"Court of law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... appear to be just the right one. If arrested, Allen would, of course, deny any knowledge of the stolen property and all the proof Hal had was his own word, and that might not go very far in a court of law. ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... a record. The principal witnesses are placed in the position of defendants at the bar without being protected by any of the safeguards which are thrown around defendants in a court of law. ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... he gets drunk enough, yes. But not the kind of confession that would be any use to us. What a man babbles when the wine is in and the wit is out, wouldn't be much use in a court of law. But if you can get him to tell anything about where he got that queer coin—the one that used to be in Mrs. Darcy's collection—so much to the good. But be foxy ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... not be a court of law, Mr. Orrin," Goil said, no less angry than Orrin, "but you can call it a court of inquiry. You seem to forget that your position might be at stake here. Your interfering with my investigation will be taken into consideration separately after this matter ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... Jury: a number of men, generally twelve, selected according to law to try a case in a court of law; in criminal cases they declare the person accused to be ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... harder than ever for me to clear myself and bring the tramp to justice. His word in a court of law would carry more weight than mine or my sister's, and consequently our case would fall to ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... Vaudeville in those days was a hotbed of gossip, as well as a neutral ground where men of every shade of opinion could meet; so much so that the President of a court of law, after reproving a learned brother in a certain council chamber for "sweeping the greenroom with his gown," met the subject of his strictures, gown to gown, in the greenroom of the Vaudeville. Lousteau, in time, shook hands again with Nathan; Finot came ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... most widespread and scandalous publicity, which I would beg you most earnestly, members of the jury, to forget." I cannot help thinking that the deplorable atmosphere of sentimental melodrama which has pervaded this trial has made the theatre a more fitting background for it than a court of law; but we are in a court of law, nevertheless, and the facts have been placed before the court. A remarkable and in my opinion praiseworthy feature of the case has been that the sanity of the prisoner has never been called into question; and, like the learned judge, the ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... parties may appear in person, or by attorney. An attorney is any person lawfully appointed to transact business for another; hence the word attorney does not always mean an attorney at law, or lawyer, who is properly an officer of a court of law. When the parties have appeared and answered to their names, they make their pleadings; that is, the plantiff declares for what he brings his suit; and the defendant states the nature of what he ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... of his friends, including myself, that the matter should be submitted to an arbitration of astronomers. But he would listen to nothing of the sort. He was determined to enforce his legal rights by legal measures. A court of law was, in such a case, at an enormous disadvantage, as compared with an astronomical board of arbitration. To the latter all the circumstances would have been familiar and simple, while the voluminous evidence, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of a court of law comes from is difficult to analyze. There is the impressive majesty of the law; always about a court is the inspiring sense of something more than human. Even an empty court-room is not as other rooms. Like an empty theater there ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... time. From that moment my cherished belief became a settled conviction. My means were limited, but I resolved to visit England at once, and, if possible, substantiate the evidence found so unexpectedly under these elms; not that I expected to obtain reversal of a sentence pronounced in a court of law over eighty years ago, but Cecelia Crabshaw should know that my blood was not tainted by an ancestor's crime. I can assure you that I thought much more than ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... manner and aspect appeared to denote that he was in a continual revery; and that he imagined himself in a court of law; brow-beating a witness, interrogating an idiot, or detailing cases and precedents, to shew the subtlety with which he could mislead and confound his hearers. A split-hair distinction without a difference gave him rapture; and whenever it happened to puzzle, which was but too ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... published a proclamation inviting the National Guard, who sympathized, to form part of the procession in uniform. Then the Government forbade the meeting altogether—absolutely—and the Opposition resigned themselves to try the case in a Court of Law. ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... love for her husband cannot have been very deep and strong, if she is so ready to oppose the carrying out of his dying wishes. But do not let it trouble you, Lester; she is venting her anger in idle threats, and will never proceed to the length of contesting the will in a court of law." ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... Her feeling for him had not changed. She was still attracted to him and she still admired him. But the admiration she had felt for his sharp, sardonic handling of his opponents in a court of law seemed a little shallow and a little immature in comparison to the sudden onrush of what she ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... fearfully from the north-east. Juries may find as many facts as they like, but the Court applies the law to them; and law is like gunpowder in its operation upon them,—twists them out of all recognisable shape. It is very difficult in a Court of law to get over "guttatims" and "stillatims," even in an action for the price of ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... that," Beardsley said bluntly as he thrust himself into range. "Professor Losch, this is official; furthermore, I wish to advise you that this stat is monitor-taped for both vis and audio, and the resulting record is therefore admissible in any Court of Law. Being so advised, is there any objection on your part to answering a brief series of questions pertaining to the Carmack Case? I have been duly authorized by George Mandleco, Minister of Justice," he added for ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... had given the great seal of Scotland to one chief of the rebels, a marquisate to another, an earldom to Leslie, who had brought the Presbyterian army across the Tweed. On what principle was Hampden to be attainted for advising what Leslie was ennobled for doing? In a court of law, of course, no Englishman could plead an amnesty granted to the Scots. But, though not an illegal, it was surely an inconsistent and a most unkingly course, after pardoning and promoting the heads of the rebellion in one kingdom, to hang, draw, and quarter their accomplices ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... or damage, we did not permit examination of it; for even though the evidence should prove damaging to the King of Portugal, he could not be compelled to abide by it, as it had not been presented in a regular court of law, nor sufficiently empowered by him. It was a departure from the principal matter of negotiation. And then too the said ambassadors, although other information better than their own was offered on my part, would not accept it, nor would ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... say," protested the Queen's Messenger, shaking his finger, violently, at the Solicitor, "that story won't do. You didn't play fair—and—and you talked so fast I couldn't make out what it was all about. I'll bet you that evidence wouldn't hold in a court of law— you couldn't hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot. Now, my story might have happened, my story bore ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... effectively the peculiar appearance of a crowd of barristers assembled in a Court of Law. They are a type apart, and their odd headgear accentuates all the peculiarities of their faces. No one has, however, succeeded so well as Boz in touching off their peculiarities. This sort of histrionic ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... do not mean to say that, even to a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in part by antecedent presumption—e.g. in ordinary life, the prima facie case, motive, &c., counts for evidence in a court of law—and where there is a strong antecedent improbability a proportionately greater weight of evidence a posteriori is needed to counterbalance it: so that, e.g. better evidence would be needed to convict the Archbishop ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... adherents, and all we can do is to fence the communion-table against them for a period, and bring them to the stool of repentance. Some here may think a night of squabbling and broken heads in a Highland burgh too trifling an affair for the interference of the kirk or the court of law: I am under no such delusion. There is a valour better than the valour of the beast unreasoning. Your lordship has seen it at its proper place in your younger wars; young Elrigmore, I am sure, has seen ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... in Roman law; such indeed is its apparent age that some German civilians, not sufficiently aware of the light thrown on the subject by the analogies of English law, have thought it even older than the Mancipation. I speak of the Cessio in Jure, a collusive recovery, in a Court of law, of property sought to be conveyed. The plaintiff claimed the subject of this proceeding with the ordinary forms of a litigation; the defendant made default; and the commodity was of course adjudged to the plaintiff. I need scarcely remind the English lawyer that this expedient suggested itself ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... the once celebrated author of the "New Bath Guide") amusingly describes the administration of an oath to a witness in a court of law:— ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted at the door of the lover of her girlhood. He, unafraid, had taken her in and cared for her. On the morrow, the husband and father, having discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her. She refused to return to them and the case was carried to the court of law. The verdict given was that a woman who had been "to burial borne" and left for dead, who had been driven from her husband's door and from her childhood home, "must be adjudged as dead in law and fact," was no more daughter or wife, but was set free to form what new ties she would. The climax ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to prove in a court of law what everyone acknowledges to be the case, viz., that the natives of the islands are inveigled on board these vessels by divers means, then put under the hatches and sold, ignorant of their destination or future employment, and without any promises ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tell me. I watch that boy as I would an important case in a court of law. Nothing escapes me, and I say he is ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... by fraud the verdict of a common court of law would have sent its promoters to prison for felony. Yet the Managers of this case, before the highest tribunal of the world, not only did it without a blush of shame, but cursed as a traitor every man who dared ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... old-fashioned. They prefer to be regarded merely as fellow-men. To show consciousness of their sex is to risk offence, and to busy one's eyes with their magnificent hair, instead of the magnificent brains beneath it, is to insult them. Yet when, in that old court of law, Phryne bared her bosom as her complete case for the defence, she proved herself a greater lawyer than will ever be made by law examinations and bachelor's degrees; and even when women become judges of the Supreme Court, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... highest motives a holy life and a sublime destiny! O it is a life that might draw an angel from the skies! If there is a special hell for fools, it should be kept for the man who turns aside from a life like this, to trade, or dig the earth, or wrangle in a court of law, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... national independence in difficult wars. The preparation, the prologue, was the Holstein war. We had to fight with Austria for a settlement; no court of law could have given us a decree of separation; we had to fight. That we were facing a French war after our victory at Sadowa could not remain in doubt for anyone who knew the conditions of Europe. It was, however, desirable ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... that this is a very serious business, Mother," said Ernest, rising and pacing the floor with agitated strides. "We shall have to pay the note if we cannot find the other—and even if we could, perhaps. Your story of the drawing up of the second note would not be worth anything as evidence in a court of law—and we have nothing to hope from Jacob Patterson's clemency. No doubt he believes that he really holds Father's unpaid note. He is not a dishonest man; in fact, he rather prides himself on having made all his money honestly. He will ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... their corn. Their cattle were maimed and poisoned. They could not secure payment of debts due to them or, if payment was made, they received it in the debased continental currency at its face value. They might not sue in a court of law, nor sell their property, nor make a will. It was a felony for them to keep arms. No Loyalist might hold office, or practice law or medicine, or keep ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... the estate should go according to the usual rules of succession by primogeniture in the Adlestrop branch; and as all the parties to the transaction were on excellent terms with each other, and as they believed it to be quite doubtful what interpretation a court of law would put upon the will, they settled the matter without any such intervention. Mr. Leigh Perrot resigned his claim to the estate and gained instead a capital sum of L24,000 and an annuity of L2000, which lasted until the death of his wife in 1835. This is no doubt the agreement with Adlestrop, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... the ideal of a judge. In reading the Laws of Plato, or any other ancient writing about Laws, we should consider how gradual the process is by which not only a legal system, but the administration of a court of law, becomes perfected. ...
— Laws • Plato
... in French legal terms, talked of the parquet (which means the Bar), and invariably termed the grubby little Nyons law-court the Palais. I rather fancy that I considered myself a sort of honorary member of the French Bar. Strictly speaking, Palais only applies to a Court of Law; old-fashioned Frenchmen always speak of the Chateau de Versailles, or the Chateau de Fontainbleau, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... has just been disclosed in the publication of the Motu Proprio Papal Decree, under which the bringing by a Roman Catholic layman of a clergyman of his Church into any civil or criminal procedure in a court of law, whether as defendant or witness, without the sanction previously ob tamed of his bishop, involves to that layman the extreme penalty of excommunication. The same penalty appears to be incurred ipso ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the tone and manner of one greatly wronged, "to prove anything worse against me than that I compelled him and his partners to pay money to which I had a legal right, and which I could have collected in a court of law." ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the truth of the Vedas to a Christian, for in either case outward evidence is wanting and the subject is not en rapport with the new doctrine. It is not infrequently urged that evidence sufficient to convince Mr. Gladstone should likewise convince Col. Ingersoll. And so it doubtless would in a court of law; but in matters spiritual what may appear "confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ" to the one may seem an absurdity absolute to the other. Neither had the pleasure of Moses' acquaintance. All witnesses of his miracles have been dead so long ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... constituted a portion, the entire political power of that commonwealth was vested under certain conditions, in its male inhabitants of a prescribed age. They alone, and in the exclusion of the other sex, as determined by its highest court of law, could exercise the judicial function as existing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... on the banks of the Avon, is a series of photographs of a plaster cast purporting to be a death-mask of Shakespeare, now in the possession of some German potentate, which one of the most eminent English