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Illegality   Listen
noun
Illegality  n.  (pl. illegalities)  The quality or condition of being illegal; unlawfulness; as, the illegality of trespass or of false imprisonment; also, an illegal act.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Illegality" Quotes from Famous Books



... I had got back from Canada in the usual disgust for the American custom- house, and spoke lightly of smuggling as not an evil in itself, and perhaps even a right under our vexatious tariff, he would not have it, but held that the illegality of the act made it a moral of fence. This was not the logic that would have justified the attitude of the anti- slavery men towards the fugitive slave act; but it was in accord with Lowell's feeling about John Brown, whom he honored while always condemning his violation of law; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... determined to resist. I don't think there was ever any danger of a coup d'etat, at least as long as Marshal MacMahon was the chief of state. He was a fine honourable, patriotic soldier, utterly incapable of an illegality of any kind. He didn't like the Republic, honestly thought it would never succeed with the Republicans (la Republique sans Republicains was for him its only chance)—and he certainly had illusions and thought his ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... to inquire whether he had assented to Wilkinson's proceedings: Claiborne replied he had consented to the arrest of Bollman, and his mind was not made up as to the propriety of that of Ogden and Swartwout. Workman then expatiated on the illegality and evil tendency of such measures, beseeching Claiborne not to permit them, but to use his own authority, as the constitutional guardian of his fellow-citizens, to protect them; but he was answered that the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... reprehend it. Of the farce he wrote, "To keep up the character of these Generals, especially Prescot, they were obliged (I believe not to their sorrow) to indulge in very indecent and profane language." He states that many in the audience were much offended thereat, and says: "What adds to the illegality is that the actors not only were dressed agreeable to the characters they assumed as Men, but female apparell and ornaments were put on some contrary to an express statute. Besides it cost the lads L60." What this reverend complainer would have thought of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... by law from doing. Such was the dilemma as it presented itself to the mind of Mr. Grenville. One escape from it was, to forward the Address, accompanied by a representation from Lord Buckingham of his own views of its illegality. Another was, to resign. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... betrayed! They silently conducted me to the city prison, where I remained twenty-four hours. About noon Abramson came to visit me, affected to be infinitely concerned and enraged, and affirmed he had strongly protested against the illegality of this proceeding to the magistracy, as I was actually in the Austrian service; but that they had answered him the court of Vienna had afforded them a precedent, for that, in 1742, they had done the same by the two sons of the burgomaster ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... revolution of Naples, the democratic faction pronounced that 'Every act of a tyrannical government is in its origin illegal;' a proposition which at first sight seems self-evident, but which went to render all existing laws impracticable." The doctrine of the illegality of the acts of a tyrant was proclaimed by Brutus and Cicero, in the name of the senate, against the populace, who had favoured Caesar's perpetual dictatorship; and the populace of Paris availed themselves of it, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... cheerfulness the lot which Providence has assigned to it, while at the same time every individual of each class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale not by injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality, but by persevering good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed him. To govern such a people as this is indeed an object worthy of the ambition of the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... and that a fresh ship's company had been placed on board, consisting of Lieutenant Stone, a master's mate, twelve men, and an engineer, a passenger, fifteen in all. Having weighed anchor, they proceeded to sea. Captain Wilson felt confident of the illegality of the capture, and that if he could regain possession of his ship, he was justified in making the attempt. He had studied the characters of his cook and steward, and knew that he could trust them. He waited his opportunity. There was, however, not much ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... at the hotel, before they were able to move themselves into the house prepared for them. By that time all idea had been abandoned of recovering the child by any legal means to be taken as a consequence of the illegality of the abduction. The boy was with his father, and the lawyers seemed to think that the father's rights were paramount,—as he had offered a home to his wife without any conditions which a court of law would adjudge to be cruel. If she could shew that he ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... the privileged classes under its dependence, by proclaiming the indivisibility of the legislative power. The court remained to be restrained by means of taxation. The assembly declared the illegality of previous imposts, voted them provisionally, as long as it continued to sit, and their cessation on its dissolution; it restored the confidence of capitalists by consolidating the public debt, and provided for the necessities ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... If Zarathustra is a Class-IV planet, he wants it established, and the proper laws applied. If it's a Class-IV planet, the Zarathustra Company is illegally chartered. It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederic Pendarvis' religion is the law, and he is its priest. You never get anywhere by arguing religion ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... their knowledge of the circumstances, but now, knowing the facts, he advised that the whole matter be allowed to simmer down quietly. He still took issue with his respected friend the squire on the illegality of the means used to rid the community of a most undesirable member. The squire replied with heat, referring to the case of The Commonwealth versus Hodgins, and the subsequent action of Hodgins versus The Commonwealth for damages. It was very evident that he would be ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... place. But when the time came for publication that portion of it was omitted at the earnest solicitation of certain of the authorities