is of the same opinion ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... sure passport to truly hospitable spirits. Mr. Bhaer sat looking about him with the air of a traveler who knocks at a strange door, and when it opens, finds himself at home. The children went to him like bees to a honeypot, and establishing themselves on each knee, proceeded to captivate him by rifling his pockets, pulling his beard, and investigating his watch, with juvenile audacity. The women telegraphed their approval to one another, and Mr. March, feeling that he had got a kindred spirit, opened his choicest stores for his guest's benefit, while silent John listened ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... of the engagement we had two men killed and five wounded, who died afterwards of their wounds. We, who were alive, were all ordered on board the Frenchman, who, after rifling us, chained us two and two and turned us into the hold. Our vessel was then ransacked; and the other privateer, who had suffered much the day before in an engagement with an English twenty-gun ship of war, coming up, the prize was sent by ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... houses upon the banks of New Meadows. A party of twenty-five English set out from Casco in a sloop and two boats, sailed along the bay, and entered the river. The inhabitants had already fled, and the Indians were there, about thirty in number, rifling the houses. Seeing the approach of the English, they concealed themselves in an ambush. When the English had advanced but a few rods from their boats, the savages rushed upon them with hideous yells, wounded several, drove them all back to their sloop, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... to the stricken man—who was quite as he had been—Kirkwood bent over and thrust rifling fingers into his pockets, regardless of the wretched sense of guilt and sneakishness imparted by the action, stubbornly heedless of the possibility of the man's awakening to find ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... I saw him go down before three of their pikes. What more could I do but drive my horse over the nearest rogue who was rifling him?" ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... You notice the little square projection on the back surface of the cylinder. That was evidently made to fit a washer or wad—probably a thin plate of soft metal which would be driven by the pressure from behind into the grooves of the rifling and thus give a spinning motion to the bullet. When the latter left the barrel, the wad would drop ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... Paul's throat, and undid his collar and his waistcoat. "A pocket inside the waistcoat! Very useful, very useful—and more papers, yes! Take a drop, my friend, it will do you good." Thus alternately ministering to Paul's bodily comfort and rifling his person of what valuables he carried, Dieppe offered to the philosophic mind a singular resemblance to a Finance Minister who takes a farthing off the duty on beer and puts a penny ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... consider that nephew of yours a pattern of propriety. Is this the only reason you have for believing that Watson Wilks had no hand in the murder of Arnold Nicholson, and the rifling of the express ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... his comrades had been attending on Giuseppe, the third Corsican (whom they called Ste, or Stephanu) had filled up his time by rifling our camp; and of all our possessions he had chosen to select our half-dozen spare muskets and a burst coffer, from which he now extracted and (for his comrade's admiration) held aloft our chiefest treasure—the Iron Crown ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... was right! Mr. Crusoe had been rifling Mr. Hunter's private possessions. She raised the gun with a ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... Honey had been rifling the trunks again. He walked down to the beach with an armful of fans, piled them there, returned to camp. The girls descended, eyed them, ascended, gathered together, talked, descended, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... wed) Into the cold Scamander's arms, But met and welcomed mine, instead— Wondering as on my neck she fell, How river-gods could love so well! Who would have thought that he who roved Like the first bees of summer then, Rifling each sweet nor ever loved But the free hearts that loved again, Readily as the reed replies To the least breath that round it sighs— Is the same dreamer who last night Stood awed and breathless at the sight Of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Mildred drew her shawl more closely around her and hastened them to the business in hand. On the table was a sheet of paper. On the paper, rifling on three supports, was a small triangular board. Two of the supports were easily moving casters. The third support, placed at the apex of the triangle, ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... felt himself deteriorate Already. Thereupon he sent down showers Of clattering stones, to emphasize his words, And leap the cliffs and tumble noisily Into the seething wave. And as for me, I railed at him and at ingratitude, While rifling of the basket he had slung Across his shoulders; then with right good will We fell to work, and feasted like the gods, Like laborers, or like eager workhouse folk At Yuletide dinner; or, to say the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... complete had been the rifling of my rooms by the devoted vandals in their efforts to make this lady cosy and comfortable that they did not overlook a silver-framed photograph of my dear mother! Her sweet face met my gaze as it swept the mantel-piece, beneath which a coal fire crackled merrily. I am not quite sure, but I think ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... for consent, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her lips again and again, with the ardor of the honey-bee rifling the flowers of their sweets, till she struggled ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... said another, 'perhaps while we're trifling About this old ladder, the thief will be rifling The house of its contents, or, venturing further, May set it on fire—the children may murder.' 'Can't help it,' says V.; 'though he murder to-day, Who knows but to-morrow the murderer may Repent and reform; then who shall restore The ladder all perfect and sound as before? But whether or no, I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... purchasing large quantities of percussion caps which "were sent by express without any disguise to Montgomery," making contracts for artillery, powder and other munitions of war, as well as for a complete set of machinery for rifling cannon, and had searched the harbor of New York in the hope of finding a steamer or two that might be armed and used for coast defense. None of these people were molested, and that was one thing that led the Southerners to believe that ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... but not of fear. Instead it served to strengthen her resolve. There had been nothing in her valise to show who she really was, or why she was in Haskell, and consequently, if any vague suspicion had been aroused as to her presence in that community, the searchers had discovered no proof by this rifling ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... There have been cases in which an innkeeper has been charged by one of his servants with the murder of a traveller, the servant deposing to having seen his master on the stranger's bed, strangling him, and afterwards rifling his pockets—another servant deposing that she saw him come down at that time at a very early hour in the morning, steal into the garden, take gold from his pocket, and carefully wrapping it up bury it in a designated spot—on the search of which the ground ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... begun by the police had ended in no definite result. At Maisons-Lafitte, people thought that the Russian house had been attacked by some thieves who had been in the habit of entering unoccupied houses and rifling them of their contents. They had even arrested an old vagabond, and accused him of the attempted robbery at General Vogotzine's; but the old man had answered: "I do not even know the house." But was not this Menko a hundred times ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... for the blood of the infidel. In such as these a faith dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous in its death-throes than in the full pulse of life. The ghastly indiscretion of Professor Deeping, in rifling a Moslem Sacristy, had led to the mutilation of many who, unwittingly, had touched the looted relic, had brought about his own end, had established a league of fantastic assassins in the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... subdued, trained, and developed the dog, the latter was incapable of rising, and was one of man's most dangerous foes,—the fox robbing his hen-roosts and grape-vines, the wolf eating him and his children, and the jackal and hyena picking his bones and rifling his grave. The same ridiculous claim of being the corner-stone of human society has been made by some wiseacre in behalf of the goat. The plain truth is that only one animal can justly lay claim to such a distinction. At the threshold of human society and civilization lies the slimy figure of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... thing for the Egyptian native, there was fruit for the picking on the trees, and everything was free! So they imagined, but the exasperated ladies who were continually coming to complain that a sportsman in a blue galabeah was rifling ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... resting-place of the martyrs, and thus, as one passage is now opened, another has to be closed. The archaeologists may rebel, but the priests have their way. The ancient filling up was, however, productive of one good result; it preserved some of the graves from the rifling to which most were exposed during the period of the desertion of the catacombs. Most of the graves which are now found with their tiled or marble front complete, and with the inscription of name or date upon them unbroken, are those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... that Countrey, to make seisure of all his moveable goods that they could finde there, who being come unto Rochester, according to their Commission, entred his house; and the first thing they did was, they turned out all his Servants; then they fell to rifling his goods, whereof the chief part of them were taken for the Kings use, the rest they took for themselves; then they came into his Library, which they found so replenished, and with such kind of Books, as it ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... sleep, and we only wak'd at the crack. To be short, Ascyltos came in and briefly told us what he had done for our sakes: On this we got up; and as we were rigging our selves, it came into my head to kill the guard, and rifle the village; I told Ascyltos my mind. He liked the rifling well enough, but gave us a wish'd delivery without blood, for being acquainted with every corner of the house, he pick'd the lock of an inner-room where the movables lay, and bringing us into it, we lifted what was of most value, and got off ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its underground store and carrying off ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... disinherit him at once. Ben knew she was in earnest, and so fell back upon the Crimean war as a last resort. "He would go immediately—would start that very day for New York—he had money enough to carry him there," and he painted so vividly "death on a distant battle-field, with a ferocious Russian rifling his trousers' pocket," that his mother began to cry, though she still refused ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... bell sounded. I flung on my trousers, and went down with a pistol. I caught two burglars in the act of rifling the cupboard. I went to collar one; he struck me on the head with a crowbar—constable, show the crowbar—I staggered, but recovered myself, and fired at one of the burglars: he was just struggling through the window. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... and scent himself with perfume; that, as for me, they could have got him twenty girls prettier, and with far more spirit in them. He quietly answered that I suited him, and that was enough. All this time they were doing something—I could not see what—to the corpse; sometimes they were too busy rifling the dead body, I believe, to talk; again they let it fall with a heavy, resistless thud, and took to quarrelling. They taunted my husband with angry vehemence, enraged at his scoffing and scornful replies, his mocking laughter. Yes, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... rebelled at this last rifling of the shrine, and he made for the door. Moira's sweet solicitude held him for an instant in check. "Oh, Tim, ye'd best stay in an' warm your knee by the good fire. I've a pile of mendin' to do, and you'll tell me all about your family ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... the persons who formerly trumpeted forth the most loudly the violent resolutions of assemblies, the universal insurrections, the seizing and burning the stamped papers, the forcing stamp officers to resign their commissions under the gallows, the rifling and pulling down of the houses of magistrates, and the expulsion from their country of all who dared to write or speak a single word in defence of the powers of Parliament,—these very trumpeters are now the men that represent the whole as a mere trifle, and choose to date all the disturbances ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Dawson. La Belle and Fournier got passage with these men on a small boat, travelled with them, camped, ate, and slept with them till one night in camp on an island near Stewart River they murdered their three hosts, probably in sleep, and after rifling their pockets, and to hide their crime, they tied the bodies up, weighted with stones, and threw them in the river. Then they burned up all evidences of their crime, got in the boat and went to Dawson, from which place they proceeded farther, found another compatriot named Guilbault ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... value to the Gosport navy-yard. It contained at this time sixty-six thousand stand of small arms, several batteries of light artillery and heavy ordnance, and at least one million dollars' worth of ammunition. It was besides supplied with extensive and valuable machinery for repairing guns, rifling barrels, mounting artillery, and preparing shot and shell. The future, to the Union men of St. Louis, looked gloomy enough; persecution, and, if they resisted, death, seemed imminent; and no voice from abroad reached ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and that the thing he said was true. If so, our "Lady Anne" has made the great shot of the war. The authorities are inclined to believe the story. The new gun on Gun Hill is perhaps too vigorous for our old friend, and the rifling on his shells is too clean. Whatever the truth may be, he gave us a lively time morning and afternoon. I think he was trying to destroy the Star bakery, about one hundred yards below my cottage. The shells pitched on every side of it in succession. They destroyed three ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... furious tumult; and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. [86] The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the Christians: many thousands of the citizens, in the sight, and by the allies, of their spiritual father were exposed to violation, captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran to the Coliseum, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... Osages. Among them Lola and Randolph in night clothes, were already lined up against the wall, with their hands above their heads. While one brute stood at the end of the passage pointing his gun at them, one of the others was rifling their room, others had kicked down the girls' door and one was at the end by Octavia's. None of the other people, miners of sorts, except one man's wife, had come in yet, as it was not more than half past ten o'clock! She was soon pulled ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... universally acknowledged that a dinner is the most important of affairs, and a dandy the most important of individuals. If we liked, we could give you a description of the fete which should make all your mouths water; but everyone cooks now, and ekes out his page by robbing Jarrin and by rifling Ude. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... on entering it had issued an order that the dwellings of the inhabitants were not to be plundered or injured, the soldiers soon stripped the palaces and temples of the valuables they contained, even taking the golden ornaments of the royal mummies and rifling the Peruvian graves, which often contained precious treasures. Believing that the natives had buried their wealth, they put some of them to the torture, to induce them to disclose their hiding-places, and by seeking everywhere they occasionally stumbled upon mines of wealth. In ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... familiar with the songs and habits of all the common birds, and with field mice and the frogs, toads, lizards, and snakes. Also with the wild bees and wasps. One season I made a collection of bumblebee honey, studying the habits of five or six different kinds and rifling their nests. I kept my store of bumble-bee honey in the attic where I had a small box full of the comb and a large phial filled with the honey. How well I came to know the different dispositions of the various kinds—the small red-vested that ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... stooping low, ran to a native hut directly behind. Once inside this she turned and glanced back. There was no one in sight. She had not been seen. And now from Malbihn's tent she heard a great cursing. The Swede had discovered the rifling of his box. He was shouting to his men, and as she heard them reply Meriem darted from the hut and ran toward the edge of the boma furthest from Malbihn's tent. Overhanging the boma at this point was a tree that had been ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... that quarter, who married a tidy girl of a milkmaid that lived with him. My father had detected me in making some atrocious advances to my mother-in-law, and had turned me out of doors. I did not go off, however, without rifling his drawer of some hundreds of dollars, which he had laid up against a rainy day. I was noted for such pranks, and was hated by all the neighbours for my pride and laziness. It was easy, by comparison of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... cry of 'murder, murder!' drew the student's eyes to the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, stood his graceless Juno, having just upset the servant of a cook's shop, in the very act of rifling her basket; the sound of the drum was yet ringing through the streets; the crowd collected to hear it had not yet withdrawn from the spot; and in this way was Juno expressing her reverence for the proclamation ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... of the grass land. The guns made good practice, however, one section of the 38th battery being in action all day within 800 yards of the Boer line, and putting themselves out of action after 300 rounds by the destruction of their own rifling. Once over the curve every yard of the veld was commanded by the hidden riflemen. The infantry advanced, but could make no headway against the deadly fire which met them. By short rushes the attack managed to get within 300 yards of the enemy, and there it ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... unscrupulous sexless nuisances. An offended theorist dwelt in her bosom somewhere. In what way she expected Flora de Barral to set about saving herself from a most miserable existence I can't conceive; but I verify believe that she would have found it easier to forgive the girl an actual crime; say the rifling of the Bournemouth old lady's desk, for instance. And then—for Mrs. Fyne was very much of a woman herself—her sense of proprietorship was very strong within her; and though she had not much use for her brother, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... soldiers in the party whom no threat of punishment, or sense of pity, could deter from taking advantage of their comrades, rifling stores, cheating on duty and even stealing arms in the hope of doing away with other survivors. When repeated offense showed that they ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... to the murmur of his voice expatiating on the extreme cunning of the ejector, and awoke to hear details of the rifling. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... the day, being sometimes together, and sometimes separated, but always in a crowd; who, not satisfied with gazing at us, frequently desired us to uncover part of our skin; the sight of which commonly produced a general murmur of admiration. At the same time they did not omit these opportunities of rifling our pockets; and, at last, one of them snatched a small bayonet from Mr Gore, which hung in its sheath by his side. This was represented to the chief, who pretended to send some person in search of it. But, in all probability, he countenanced the theft; for, soon after, Omai had a dagger ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... remember; two men were caught rifling the Customs store; they shot a dock constable and ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... each other, and lashed together, and my men and I were then handed on board our own craft, and carried below—I into my cabin, and the rest into the forepeak, where others of the crew had been already conveyed. I won't attempt to tell you how I felt, as I saw the villains rifling my boxes and lockers, and carrying off everything worth having. They made quick work of it, being hurried on by their captain; and then they set-to to take possession of our cargo. They left me in my own sleeping-berth, on my back, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... daylight was attended by considerable danger, even when accompanied by several officers of the law. Woe to the unfortunate individual who chanced to stray into this neighborhood after dark. A knock on the head, a quick rifling of pockets, a stab if the victim breathed, a push down some dark cellar, were frequently the skeleton outlines of many a dreadful tragedy, of which the victim was never afterwards heard. The name "Five Points," was given to that ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... of raw silk, and about 4000 hides. Upon the discharge of the goods, your honours shall be particularly advertised of the same. In boarding our prizes, such was the disorder of our men, that, besides rifling the persons of the Spaniards, they broke open the chests and purloined what money was in them; although I had given notice of my intention of going on board in person, to have taken a just account thereof in presence of three or four witnesses, putting the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... that of the Martini-Henry (.450 in.) to one of .309 in. in the Lee-Metford, and a consequent reduction in weight from 480 to 215 grains. To allow of the satisfactory assumption of the more complicated rifling by the more rapidly projected bullet, the lead core has been ensheathed in a mantle of denser metal. The bullet itself is of an original calibre (.309 in.) somewhat exceeding the bore of the rifle barrel (.303 in.), in which way ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... in the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into the fray, heart and ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... old oak entrance-hall panelled with delicacy, and which has escaped the rifling of speculators in furniture; and out of it rises a staircase of the same material, of a noble character, adorned occasionally with figures; armorial animals holding shields, and sometimes a grotesque form rising from fruits and flowers, all doubtless ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... Pyramid: its construction and internal arrangements—The pyramids of Khephren and Myherinos; the rifling of them—Legend about the royal pyramid builders: the impiety of Kheops and Khephren, the piety of Myherinos; the brick pyramid of Asychis—The materials employed in building, and the quarries of Turah; the plans, the worship of the royal "double;" the Arab legends about ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero



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