judges declares to be established by evidence sufficient to maintain any proposition in a court of law. It should be genuine, if it is not, for it represents the loftiest and noblest type of the Anglo-Saxon race. The other portraits are vapid, affected, and conventional, without character or expression; ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Adrienne, "without prejudging the question, which must soon be decided by, a court of law, I may at least regret that I was not called in sooner. Your situation must have been a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... buildings, incendiaries, and wholesale robberies as these, being abandoned by his supporters, he hardly retains on his side Decimus the marshal,[403] or Gellius; takes slaves into his confidence; sees that, even if he openly assassinates everyone he wishes to, he will not have a worse case before a court of law than he has at present. Accordingly, on the 11th of November, as I was going down the Sacred Way, he followed me with his gang. There were shouts, stone-throwing, brandishing of clubs and swords, and all this without a moment's warning. I and my party ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... perform the promise which I made to my husband in Paris. He is informed, by this time, how his wife's Confession was discovered. He knows (on Mr. Playmore's authority) that the letter may be made the means, if he so will it, of publicly vindicating his innocence in a Court of Law. And, last and most important of all, he is now aware that the Confession itself has been kept a sealed secret from him, out of compassionate regard for his own peace of mind, as well as for the memory of the unhappy woman ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... The Lords, the citizens, the army followed their example; and an ordinance was published that every man in his parish church should make the same vow and covenant.[1][a] As for the prisoners, instead of being sent before a court of law, they were tried by a court-martial.[b] Six were condemned to die: two suffered.[c] Waller saved his life by the most abject submission. "He seemed much smitten in conscience: he desired the help of godly ministers," and by his entreaties induced ...
— 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
... can do, Oscar," I said, "I shall do with pleasure, and, as you know, to the uttermost; but I want you to consider the matter carefully. An English court of law gives me no assurance of a fair trial or rather I am certain that in matters of art or morality an English court is about the worst tribunal ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... assembly, or of holding any office of profit, civil or military, within the province: and whoever should be convicted of such crimes a second time, were also to be disabled from suing or bringing any action of information in any court of law or equity, from being guardian to any child, executor or administrator to any person; and without fail suffer imprisonment for three years. Which law, notwithstanding its fine gloss, savoured not a little of an inquisition, and introduced a species of persecution ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... too secure.—Ah, Sir Ralph," he added, coming forward, "I was right, you see, in my caution. I am a man of peace, and strive to prevent quarrels and bloodshed. Quarrel if you please—and unfortunately men are prone to anger—but always settle your disputes in a court of law; always in a court of law, Sir Ralph. That is the only arena where a sensible man should ever fight. Take good advice, fee your counsel well, and the chances are ten to one in your favour. That is what I say to my worthy ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dishonour. I bought her off. Had she refused to take my money, I should probably have married her,—and probably have blown my brains out afterwards. All that has to be acknowledged,—much to my shame. Most of us would have to blush if the worst of our actions were brought out before us in a court of law. But there was an end of it. Then they come over here and endeavour to enforce their demand for ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... is too honest a man to deny that the sale was a profitable transaction, more especially as my conscience, no less than my duty, compels me to make the admission. But once bring the case into a court of law, M. le Comte, the issue would be doubtful. My advice to you is to come to terms with M. Gobseck, who can plead that he bought the diamonds in all good faith; you would be bound in any case to return the purchase money. Consent to an arrangement, with power to redeem at the end ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... and there was no appeal from their ordinance, except to the king's council. This struck at the root of their civil and religious exercises, and prevented them, being protestants, from suing a catholic in any court of law. This was followed by another injunction, to make an inquiry in all parishes into whatever the protestants had said or done for twenty years past. This filled the prisons with innocent victims, and condemned others to the galleys or banishment. Protestants ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these simple words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with an emotion rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses alone was started the electric current of renewed life. The jury, to a man, glowed with enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one long and suppressed sigh of answering feeling, which was all ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... respectability, a tradesman, and a freeholder, in such a serious case as yours, had better have recourse to a court of law. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... mused. "Money was his god. He distrusted and hated his own flesh and blood because he thought they coveted it. He was prepared to punish them by leaving it to a public charity. Now arises this apparition from the past with no claim in a court of law, with an intention simply to ask, and, in case of a refusal, to punish. The conclusion reached by that selfish and merciless mind was inevitable. He probably knew nothing whatever about Maria. If all the world thought his brother ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... in vain through the social register or the births, marriages, and deaths, or the grocer's credit list. Oblivion has swallowed them and the testimony that they ever existed at all is vague and shadowy, and inadmissible in a court of law. Yet I have it upon the best authority that for a brief space Mr. In and Mr. Out lived, breathed, answered to their names and radiated vivid personalities ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... should be very careful in giving evidence before a coroner. Even though the inquest be held in a coach-house or barn, yet it has to be remembered it is a court of law. If the case goes on for trial before a superior court, your deposition made to the coroner forms the basis of your examination. Any misstatements or discrepancies in your evidence will be carefully inquired into, and you ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... about that. The girl doesn't beg for mercy. In fact, that's the whole point of the matter. She demands justice—strange as that may seem, in a court of law!—and nothing else. The truth is, she's a very unusual girl, a long way beyond the ordinary sales-girl, both ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... say," protested the Queen's Messenger, shaking his finger violently at the Solicitor, "that story won't do. You didn't play fair—and—and you talked so fast I couldn't make out what it was all about. I'll bet you that evidence wouldn't hold in a court of law—you couldn't hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot. Now my story might have happened, my story ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... quarrels being no longer possible, what remains in these matters that a court of law could deal with? Fancy a court for enforcing a contract of passion or sentiment! If such a thing were needed as a reductio ad absurdum of the enforcement of contract, such a folly would do that ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... and Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but; instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council. If acts done before the League are to be called in question, Leagues will be meaningless; and it would ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... give you all I have—all—all—if you can prove to me, and in a court of law, who was the man who shot Leslie Grey. I have saved nearly everything I have made out of creamery. It is not as large a sum as you require, but I can raise the rest from mother. You shall have all you ask if you can tell me this thing. But ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... have been an accident; I can not say. Even so, the man whose mishap it was is not likely to acknowledge it. And I know that in a court of law truth must be paid for dearly. I venture to commit to your good hands a draft upon a well-known Holland firm, which amounts to 78 pounds British, for the defense of the men who are in custody. I know that you as a magistrate can not come forward as their defender; ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... objection in the bill. He says that he will try and get some one to protest against the language of the preamble, but he does not feel sure that anybody will even do that. I believe O'Hagan now says that, though Papal instruments are declared void, in a court of law such instruments are not called for to prove such facts as divisions of dioceses, &c. What had we ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... the Church!" he said, "Or of us,—or of our Order! Let not a single syllable escape your lips concerning your connection with us and our Society!—or we shall find means to make you regret it! Beware of betraying yourself! When you are once before the Court of Law, remember you know nothing of Us, our ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... is generally taken in a court of law when the judge wishes to find out the truth of the case. We may be a witness against one who is guilty, or in defense of an innocent person, and in such cases a lie would have most evil consequences. The judge has a right, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... freedom we repudiated when we dealt with Mexico three quarters of a century ago. We had every advantage, and what we wanted we took. Certainly, we have done better by it than Mexico might have done, but I never heard that reason given in a court of law to excuse the same sort of transaction if it touched only private individuals. Then, in late years big business has gone into Mexico. It has had to take big chances. It has paid better wages than the peon could earn any other way. It has a lot to its credit; but it has been much ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... Wilm Shaxp'r? Does there exist any man who will venture to contend that the great Dramatist, the author of the Immortal plays, would or could have so signed his name? We trow not; indeed, such an abbreviation would be impossible in a legal document in a Court of Law where depositions are required to ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... preventing "sweating" or overwork. Similarly, injuries to a slave were punished by a fine. The slave could trade and acquire property for himself, could receive wages for his work when hired to another, could give evidence in a court of law, and might obtain his freedom either by manumission, by purchase, by