on the ground that as such arrests were absolutely necessary for the enforcement of the criminal law a public exposition of their illegality would do infinite harm. Now, as it seems, the time has come when the facts, for one reason or another, should be faced. The difficulty does not end, however, with "arrest on suspicion," "the third ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... were probably safe enough, as it would be easy for them to deny any participation, but they had me bound fast. However, I had no thought of withdrawal from the contract, for, while I saw the danger involved, and realized the illegality, yet I failed utterly to perceive any real evil. I did not doubt the truth of all that had been told me, and was willing to assume the risk. I fingered the crisp bills in my pocket, and the words "ten thousand dollars" kept repeating themselves ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... decision, a troop of the 14th Dragoons, together with 12 Metropolitan policemen, were sent into the town of Stamford. Placards, apprising the public of the illegality of the bull baiting, were posted in the town and neighbourhood, and the threatened and attempted repetition of this barbarous scene was prevented without any loss of life or serious injury. The bullards ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... Poland law, in 1874, George Reynolds, Brigham Young's private secretary, was convicted of bigamy under the law of 1862, but was set free by the Supreme Court of the territory on the ground of illegality in the drawing of the grand jury. In the following year he was again convicted, and was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and to pay a fine of $500. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which rendered ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... help arrived from Jamaica. The contrast between the timely succour of England and the reckless iconoclasm of Paris struck the imagination of the French settlers, and the Assembly of Hayti forthwith drew up a declaration, setting forth the illegality of the French decrees, the miseries resulting from them, and the resolve of the colonists to sever a connection absolutely fatal to their welfare. Citing the example of the United States fifteen years before, and recounting the misdeeds ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... for your destruction. Let them find you acting with me in restoring the lady to her rights. If, as I anticipate, the rebellion is yet to fail, this is still your only safe course. It will afford you the best chance of impunity—which impunity, however, it is not for me to promise—for the illegality and the guilt of your past conduct to the victim. There is something in our friend's countenance here," he continued, turning to the widow with a smile, "which I should like to understand. I fear I have not her good ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... been illegal; whether the recapture be made by a Sovran, or by a privateer; ought to be restored to the original owner on a just repayment of the costs and damages of every recaptor, unless the illegality of the recapture precludes the recaptor from the privilege of demanding ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson

... short and easy method with those who take their stand on coercion and illegality was scouted by the Radical M.P. He pointed out with the same lucidity and precision with which he would have stated a case to a leading counsel, the facts (first) that the right-of-way was not only claimed, but existed; (second) that the threatening notice was inoperative; (third) ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... (lenity) 740; freedom &c. 748. anarchy, interregnum; relaxation; loosening &c. v.; remission; dead letter, brutum fulmen[Lat], misrule; license, licentiousness; insubordination &c. (disobedience) 742; lynch law &c. (illegality) 964; nihilism, reign of violence. [Deprivation of power] dethronement, deposition, usurpation, abdication. V. be -lax &c. adj.; laisser faire[Fr], laisser aller[Fr]; hold a loose rein; give the reins to, give rope enough, give a loose to; tolerate; relax; misrule. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... take the decisive step of seizing a vast quantity of our opium, under circumstances perfectly familiar to every body; constituting a crowning indignity and injury, which, without reference to the original legality or illegality of the opium trade, gave us an unquestionable cause for war against the Emperor. He seized the person of her Majesty's representative, and those of many of her principal subjects in China; and under the threat of inflicting death upon them, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... immediate results from the Reclamation Act was so great that red tape was disregarded, and the work was pushed forward at a rate previously unknown in Government affairs. Later, as in almost all such cases, there followed the criticisms of alleged illegality and haste which are so easy to make after results have been accomplished and the need for the measures without which nothing could have been done has gone by. These criticisms were in character precisely the same as that made about the acquisition ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Dr. Wycherley told Alfred was a sure sign of sanity: i.e., he had declared himself insane; and had even been so reasonable as to sign his own order and certificates, and so imprison himself illegally, but with perfect ease; no remonstrance against that illegality from the guardians of the law! When he got what plain men call sane, he naturally wanted to be free, and happening to remember he alone had signed the order of imprisonment, and the imaginary doctor's certificates, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... measure of ordering out the military, and empowering their officers to act at discretion without any reference to the civil magistrate, was, however unconstitutional, not only justifiable but wise, in a moment of such danger. But the refusal of the minister to acknowledge the illegality of the proceeding by applying to the House for an Act of Indemnity, and the transmission of the same discretionary orders to the soldiery throughout the country, where no such imminent necessity called for it, were the points ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... no similar provision for other parts of Africa; and it whittled away the value of what it did secure by the definite proviso that should parts of these areas be annexed by independent states, the restriction upon their control of trade should lapse. It recognised the illegality of the slave-trade, and imposed upon annexing powers the duty of helping to suppress it; this provision was made much fuller and more definite by a second conference at Brussels in 1890, on the demand of Britain, who had hitherto contended ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... non-committal, but