adoption, or by ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... intervals that the major, who was not to be outdone in number of glasses, providing his patriotism was pledged in them, found himself in a state of mental configuration, for he saw ghosts and dead warriors by the dozen, all of which he would have sworn, in a court of law, were real flesh and blood. In fine, he capered about the room like a madman, feeling at his side for his sword, and swearing, by his military reputation, that he would think no more of killing them than he would so ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius Caesar, ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... a court of law would be unwise for several reasons: In the first place, judges should be kept free from political contests, in order that they may retain the proper judicial frame of mind. In the second place, judges are appointed by the ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... spread their greedy claims over the lands which had been previously located and paid for by Boone, relying upon his imperfect entries, and some legal flaws in his titles, brought their ejectments against him, and dragged him into a court of law. He employed counsel, and from term to term, was compelled to dance attendance at court. Here the old hunter listened to the quibbles—the subtleties, and to him, inexplicable jargon of the lawyers. His suits were finally decided against him, and he was cast out of ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... refused to reverence the ikons, the sacraments, or the hierarchy of the orthodox church, and considered the Holy Scriptures to be simply a moral treatise. They abominated war, referring to it as "murder en masse," and never entered a court of law, avoiding all quarrels and arguments, and holding it to be the most degrading of actions for a man to raise his hand against his fellow. All their members learnt to read and write, in order to be able to study the Scriptures. They recognised no power or ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... you've got, it wouldn't go far in a court of law," sneered Buck. "Any judge would see that you were trying to back out of it by putting ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... merely when it was his interest and that of his friends, but when it was in favour of his enemies and contrary to his own personal feelings to do so. It is said that once when arguing a cause against one of his enemies in a court of law, the judges refused to hear the other party speak in his own defence, after listening to the speech of Aristeides, but were about to condemn him unheard. At this Aristeides came forward and vigorously supported his antagonist's claim to be allowed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... that the very thing by which an amicable settlement of differences becomes possible, is the power of legal compulsion known to be in reserve; as people submit to an arbitration because there is a court of law in the background, which they know that they can be forced to obey. But to make the cases parallel, we must suppose that the rule of the court of law was, not to try the cause, but to give judgment always for the same side, suppose the defendant. If so, the amenability to it would ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... of a harpoon in the vitals of a Right whale gives the planter a pre-emption claim to it. If subsequently appropriated by another party it becomes, so far as that party is concerned, the Wrong whale, and on Trying the case its value may be recovered in a court of law,—with ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... fall hunt, the journey to Snare Lake must be delayed. For the crafty Lapierre had no intention whatever of risking a meeting with MacNair in the heart of his own domain. Neither had he any intention of journeying to Snare Lake for the purpose of securing evidence against MacNair to be used in a court of law. His plans for crushing MacNair's power included no aid ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... credibility, but they are no guarantee for minute and circumstantial exactness. Two historians, though with equal gifts and equal opportunities, never describe events in exactly the same way. Two witnesses in a court of law, while they agree in the main, invariably differ in some particulars. It appears as if men could not relate facts precisely as they saw or as they heard them. The different parts of a story strike different imaginations unequally; and the mind, as the circumstances ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... reputation. I mean to carry it on. In five years it shall have a maritime reputation, in ten, a Canadian. I want to make the firm of Marshall & Company stand for something big in the commercial interests of Canada. Isn't that as honourable an ambition as trying to make black seem white in a court of law, or discovering some new disease with a harrowing name to torment poor creatures who might otherwise die peacefully in blissful ignorance of what ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... passed. A bill of attainder is a special legislative act by which a person may be condemned to death, or to outlawry and banishment, without the opportunity of defending himself which he would have in a court of law. "No evidence is necessarily adduced to support it," [26] and in former times, especially in the reign of Henry VIII., it was a formidable engine for perpetrating judicial murders. Bills of attainder long ago ceased to be employed in England, and ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... another secret to tell you, and an oath must go with each. Kiss this sacred volume once more, and swear to me never to reveal to another that which I am about to reveal to you, unless it may be in a court of law, and at the command of justice, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... political equality was the new reign of law. The Tudors used the Star Chamber, the Court of Wales, and the Great Sessions of Wales, to make all equal before the law. To the Star Chamber they summoned a noble who was still too powerful for the court of law. ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... by police squabbles. Besides, a clever lawyer might prove the exclusion illegal. What was done was done. The dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best served by private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, irrefutable save in a court of law. It was bad enough that the Heathen Journalist should supply so graphic a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even more highly than Goldwater's eyes. Kloot had been glad that the Journalist had left before the episode; but when he saw the account he wished the scribe ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... with my hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to know who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my mind. And right I would have been in a court of law (if the lawyers was put out of it) for my hefforts in that situation. And then, what do you think he done, miss? So far from entering into any conversation with me, or hitting at me, like a man—which would have done good to think of—he ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... and Protasius, which imitated, like most churches of the early Christian period, the form of a basilica or court of law, was constructed out of fragments of Pagan edifices, and occupied the site of a Pagan edifice, whose columns had been employed to carry the roof of the church, or, when of porphyry or serpentine, had been sawed into discs for the ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... title-deeds granted, and all settlements of land revenues in force on March 25th, 1881 (the date of the transfer), shall be maintained, excepting so far as they may be rescinded or modified either by a competent court of law or with the consent of the Governor-General in Council. Lastly, under the heading of "British Relations," it is declared that "the Maharajah of Mysore shall at all times conform to such advice as the Governor-General in Council may offer him ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... of witchcraft. I don't think she was a witch, but would not like to swear she was not, in a court of law, unless a good deal depended upon my testimony, and I had been properly suborned beforehand. A great many persons accused of witchcraft have themselves stoutly disbelieved the charge, until, when subjected to shooting with a silver bullet or boiling in oil, they have ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... show, Mr. Gordon; the poor show a common murderer would have in any court of law. You are asking me ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... No group or species of birds or mammals that is accused of offenses sufficiently grave to merit destruction shall be condemned undefended and unheard, nor without adequate evidence of a character which would be acceptable in a court of law. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Parliament passed an act that no person should sit in either House, unless he had previously taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration that the worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, from receiving any legacy, and from acting as executors or administrators of estates. This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole Catholic population, had repeatedly miscarried, but, under influence of the panic which Oates and his confederates ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... that sort of instinct, and Clare Kendall, being a woman, had it in large degree. But she had more. She had the ability to go further and get the facts and actual proof; for, as she often said during the course of a case, "Woman's intuition may not be good evidence in a court of law, but it is one of the best means to get good evidence that will convince ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... or his right to sue in that character, can be supposed to have arisen or been decided in that case. The fact that he was of African descent was first brought before the court upon the bill in equity. The suit at law had then passed into judgment and award of execution, and the Circuit Court, as a court of law, had no longer any authority over it. It was a valid and legal judgment, which the court that rendered it had not the power to reverse or set aside. And unless it had jurisdiction as a court of equity to restrain him from using its process as a court ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... son included—with their own weapons. "Be good enough to remember, Augustus," he rejoined, "that my Room is not a Court of Law. A bad joke is not invariably followed by 'roars of laughter' here. Let ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the appearance of inconsistency. And if we had been arguing in a court of law there might have been reason in so doing; but why should a man deck himself out with vain words at a meeting of friends ...
— Laches • Plato