not wholly discouraging. It conceded the advantages resulting from a free and well-conducted press, but expressed reverence for trial by jury, and referred to the danger of interfering with the verdicts of juries or the opinions of Judges unless their illegality could be clearly demonstrated. It added, however, that if his Excellency; after inquiring into the case, should come to the conclusion that his interposition was called for, a communication to that effect would be made to ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... devoted to a religious life, and hence to the building in which they live, a monastery or (more particularly) nunnery. The diminution "conventicle" (conventiculum), generally used in a contemptuous sense as implying sectarianism, secrecy or illegality, is applied to the meetings or meeting-places of religious or other ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... becoming more desperate; for each delay was a triumph for the opposition, and could only strengthen the belief in the illegality of Gracchus's claim. He now resorted to the last device of the Roman; he ceased to be a protector and became a suppliant. Although still a magistrate, he assumed the garb of mourning, and with humbled and tearful mien begged the help of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... the civil procedure by means of the praetorship, but had still remained since that period formally valid; and the democrats of the seventh century, who regarded themselves throughout as the continuers of that old agitation as to privilege and social position,(66) had maintained the illegality of payment of interest at any time, and even already practically enforced that principle, at least temporarily, in the confusion of the Marian period.(67) It is not credible that Caesar shared the crude views of his party on the interest question; the fact, that, in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... great Meeting of the honest Part of the Nobility, at another Place, to consult what was proper to be done in this new-fashion'd Way of Proceeding: Some proposed to go down in a Body to the Place where the rest were met, and protest against the Illegality of the Choice; that to impose a List upon the Nobility was not agreeable to the Nature of a free Choice; and that therefore they should protest, That whoever were returned by Virtue of that Meeting, were not legally Chosen, and ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... several obscure houses in the neighbourhood, with a view to show me some white women. The owners raised various objections to the display of their ware, and well they might, for I had not the least notion of purchasing; some refused on account of the illegality of the proceeding, {35} and others declared that all transactions of this sort were completely out of the question as long as the plague was raging. I only succeeded in seeing one white slave who was for sale but on this one the owner affected to set an immense value, and raised ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... its residence in America. The methods of vacating corporate charters in England were definite and in this case were strictly followed. Had Massachusetts been a corporation in fact as well as in law, it is doubtful if the question of illegality would ever have been raised; but as this particular corporation was a Puritan commonwealth, the issue was so vital to its continuance as to lead to the charge of unjust and illegal oppression. On moral grounds ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... and it has the merit of being, as far as it goes, true. What the nature of the illegality of this sale was, I am not at liberty to disclose, not even to you, but I have discovered that beyond all question it was irregular and invalid, and Brander and I have come to a perfectly amicable understanding. I may tell you that to prevent the trouble inseparable even from a friendly lawsuit ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... America an illegal association, because it implies on the part of its constituent corporations a violation of the conditions under which they received the powers and privileges conferred in their charters by the government of the several States. Their illegality consists, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... priest nor a mayor nor a tchinovnik, and does not possess any authority, and cannot establish laws? For the really important point is that the law itself should not lie, but ever uphold truth pure and simple. Long has the prevalent illegality disgusted me." ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... I knew nothing, and my impression is that when it was earnestly pressed by Aberdeen such objections were stated on the ground of illegality that the decision was against it. Certainly nothing was decided in favour of it. I recollect having said I would rather advance a portion of the money myself than be a party to ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... could be regarded as coercion of the State of South Carolina as such. These latter would be unlawful. Buchanan, instead of acting on or declaring his intentions, entertained Congress, which met early in December, with a Message, laying down very clearly the illegality of secession, but discussing at large this abstract question of the precise powers of the Executive in resisting secession. The legal question will not further concern us because the distinction which it was really intended to draw between lawful and unlawful measures against ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... more even than the story of the wrongs endured, which had its effect on the public. In the rebound of feeling the illegality of the police behavior was admitted. The difficulties put in the way of the courageous little pickets led to the forming of parades, and the holding of meetings even in a class of society where no one had counted on receiving ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... the sheriff, and then Fred, Lord Ralles, and I were marched off by the official, his lordship loudly demanding sight of a warrant, and protesting against the illegality of his arrest, varied at moments by threats to appeal to the British consul, minister plenipo., her Majesty's Foreign Office, etc., all of which had about as much influence on the sheriff and his cowboy assistants as a Moqui ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... evidence made it one of the most popular and convincing documents ever issued.] of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri, which, by the examination of numerous witnesses, was probing the Border-Ruffian invasions, the illegality of the bogus Legislature, and the enormity of the bogus ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... good deal of violent language, and produce a wrath on which many suns go down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the United States of America where nobody slept the worse for the war, that the war fever went beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there was vindictive illegality: in American Courts there was raving lunacy. It is not for me to chronicle the extravagances of an Ally: let some candid American do that. I can only say that to us sitting in our gardens in England, with the guns in France ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... action on the penalty inflicted, but may simply refer the case back to the subordinate for a new trial. In this case, the proceedings on the trial will be commenced de novo, if the reference has been made on the ground of any informality or illegality in the previous trial. But if the case is referred back, not for a new trial, but for further consideration, on the ground that the punishment was inadequate—either too severe, or not sufficiently so—in this case, it is not necessary ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... counsel, False Belief, called Chris- 437:21 tian Science to order for contempt of court. Various notables - Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Scho- lastic Theology, and Jurisprudence - rose to the ques- 437:24 tion of expelling Christian Science from the bar, for such high-handed illegality. They declared that Christian Sci- ence was overthrowing the judicial proceedings of a ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... certain that at times towns had to answer, through their officers, for alleged acts of illegality in their corporate capacity. Thus in 1292 one Adam—the reader will observe that the records do not give the actual names, Adam being chosen as beginning with the first letter of the alphabet—brought the Replegiare against B., &c., stating that B., &c., had tortiously ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, at Cologne according to other writers; where, as elsewhere, she caused herself to be called "Madame de Guise"—writing and speaking of her husband, and defying the assurances which were constantly advanced of the illegality of a marriage secretly performed by a canon of Rheims in the private chapel of the Hotel de Nevers. But what are promises, marriage vows, or even ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Burdett is going to Law with the Speaker on the illegality of his Warrant. Thursday, the Foot Troops are all to be reviewed in the Park, the number about 17,000. Major Gibbs and his Regiment are on guard in the Square.... Since Sir F. Burdett was safe in the Tower the town has been ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... testimony, and by a memorial presented in behalf of the several committees on Indian concerns appointed by the four yearly meetings of Friends of Genesee, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In the latter document the memorialists not only insist upon the irregularity and illegality of the negotiation, but urge a variety of considerations which appear to them to be very conclusive against the policy of the removal itself. The motives by which they have been induced to take so deep an interest in the subject are frankly set ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... be true. Henry IV, who had the person of the Archbishop in his power, called upon Gascoyne, who was with him, to pass on his prisoner the sentence of death; but, at the risk of losing the King's favour and his own appointment, he positively refused, on the ground of its illegality. The Archbishop, however, was condemned to be beheaded by one Fulthorp, (or, as some say, Fulford,) afterwards a judge, as we have stated in its place. Gascoyne was subsequently sent with Lord Ross, by the council, to the north, as one of those in whom the King was ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... labors till the success of the republicans recalled him to his favorite flock at Kidderminster. The usurpation of Cromwell gave him great offence, and he even presumed to argue in private with the tyrant on the nature and illegality of his power; but in the only sermon which he preached before him, he wisely confined his subject to the dissensions which existed in the kingdom on religious matters. He was in London after Cromwell's death, and preached before parliament the day before the king's ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... you what I want you to do. You can but refuse. It's illegal, but it's illegality in a good cause; that's the risk, and my client is prepared to pay for it. He will pay for the attempt, in case of failure; the money is as good as yours once you consent to run the risk. My client is Sir Bernard ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... address entreated the Governor to condescend to point out wherein the town, in its public transactions, had militated with any law or the British constitution of government, so that either the town might be made sensible of the illegality of its proceedings, or its innocence might appear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... policy, and as Government must neither have any discretionary power nor act resolutely on its own interpretation of the law if any one disputes it, it is evident our laws give our playful giant, in doing as he likes, considerable advantage. Besides, even if he can be clearly proved to commit an illegality in doing as he likes, there is always the resource of not putting the law in force, or of abolishing it. So he has his way, and if he has his way he is soon satisfied for the time; however, he falls into the habit of taking ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... its work; but there was a very liberal interpretation put upon the law's intent. As construed by Sheriff William Brady, the writ applied also to the Englishman Tunstall's property in cattle and horses on the Rio Feliz ranch; which, of course, was high-handed illegality. McSween's statement that he had no interest in the Feliz ranch served no purpose. Brady and Murphy were warm friends. The lawyer McSween had accused them of being something more than that—allies and conspirators. McSween ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... be dismissed more briefly. Some were interesting, some neutral, and all amiable. Monsieur Fardet was a good-natured but argumentative Frenchman, who held the most decided views as to the deep machinations of Great Britain and the illegality of her position in Egypt. Mr. Belmont was an iron-grey, sturdy Irishman, famous as an astonishingly good long-range rifle-shot, who had carried off nearly every prize which Wimbledon or Bisley had to offer. With him was his wife, a very charming ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... stocks the manger, and there is the pail Full set by the imp Illegality! That fierce fiery Pegasus thus to regale, When he's danger and death from hot head to flame-tail, Is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... provokes a question. Conjectures are of little value in history, but inasmuch as there must have been some grave reason for the substitution, a suggestion of a possible reason may not be wholly out of place. The appeal in itself was strictly legal; and it was of the highest importance to avoid any illegality of form. Cranmer, by transgressing the inhibition which Clement had issued in the winter, might be construed by the papal party to have virtually incurred the censures threatened, and an escape might thus have been furnished ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... laxity; laxness, looseness, slackness; toleration &c (lenity) 740; freedom &c 748. anarchy, interregnum; relaxation; loosening &c v.; remission; dead letter, brutum fulmen [Lat.], misrule; license, licentiousness; insubordination &c (disobedience) 742; lynch law &c (illegality) 964; nihilism, reign of violence. [Deprivation of power] dethronement, deposition, usurpation, abdication. V. be lax &c adj.; laisser faire [Fr.], laisser aller [Fr.]; hold a loose rein; give the reins to, give rope enough, give a loose to; tolerate; relax; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... left. He held to the King and to Madame de Maintenon by knowing their weak side; and it was he who, being consulted upon the unheard-of legitimation of children without naming the mother, had sanctioned that illegality in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Joe, with little ceremony, and a good deal of noise, introduced the Quaker and Fairford; the first descanting on the immorality, the other on the illegality, of his proceedings; and he turned a deaf ear both to the one and the other. Next he pushed in, almost in headlong fashion, the unfortunate litigant, who, having made some resistance at the threshold, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... officers had annulled an election on the ground of illegality, and had held a second. The Lower House found that this was improper, on the ground that the right of deciding in matters concerning the election of representatives belonged from ancient times to the House of Commons alone. They declined to confer ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... comfortable theories of polygamy, Leopold Eberhard was destined to succeed his father in the family honours, and achieve a course of Persian living which, while practised frequently under other names at many courts, astounded Germany by this legalised manner of illegality. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... outraged him more than even rigorous sentences and barbarous prison practice. 'Even on the severity of these sentences,' he wrote, 'I would not endeavour to fix attention so much as to draw it off from the great fact of illegality, which seems to me to be the foundation of the Neapolitan system; illegality, the fountain-head of cruelty and baseness and every other vice; illegality which gives a bad conscience, creates fears; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw or conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice or illegality of their conduct. Robert, enraged at the fate of his friends, imprudently ventured to come into England; and he remonstrated with his brother, in severe terms, against this breach of treaty; but met with so bad a reception, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... fellow Member, dressed in a Spanish hat and feather, addressing the Sergeant opposite him, with an arch look, on the illegality of his entrance at elections, while a turnkey has taken hold of the member's robe, and is pulling him off the water butt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitious terror, some scission in the continuity of man's experience, some wilful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as the defeated tyrant overthrew the chess-board, should break the mould of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and grief that I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacity and illegality of what you have just done I shall say nothing. Argument, I know, would be useless. But this I have come to say: You have just been led—misled—into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man who should be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for your souls. Why have you been ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined to license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of licensed ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... not on the illegality of the patent, nor chiefly on the abuse of it the patentee (which was not so much as mentioned by the lords), that the parliament insisted, but on the unavoidable mischief and destruction it would bring ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... The same illegality occurs in another way: an encomendero dies, and is succeeded by his wife; if she marries and has children, these have succeeded her, and even, when they are married, their wives or husbands succeed them. This is contrary to the statute that the succession shall end with the wife of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... the censorship of his lord, and, moreover, he was so filled with his own high plans and so warm and generous at heart at the thought of the benefits he might be conferring upon his patron that the illegality of the meeting did not occur to him, or if it occurred was dismissed as too ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... for debt, 2; early history, 2; adventures on Purbeck Island, 2, 3; marriage to Miss Sibella Milner, 3, 5, 6; commercial failure, 3; manager of Sir John Webbe's estate, 4; imprisoned in King's Bench prison for debt, 4; efforts to prove illegality of imprisonment, 4; consequent popularity among fellow-prisoners, 4, 5; arguments and writings on the subject, 5, 6; removed to the 'New Jail,' 5, 6; 'Blarney' Thompson's portrait of, 6; release of Stephen from prison, 6; connection with the legal profession, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... realized in the course of years that Frederick Augustus would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian composer and ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... of a limited power? This question of submission, determine it how you please, has nothing to do in this discussion and in this House. Here it is not, how long the people are bound to tolerate the illegality of our judgments, but whether we have a right to substitute our occasional opinion in the place of law, so as to deprive the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... closing the port of Boston; abrogating the charter of Massachusetts Bay, &c., &c.,—were all part of a premeditated design and system to introduce arbitrary government into the colonies. That the sudden and repeated dissolutions of Assemblies whenever they presumed to examine the illegality of ministerial mandates, or deliberated on the violated rights of their constituents, were part of the same system, and calculated and intended to drive the people of the colonies to a state of desperation, and to dissolve the compact by which their ancestors bound themselves and their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... scandalised by its breach in Ulster, declined to approve this illegal development, which for the rest he regarded as negligible. But later, when it had grown too large to be ignored, he generously consented to overlook its illegality and to place it under official patronage. But his offer was received in a spirit of very regrettable independence. On reflection, however, this attitude was exchanged for one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... of the admission of illegality made by the Imperial Government when it pleaded the right of retaliation in defense of its acts, and in view of the manifest possibility of conforming to the established rules of naval warfare, the Government of the United States cannot believe that the Imperial Government will longer refrain ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... family with him, no matter whence they sprang. Great wealth gave a man a still higher and nobler place in it than did official position. If this wealth had been acquired by conspicuous ingenuity, with just a pleasant little spice of illegality about it, all the better. This aristocracy was "fast," ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... in 1807, had the nation possessed even one half of the twenty ships of the line which Gouverneur Morris, a shrewd financier, estimated fifteen years before were within her competency? While entirely convinced of the illegality of the British measures, and feeling keenly—as what American even now cannot but feel?—the humiliation and outrage to which his country was at that period subjected, the writer has always recognized the stringent compulsion under which Great Britain lay, and the military wisdom, in his opinion, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... of the 17th and 18th instant gave you the progress of the States General to the 17th, when the Tiers had declared the illegality of all the existing taxes, and their discontinuance from the end of their present session. The next day, being a jour de fete, could furnish no indication of the impression that vote was likely to make on ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... in showing sympathy with their natural right of choice, should have burdened himself with all this unnecessary complication of special foolishness on the part of his heroine which alienates our sympathy; and special illegality on the man's position. Perhaps this is to add heroism to her effort to secure the right mate, to indicate how small are any other considerations in comparison to this primary demand ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... This fact in the history of Italian tyranny is noticeable. The font of honor, so to speak, was in the citizens of these great burghs. Therefore, when the limits of authority delegated to their captains by the people were overstepped, the sway of the princes became confessedly illegal. Illegality carried with it all the consequences of an evil conscience, all the insecurities of usurped dominion all the danger from without and from within to which an arbitrary governor is exposed. In the fourth class we ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... afforded a signal proof of the intensity of the feeling in his favour. This sum was used to pay the fine, and to reimburse him for the former fine to which he had been subjected. All Lord Cochrane's efforts to obtain a new trial, or an expression of an opinion from the House as to the illegality of the proceedings of his judge, Lord Ellenborough, were ineffective, the House, on each occasion when he brought the matter forward, obeying the orders of ministers and voting against his motions by an overwhelming majority. He had, however, the satisfaction of knowing that the nation at ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... and bring utter and final ruin upon his undertaking. He wisely decided to pocket the insult, and let justice slumber for the present. He consequently required the Basque, who began to see more clearly the illegality of his course, to enter into a written agreement with Pont Grave that neither should interfere with the other while they remained in the country, and that they should leave their differences to be settled in the courts on their ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... "To assert the illegality of change, upon any pretence whatsoever, were to cast odious colours upon the married state, to blacken the necessary means of perpetuating families—such laws can never be supposed to have been designed to defeat the very end of matrimony. I call them necessary ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... not; and, moreover, there would be but small chance of any evil coming from it, even if it were to happen that we were to be seen and known. Nobody knows what we are going to do, and, if they did, there is no illegality ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... cases and let our case stand on those. First, we have found that full bloods have been repeatedly sworn as mixed bloods, in order that their lands might be alienated. A curious idea, Mr. Levine, to attempt to legalize an illegality by false ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... doubt of the illegality of Mr. Macarthur's confinement, I felt no difficulty in acceding to the request, and Mr. Macarthur being released from the Gaol directly joined the Assembly of Officers and inhabitants who were then ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... Philip Francis, Esquire, for the reversal of the said proceedings, and to a minute introducing the said motion, in which Mr. Francis set forth in a clear and forcible manner, and in terms with which the Court of Directors have since declared their entire concurrence, both the extreme danger and the illegality and invalidity of the said proceedings of Warren Hastings and Richard Barwell, Esquire, concluding the said minute by the following conciliatory declaration: "And that this salutary motion may not be impeded by any idea or suspicion that General Clavering ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the STUARTS, no law so often infamously administered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so ill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and death from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country, the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity—and known language could say no more of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... but in the Madras Presidency they are held to be legal. In a case where the validity of such adoption was questioned, the Madras High Court affirmed it, and it has now, "by a series of decisions, adopted the rule . . . which limits the illegality of adoption to cases where they involve the commission of an offence under the Criminal Code." This, as we have said, makes it entirely impossible to save the child through the law before her training is complete; and after it is complete it is too late to save ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... whether this was not a personal trust, which could not be legally performed by deputy? Upon this point we entertained different opinions; but agreed that, if the discretion of the committee was to be in any degree controlled by the directions of the law, there appeared no room to doubt of the illegality of canvassing boxes which were not delivered by a sheriff or the deputy of a sheriff. The ballots contained in these boxes were therefore rejected; not, however, without sensible regret, as no suspicion was entertained of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... on my side. It is not so now. To be frank, Lady Bassett, I don't see what I can do but watch the case, on the chance of some error or illegality. It is very hard to fight a case when you cannot put your client forward—and I suppose that would not be safe. How unfortunate ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... of that evidence which would prove the object and the nature of the association: and to proclaim a meeting, without using force to prevent or disperse it if it defied the proclamation; and to use force without being certain that the extent of the illegality would carry public opinion along with the use of force; further, to begin to use force without being sure that you have enough to use—would be acts of madness, and, at least, of great and criminal disregard of consequences. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... by the present enemies of Great Britain should prove to be in fact tainted by illegality and disregard of the principles of war sanctioned by enlightened nations, it cannot be supposed, and this Government does not for a moment suppose, that his Majesty's Government would wish the same taint to attach to their own actions or would cite such illegal acts as in any sense ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... incarceration of both Tommy and Smithers in comfortable insane asylums. He feigned to admire Von Holtz, deathly white and nearly frantic with a corroding rage, and complimented Tommy on his taste for illegality. He even asked Von Holtz if he wanted to leave, and Von Holtz snarled insults at him. Von Holtz was beginning to work at the manufacture of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... into volcanoes, and exploring excavated cities, we see him going into courts of justice, visiting prisons, descending into dungeons, and examining great numbers of the cases of unfortunate victims of illegality and injustice, with the view afterwards to enlist public opinion in the endeavor to remedy those abuses." This announcement by the Foreign Secretary was warmly applauded by the House. "A few days ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... It is easy to see what sort of decisions he will make. They are often very little supported by law, and sometimes are even contrary to law, and then they remain a dead letter from the first. Ministerial circulars often have a remarkable character for illegality. In that case they fall and are forgotten, but not always before they have introduced a vast amount of trouble throughout ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... by correspondence, and that at the end of that time things might stand on a different footing. If during that time the North should gain any great success over the South, the States might be in a position to disregard England's threats. No such game was played. The illegality of the arrest was at once acknowledged, and the men were given up with a tranquillity that certainly appeared marvelous after all that had ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... notion, an appearance of taking more on me than the laws allowed; but then my motives were so clean to my conscience, and I was so sure of satisfying the people by the methods I intended to pursue, that there could be no moral fault in the trifle of illegality which, may be, I might have been led on to commit. However, I was fortunately spared from the experiment, by a sudden change in the council.—One day Mr Hickery and Mr Plan, who had been for years colleaguing together ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... of the speech was unsuccessful; and just about this time (though whether before or after the speech is disputed) Apollodorus proposed that the people should decide whether the surplus revenues should go to the Festival Fund, or be applied to military purposes, and was heavily fined for the illegality of the proposal. ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... them which held memories of the maestro's past. Jaime would grow old, and music, his formidable rival, would be ever fresh. In a little while, when marriage should have robbed his relations of the charm of illegality, of the delight of the prohibited, Mary would discover some orchestra leader who bore a still greater resemblance to the other man, or some ugly violinist with long hair and possessed of youth who would remind her of Beethoven in his boyhood. Besides, he was of different race, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... corroboree meetings where marriages are arranged; meetings where the illegality of marriages is gone into, and, if necessary, exchanges effected or arranged; meetings where the wirreenuns of the Boogahroo produce the bags of hair, etc., and vendettas are sworn; meetings of Boodther, or giving, where each person ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... letters, I feel sure she does not know it. You have all probably seen Normanby's public despatches, in which, though as an Englishman he deprecates and deplores the means employed and the pledges broken—in short, the unconstitutional illegality of the whole coup d'etat—yet he always says, seeing now no other refuge from Rouge ascendency, he hopes it may succeed. One would have supposed, from the whole tenor of his policy, from his Radical tendencies, and all that he has been ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... school. I will provide you or anybody else with a list of the books from which I have gleaned my education. But whether I practice Yoga, Dianetics, or write the lines on a sugarcoated pill and swallow it is my trade secret. It can not be extracted from me by any process of the law because no illegality exists." ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... security of our government, and the very pillar upon which it stands, is founded upon the steady belief of the subject's obligation to an absolute and unconditional obedience to the supreme power in all things lawful, and the utter illegality of any resistance upon ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... the laws which a Legislature can pass an Act of Indemnity is the most likely to produce injustice. It is on the face of it the legislation of illegality; the hope of it encourages acts of vigour, but it also encourages violations of law and of humanity. The tale of Flogging Fitzgerald in Ireland, or the history of Governor Eyre in Jamaica, is sufficient ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... pointed out that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was very different. Nothing was said about the illegality of the combinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructed that this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to be whether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... a queer kind of camaraderie. Though he may not have been privy to the more tremendous of her crimes, yet he seemed to accept her as one of those who lived on the frontiers of illegality. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... agent in the affairs relative to the printing of Emilius. Rousseau entrusted the whole matter to him and to Madame de Luxembourg, being confident that, in acting through persons of such authority and position, he should be protected against any unwitting illegality. Instead of being sent to Rey, the manuscript was sold to a bookseller in Paris for six thousand francs.[83] A long time elapsed before any proofs reached the author, and he soon perceived that an edition was being ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... to hang the poor old woman. After her condemnation, the governor reprieved her, probably on the ground of the illegality of setting aside the first verdict of the jury, in the absence of any new evidence; but Mr. Parris, the power behind the people, caused such an outcry against executive clemency to be raised, that ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... approval amounting almost to enthusiasm. Of these agreements the former, certainly, and presumably the latter, would be flagrantly illegal in the United States. If, moreover, an attempt were made in America to arrive at the same ends in some roundabout way which would avoid technical illegality, the outburst of popular indignation would make it impossible. Personally I sympathise with the English view and believe both agreements to be not only just and proper but in the public interest; but it is certain that they would have created such an ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... herself of the illegality of the papers, and of her own right to destroy them, Mrs. Carteret ought to have felt relieved that she had thus removed all traces of her dead father's folly. True, the other daughter remained,—she had seen her on ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... The illegality of these devices was hidden beneath a cloak of politic clemency. To this commission the Consuls, or rather Bonaparte—for his will soon dominated that of Sieyes—proposed two most salutary changes. He desired to put an end to the seizure of hostages from villages suspected ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of the Stamp Act taught the Americans obedience? Has our lenity inspired them with moderation? Can it be proper, while they deny our legal right to tax them, to acquiesce in the argument of illegality, and by the repeal of the whole law to give up that honour? No; the most proper time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is refused. To temporize is to yield; and the authority of the mother country, if it is now unsupported, will in reality ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... Premier: "It has the seductive quality that it is after all the exercise of an incontestable right. It is a revolution which commences with legality. In refusing the yoke of misery, the workingman revolts in the fullness of his rights; illegality is committed by the capitalist class when it becomes a provocator by trying to violate a right which it has itself consecrated." That Briand meant what he said is indicated by the advice he gave to soldiers who might be ordered to fire against the strikers in ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... had found in France, and had married in extremis, the Countess M'Gregor, in order to legitimatize the birth of a daughter, whom he had by her in consequence of an early secret marriage, which was afterward broken, from some illegality in the ceremony, and because it had been contracted against the will of the reigning grand duke. This young daughter, so solemnly acknowledged, is that charming Princess Amelia, [Footnote: As the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... commanders were arguing over the illegality of this, the Zaanstroom was sighted, and was immediately overtaken by the submarine. An officer and a sailor from the submarine had been placed on the Batavier V, and this prevented her escaping while the pursuit ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... prefects are induced to tolerate, to approve of these infractions of the law.... For many years one cannot read the minutes of a session of the council general or of the municipal council without finding numerous examples of the illegality we report.... In another order of facts, for example in that which relates to the official staff, do we not see every day agents of the state, even conscientious, yield to the will of all-powerful political notabilities and entirely abandon the interests ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... care for the benefit of counsel, having had to do without it till now; and his asking her whether she wished for it was merely made in order to appear as an act of judicial indulgence on his part—perhaps, also, what Lohier had urged regarding the illegality of trying his prisoner without giving her the help of counsel ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... This Bill (which emphasised the illegality of Lord Durham's ordinance) was read a second time by 54 to 36. On the following day Lord Melbourne announced to the Peers that Ministers had resolved to advise that the ordinance should ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... Churchmen. A notable attempt to defraud the Episcopalians of a due share of the school money, derived from the sale of public lands and from the emission of public bills, was defeated in 1738 by a spirited protest, setting forth the illegality of the proceeding, the probable indignation of the King at such treatment of his good subjects and brethren in the faith, and by pointing to the fact, as recently shown by a test case in Massachusetts, that the Connecticut Establishment itself could not ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.



Words linked to "Illegality" :   illegal, unlawfulness, infection, outlawry



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