... as any that ever lived—made no such addresses from the dock as we can include in this volume. All men are not orators, and it will often occur that one who has been tried for life and liberty in a British court of law, on the evidence of spies and informers, will have much to press upon his mind, and many things more directly relevant to the trial than any profession of political faith would be, to say when called upon to show reason why sentence ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... "Have no fear, 'Toinette. There is still plenty of time, and I shall engage the finest counsel in the land to stand for me. This knot shall be broken somehow, this tissue of lies must have a flaw somewhere. And nowadays circumstantial evidence, you know, doesn't hold too much water in a court of law. God ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... ignorant one at that. Finding it hopeless to either excuse or explain such conduct, the plaintiff in this action, which ought never to have been brought, that is if the plaintiff had been wise, had actually, with an impudent audacity unparalleled in any Court of Law, urged that this lifeless Lion not only talked, but made signs. I shall not cross-examine one single witness who has appeared up to the present in this case, they have sufficiently condemned ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... going to say to you I cannot substantiate in any court of law. Furthermore I'm laying myself open to action for libel, so I must not be quoted. But I want you to understand that Stella was inescapably wound up with all of Manton's financial schemes. His money maneuvers determined her social life, her friends—everything. She was then, as Enid Faye will be ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... of the Fall came to me in one of those early days on Aniwa! Upon our leaving the hut and removing to our new house, it was seized upon by Tupa for his sleeping-place, though still continuing to be used by the Natives as club-house, court of law, etc. One morning at daylight this Tupa came running to us in great excitement, wielding his club furiously, and crying, "Missi, I have killed the Tebil. I have killed Teapolo. He came to catch me last night. I raised all the ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... of this Fulton mob was the fact, that we could not, if we had sought it, have secured any redress. No court of law in the State would have undertaken to bring to justice the perpetrators of this outrage. But on the contrary, such court would have been inclined to take sides with the mobocrats, and to justify them in the means which they employed wherewith to chastise a colored man who had presumed so ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... Force, the old soldier turned his back on them and went home, where Grace met him, all anxiety, and received his report. She implored him not to proceed any further against the man, and declared she should fly the country rather than go into a court of law ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... deposit accounts L7 per cent. The common rate of interest, given with good mortgage security, is L20 per cent; and in some instances, where a little risk is taken, L25 and L30. Bills past due at the bank, are charged L12 per cent. A court of law (by act of Council) allows L8 per cent on all bills sued upon, with a discretionary power of extending the rate to L12 per cent, to cover any damage or loss sustained. There are two Club houses, a Royal Exchange, and some very large buildings for stores. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... affects me by its unsanitary tendency to multiply sins; that is to say, when it transforms those sins into legal crimes. How would you like to be haled before a Court of law for some ridiculous trifle, which became a crime only because it used to be a sin, and became a sin only because some dyspeptic old antediluvian was envious of his neighbour's pleasure? Our statute-book ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the question as to the devotee beneath the wheels of Juggernaut. Somewhere in the background of her thought there were faint prudential protests against throwing herself away; but she disdained them, as a Latin or a Teuton disdains the Anglo-Saxon's preference for a court of law to the pistol of the duellist. It was something outside the realm of reason. Reckless impulses subdued by convent restraint or civilized requirements awoke with a start all the more violent because of their long sleep, driving her to do that which ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... her weekday aspect; and within Her walls a stilly peace prevails; the roar And noise of lumbering waggon comes no more Along the well-worn street, nor busy tread Of envoy, hurrying on, by duty led, To bank, or warehouse, or to court of law. The myriad sounds have ceased, which nature saw Were fit to wait upon the day of toil; Nor mendicant nor ballad beggar foil The sacred rest with their assiduous song. And round the factory door the noisy throng Forgets to come as on the other days; Aside her task the weary ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... civilized country. He would have offered to the court no woman's quibble like that of Portia, based upon the assumption that the penalty of a bond which sanctioned a high and capital crime could be enforced in a court of law; and in fine, would have addressed an argument to the reason and understanding of the court which might render a consideration of this case ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it only fair that professional authors should have the credit of being able to do what other people can not. They do not claim to themselves a monoply of talent. They do not think themselves capable of conducting a case in a court of law, as cleverly as a queen's counsel, or of getting a sick man through the typhus fever as skillfully as a practiced physician. But it is hard that they should not receive credit for being able to write better articles than either the one or the other; or, perhaps it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... blow at the rights of every married woman in the great State of Illinois who is dependent on her labor for support, and say to her, you can not enter into the smallest contract in relation to your earnings or separate property, that can be enforced against you in a court of law. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage |
