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Perjury   Listen
noun
Perjury  n.  (pl. perjuries)  
1.
False swearing.
2.
(Law) At common law, a willfully false statement in a fact material to the issue, made by a witness under oath in a competent judicial proceeding. By statute the penalties of perjury are imposed on the making of willfully false affirmations. Note: If a man swear falsely in nonjudicial affidavits, it is made perjury by statute in some jurisdictions in the United States.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perjury" Quotes from Famous Books



... thyself, and listen. You must first do penance for seven years in the neighboring island of Tirce, after which I will see you again.' 'But,' said the penitent, still agitated by remorse, 'how can I expiate a perjury of which I have not yet spoken? Before I left my country I killed a poor man. I was about to suffer the punishment of death for that crime, and I was already in irons, when one of my relatives, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... unpublished treatise of the accused was an overt act, and supported the opinion of Jeffreys that scribere est agere.[2] The same year he was counsel for James in his successful action against Titus Oates for libel, and in 1685 prosecuted Oates for the crown for perjury. Finch, however, though a Tory and a crown lawyer, was a staunch churchman, and on his refusal in 1686 to defend the royal dispensing power he was summarily dismissed by James, He was the leading counsel in June 1688 for the seven bishops, when he "strangely exposed and very boldly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... pretended authority in hostility to the United States;" that he had "never yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto." Of course the men who had been waging war against the Government could not take this oath except by committing perjury and risking its pains and penalties. But nothing daunted by the existence of this obstacle at the threshold of public service, the most notorious rebels sought election to the Senate and House, boasting that they would prove the unconstitutionality ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... patriotism seemed to demand. They were compelled to choose whether they would aid in subjugating their State, or in defending it against invasion; for it was already evident that coercion would be used by the General Government, and that war was inevitable. In reply to the accusation of perjury in breaking their oath of allegiance, since brought against the officers of the Army and Navy who resigned their commissions to render aid to the South, it need only be stated that, in their belief, the resignation of their ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... against such as should make breach of their vow. But afterwards, it would seem, when things were in such a state as constrained them to govern with a stronger hand, he bade the Athenians to throw the perjury upon him, and manage affairs as convenience required. And, in general, Theophrastus tells us, that Aristides was, in his own private affairs, and those of his fellow-citizens, rigorously just, but ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... tribunals we introduce among them, such people soon find that the judges who preside can seldom search deeply into the hearts of men, or clearly distinguish truth from falsehood in the declarations of deponents; and when they can distinguish it, it is seldom that they can secure their conviction for perjury. They generally learn very soon that these judges, instead of being, like the judges of their own woods and wilds, the only beings who can search the hearts of men, and punish them for falsehood, are frequently the persons, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... never before seen or heard out of Bedlam. There are men who are known to have murdered their companions, and who boast of it. With these the English farm labourer, the riotous and ignorant mechanic, the victim of perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately herded. With them are mixed Chinamen from Hong Kong, the Aborigines of New Holland, West Indian blacks, Greeks, Caffres, and Malays, soldiers for desertion, idiots, madmen, pig-stealers, and pick-pockets. The dreadful place seems set apart for all that is hideous ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... muff or other circumstances inconsistent with the hostile evidence. These circumstances had the testimony, you will observe, of my own servants only; nay, as it turned out, of one servant exclusively: that naturally diminished their value. And, on the other side, evidence was arrayed, perjury was suborned, that would have wrecked a wilderness of simple truth trusting to its own unaided forces. What followed? Did this judgment of the court settle the opinion of the public? Opinion of the public! Did it settle ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... often sent his complaints to the King for breach of articles, but without redress, which provoked him to expostulate in a rougher manner, till at length he charged the King in plain terms with injustice and perjury, but no men are found to endure reproaches with less temper than those who most deserve them, the King, at the same time filled with indignation, and stung with guilt, invaded Normandy a second time, resolving to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... Mistress, there is one below Demanding to have instant word of thee. I told him that your Ladyship was not At home. Vain perjury! He would not take Nay ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... corruption are the lower; and would to God it were not rather a contemptible and hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment, to say that there is already no debauchery, no corruption, no bribery, no perjury, no blind fury, and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this kingdom: nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of private men, when they see their neighbours aggrandised, and themselves poor and virtuous, without that eclat or dignity which attends ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... very uncertain quantity. His whole interests were at one in favor of getting Elliot out of the way. On the other hand—how far would he go to save the Kamatlah claims and to remove this good-looking rival from his path? Peter could not think he would stoop to perjury against an ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... true, loving wife. Ian, who had been wont to hold stern doctrines as to the paramount obligation of truthfulness, perjured himself again and again, and hoped the Recording Angel dropped the customary tear. But, however deep the perjury, before long he was sure to find himself obliged to ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... all cares, we wish to know what is taking place, even in the heavens; led on from these beginnings we love everything that is true, that is to say, that is faithful, simple, consistent, and we hate what is vain, false and deceitful, such as fraud, perjury, cunning and injustice. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... irritate your majesty, but the facts themselves are killing us. I know that you are endeavoring to find some means whereby to chastise me for my frankness; but I know also the chastisement I will implore God to inflict upon you when I relate to Him your perjury ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... forecastle hitching at his trousers and whistling an old English song of the Spanish Main. As for Black McTee, he remained staring after Hovey with a rising thought of perjury. The loot of the Heron was a deep temptation, and his pledged word to the bos'n was a strong bond, for as Hovey had said, the honor of Black McTee, in spite of his other failings, was respected throughout the South Seas. For one purpose, however, he would have sacrificed all hopes of plunder and ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... Supreme Court ruled that the presence of a quorum of the committee at the time of the return of the subpoena was not an essential element of the offense.[114] Previously the Court had held that a prosecution could not be maintained under a general perjury statute for false testimony given before a Congressional committee unless a quorum of the committee was present when ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... general manners and morality of a country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution thereof are by their serious example an authority to support these principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall any country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing than to be delivered therefrom. The soul ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... was astonished to find how simple the course of procedure was compared with that of my own country. Felonies ranked in the following order: Murder, Rape, Incest and crimes against nature, Arson, Robbery, Assault to Murder, Manslaughter, Mayhem, Bribery, Larceny and Perjury. The law held one degree of murder and that was with malice aforethought, but where a person killed a human being wantonly, without cause or malice, the homicide was committed to the Lunatic Asylum, and, after one year's imprisonment, deprived of the sexual organs, and if his or her conduct ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... fears The rattling ruin of the clashing cars, The floundering coursers rolling on the plain, And conquest lost through frantic haste to gain. But thus upbraids his rival as he flies: "Go, furious youth! ungenerous and unwise! Go, but expect not I'll the prize resign; Add perjury to fraud, and make it thine—" Then to his steeds with all his force he cries, "Be swift, be vigorous, and regain the prize! Your rivals, destitute of youthful force, With fainting knees shall labour in the course, And yield the glory yours."—The steeds obey; Already ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... son, even when he was dying, for saving the prince Chevalier from the hands of his would-be captors, is excusable in the estimation of many and even meritorious according to some. The world again is agreed that if an adulterer be called into the witness box, perjury would be a venal offence compared with the meanness of betraying the honour of a confiding woman. Hence, the exclusion of such a witness (according to almost every system of law) in trials for adultery. The Rishis wrote for men and not angels. The conduct referred to is that of the good ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the Second?—why of the unhappy Coleman, convicted, though afterwards found innocent, and whose children perished for want, because the world believed the father guilty? Why should I mention the perjury of Smith, who, admitted king's-evidence, screened himself by accusing Fainloth and Loveday of the murder of Dunn? the first was executed, the second was about to share the same fate, when the perjury of Smith was ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... United States, in defiance of the spirit and letter of the Burlingame treaty, Carleton spoke vigorously, at the meeting held in Tremont Temple, in Boston, to protest against the infamous Exclusion bill, which committed the nation to perjury. Carleton could never see the justice of stealing black men from Africa to enslave them, of murdering red men in order to steal their hunting-grounds, or of inviting yellow men across the sea to do our work, and then kicking ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... committed, was advertised according to a graduated tariff. Thus, poisoning, for example, was absolved for eleven ducats, six livres tournois. Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres, three ducats. Perjury came to seven livres and three carlines. Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper. Even a parricide could buy forgiveness at God's tribunal at one ducat; four livres, eight carlines. Henry de Montfort, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... compelled me to testify in court against Doctor West. Mr. Blake's purpose in so doing was to remove Doctor West from his position, ruin the water-works, and buy them in at a bargain. I hereby confess and declare, of my own free will, that I have been guilty of lying and of perjury.' Do you want ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... to swear anything, adding blandly that words mattered nothing, as afterwards we could do whatever seemed best in our own interests, whereon I read him a short moral lecture on the heinousness of perjury, which did not seem to impress him ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... in court, of course. Streckmann doesn't lie at such times neither. Perjury is a penitentiary crime—a man doesn't lie under ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... by myself," answered Harley, with spirit, "it were less bitter to put up with wrong than to palter with it for compensation. And such wrong! Compromise with the open foe—that maybe done with honour; but with the perjured friend—that were to forgive the perjury!" ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had made himself further valuable to that hiring agency, not above subornation of perjury, by testifying in a court of law to the sobriety of a passenger crew who had been carried drunk from their scab-manned train. So naively dogged was he in his stand, so quick was he in his retorts, that the agency, when the strike ended by a compromise ten days later, took ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... court-martial and get away with it? And to whom could Drew possibly appeal? Topham? Rennie? Apparently Bayliss wanted them enough to suggest Drew testify against them. Did he actually believe Drew guilty, or had that been a subtle invitation to perjury? The Kentuckian set the plate on the floor and got up again to make a minute study of the cell. His thought now was that maybe his only chance ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... their country to secure their re-election to some dirty borough, sided with outraged law; and by these united efforts a Commission was obtained. The Commission sat, and, being conducted with rare skill and determination, squeezed out of an incredible mass of perjury some terrible truths, whose discovery drew eloquent leaders from the journals; these filled simple men, who love their country, with a hope that the Government of this nation would shake off its lethargy, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... and her uppermost feeling was, strangely enough, that she was ashamed—not of her sister but of herself. She did not believe her—that was at the bottom of everything, and she had made her lie, she had brought out her perjury, she had associated it with the sacred images of the dead. She took no walk, she remained in her room, and quite late, towards six o'clock, she heard on the gravel, outside of her windows, the wheels ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... incompetency of Skeffington, or the contempt of the English, which would not allow them to make haste into the presence of an enemy who never dared to encounter them in the field, but carried on war by perjury, and pillage, and midnight murder—whatever the cause was, they were at length on their way, and, through the devotion of Ormond, not too late to be ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... motive even from ourselves, because we wish to have the credit of serving the Deity exclusively. This is confirmed by the familiar instances of a conflict between public opinion and religious sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In exceptional cases, indeed, the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... attorney this question, "Was the person you saw in Brown Street about the size of Selman?" and he answered Yes. This was all true. Suppose, also, that he expected to be inquired of further, and no further questions were put to him. Would it not be extremely hard to impute to him perjury for this? It is not uncommon for witnesses to think that they have done all their duty, when they have answered the questions put to them. But suppose that we admit that he did not then tell all he knew, this does not affect ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... tribunal, in order to annihilate a disgraced courtier, a fallen and helpless enemy. But the reasons which appear conclusively to fix culpability, will be better understood when the facts of the case are stated. Every witness must be branded with perjury to entitle us to doubt that the familiarity of Perez with the princess had attracted observation. Escovedo was aware of it, saw it, and denounced it. He remonstrated with both parties on their guilt and on their danger. The appeals to conscience and to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... the testimony of works and fruits, judge and condemn honest men as traitors, though not judicially convicted. Certainly divers measures are an abomination to the Lord, as in ver. 10. Then in ver. 25 sacrilege is described, and covered perjury, which is a snare to the soul that commits it. He "devoureth that which is holy," i.e. applieth to a common use these things God hath set apart, and commanded to be kept holy, as our profaning of repentance and absolution, by casting ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... may suppose, by this time. Mrs. Ormus Biddulph was so kind as to wish us to dine with them on Monday (to-day), but we found it absolutely impossible. The few engagements we make we don't keep, and I shall try for the future to avoid perjury. As it is, I have no doubt that various people have set me down as 'full of arrogance and assumption,' at which the gods must laugh, for really, if truths could be known, I feel even morbidly humble just now, and could show my sackcloth with anybody's sackcloth. But it ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... would never convince the majority of persons that a dealer could innocently do the same thing. If his judgment errs, and leads him into error as to the soundness of his horse, it is set down, not as willful or corrupt perjury as to oath, but most undoubtedly as to his word ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... "chronicle" but an unhistorical fiction. The events pass by in one straight, continuous line, the dramatic personages are characterized almost solely by their actions, the language is a mere sketch. The Queen murders the Lady Mayoress, and on her death-bed confesses a double adultery; she commits perjury by denying the murder and calls upon Heaven to sink her into the depths of the earth if she had spoken falsely. "That she 'sunk at Charing-crosse' before it was erected to her memory, is a sufficiently remarkable circumstance in Peele's play, but it is more remarkable ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... need not call your attention to any of the details of that evidence. You must either accept it as a whole and bring in a verdict of guilty, or your verdict must be one which would be tantamount to accusing the sergeant and constables of wilful and corrupt perjury; and I may add, wanton perjury; as there could be no possible reason for these officers departing from the strict line of truth. Gentlemen I leave you ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris

... object of my cross-examination is to show that the witness is not telling the truth, have I much chance of getting him to confess the fact?" The witness knows something about perjury. He is afraid and he has heard about those pitfalls of cross-examination. Does the lawyer remember his own hopeful son and how only yesterday he could not get him to admit stealing the cake even with the prospect of immediately impending punishment? ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... Chron. Preciosum,) that nominal £5 of 1440? (2.) Supposing this ascertained, might a man with safe conscience retain his fellowship by swearing that he had not £5 a-year, when perhaps he had £20, provided that £20 were proved to be less in efficacy than the £5 of the elder period? Verbally this was perjury: was it such in reality and ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... her fool friends or relatives paid a good round price for that "puff," and fully expected that the "artist," as well as the penny-a- liner, would indulge in a little fulsome flattery instead of turning state's evidence and convicting his co-laborer of perjury. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... says of the effect of the prohibitive and protection policy in Ireland upon the morals of the people as to smuggling must be said, I fear, of the effect of the Penal Laws against Catholics upon their morals as to perjury. It is not surprising that the peasants should have been educated into the state of mind of the Irishman in the old American story, who, being solicited to promise his vote when he landed in New York, asked ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Clotilde's English friend had sent him the lines addressed to her, in which the writer dwelt on her love of him with a whimper of the voice of love. That was previous to her perjury by little, by a day-eighteen hours. How lurid a satire was flung on events by the proximity of the dates! But the closeness of the time between this love-crooning and the denying of him pointed to a tyrannous intervention. One could detect it. Full surely the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... could not further damage his reputation. Rebellion, even in a bad cause, may have its romantic side; treason, which had not been such but for being on the losing side, may challenge admiration; but nothing can sweeten larceny or disinfect perjury. A rebellion inaugurated with theft, and which has effected its entry into national fortresses, not over broken walls, but by breaches of trust, should take Jonathan Wild for its patron saint, with the run of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... went home: the unhappy girl did indeed stand in greater terror of her father than of the sin of perjury; and the idea of affirming upon oath what she had but a few days before so solemnly denied to him was filling her with consternation and dismay. Still the picture that had just been drawn of the ruin that would ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... that God separated them from the community. Thirteen sins are punished with leprosy by God: blasphemy, unchastity, murder, false suspicion, pride, illegal appropriation of the rights of others, slander, theft, perjury, profanation of the Divine Name, idolatry, envy, and contempt of the Torah. Goliath was stricken with leprosy because he reviled God; the daughters of Zion became leprous in punishment of their unchastity; ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... astonished, and apparently very contented, except Doctor Chocker, who was immovable. Nicholas expressed the most marked surprise, as became so hypocritical a prime-minister, causing Mr. Manlius to make a private note of some unrevealed perjury. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... no need to pause, for the difference between them is palpable; pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world; and it is said that in the pleasures of love, which appear to be the greatest, perjury is excused by the gods; for pleasures, like children, have not the least particle of reason in them; whereas mind is either the same as truth, or the most like truth, and ...
— Philebus • Plato

... thousands, crowding the ranks of the professional classes to suffocation. Legions of unscrupulous lawyers, more heartless than pirates or brigands in Bulgaria, infested every city and town, busy as demons stirring up strife, drilling witnesses to perjury, bull-dozing the innocent even unto death with the full connivance of the plunder-sharing judges, until the jails were crowded with victims who could not pay their ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... Cavalero were, that he would (as he was a true knight and a soldier) deliver him back again in safety to his company. Albeit, Master Wilkinson, who, by his long experience, had received sufficient trial of Spanish inconstancy and perjury, wished him in no case to put his life and liberty in hazard upon a Spaniard's oath; but at last, upon much entreaty, he yielded to let him go to the General, thinking indeed that good speeches and answers of reason would have contented him, whereas, otherwise, refusal to do so might ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... the knight change his intentions at once. Now he was determined not to set foot in Saragossa: thus he would make the author commit perjury, trap him as a complete liar, and hold him up to ridicule before the whole world. The gentlemen thought this a most ingenious way to treat the blaspheming author, and made a suggestion that there were to be other jousts at Barcelona, to which he would be welcomed; and Don ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... 'summons' is published once a week for a month in the smallest type of the smallest obscure weekly paper to be found. This latter device, however, is adopted only when the plaintiff (having some moral scruples about too much perjury at once) charges 'desertion,' and desires to appear quite ignorant of unnatural defendant's present place of abode. If, for any particular reason, the party seeking a divorce prefers a Western decree, the 'lawyer,' ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... we did come here in good faith, as we are prepared to prove. And all other evidence of any lawbreaking upon our part rests, I believe, upon the word of two boys, evidence which might be twisted by a clever lawyer. You may prosecute Simpson for perjury, of course. But I think that Simpson will not be in this part of the country long. Yes," he looked about him once more at garden and house, "it was a very good idea. A pity it did not work. Well, I must be going before I begin to curse ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... itself, as the law then stood, prove the incompetence of a witness. His time might have expired; his expatriation might have been the condition of his pardon, or his offence might have been a misdemeanour, and not involve the corruption of blood;[127] and, except for perjury or subornation of perjury, the King's pardon might restore his competency to give evidence, or hold property. On these grounds the courts of New South Wales were enabled to evade the plea of attainder in bar ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... extreme views that I despair of saving you. Will you not look at this subject rationally? It is not perjury, but policy; not ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... return of peace, which was attended with a reduction of the army and navy; but now crimes of a deeper die seemed to lift up their heads, in contempt of law and humanity. [331] [See note 2 T, at the end of this Vol.] Every day almost produced fresh instances of perjury, forgery, fraud, and circumvention; and the kingdom exhibited a most amazing jumble of virtue and vice, honour and infamy, compassion and obduracy, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... that at Nottingham he was at the head of fifty or sixty thousand men; and Turner gives him, at the most, between six and seven thousand. The latter seems nearer to the truth. We must here regret that Turner's partiality to the House of York induces him to slur over Edward's detestable perjury at York, and to accumulate all rhetorical arts to command admiration for his progress,—to the prejudice of the salutary moral horror we ought to feel for the atrocious perfidy and violation of oath to which he owed the first impunity that secured ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... terrible one, and the resultant agony is convulsive and lamentable. He takes, however, the only course he could be expected to take: he must vindicate the integrity of the woman whom he loves, and he commits the crime of perjury in order to ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... on my account. Yes, indeed! it is easy to talk of justice, but to obtain it from others is no easy matter. In what way can I be of service to you in my own art? Say whether you prefer my celebrating the monologue of a fugitive king, or the perjury of a usurper—or the true friends, who, though near neighbors, never saw each other? In the hope of soon hearing from you—for being now so far asunder it is easier to hold intercourse than when nearer!—I ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... a government in accordance with republican ideas; for it acknowledges a higher law than even the human conscience, in the will of a person whom it professes to believe a vicegerent of Divinity, and in obedience to whom perjury, robbery, incest, and even murder, may be justifiable,—for his commands are those of Heaven. It is obvious that it is fruitless to anticipate fair dealing from a people professing such doctrines; and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... must intervene between the perpetration of the offence and their trial; and this interval is usually employed in similar cases in arranging a defence but too commonly supported by perjury. In the present instance, I found not the slightest attempt to follow such a course. They declare that they expect death, and will gladly welcome it. Of their life, which has been a course of almost constant warfare with society, ending in remorseful ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... "All that you say may be true. There was indeed a time when this man was friend to us both, and I know even as you do the power which he may have to win a woman's heart. But I know him now, and you do not. I know the evil that he has wrought, the dishonor that he has brought, the perjury that lies upon his soul, the confidence betrayed, the promise unfulfilled—all this I know. Am I to see my own sister caught in the same well-used trap? Has it shut upon you, child? Am I indeed already too late? For ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... But, Lord," he said, looking into the fire thoughtfully, "when I think how I stood up in the attorney's office at Salisbury and took my solemn oath that old John Gedding had transferred his Saibach gold claims to you on his death bed; when I think of the amount of perjury—me a uniformed servant of the British South African Company, and, so to speak, an official of the ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... judge was stern and significant. 'It was a grave and most painful task which devolved upon him to instruct the jurors that one of the parties before them must be guilty of deliberate and willful perjury. Their statements were wholly irreconcilable with each other; nay more, were diametrically opposite; and that either were innocently mistaken in their assertions ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... much more than bliss! Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet Of dear Desire electing his defeat? Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope Uttering first-love's first cry, Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh, Love's natural hope? Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury! Behold, all-amorous May, With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows, Avoids thee of thy vows! Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near, To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere? Forget thy foolish words; Go to her summons ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... really only six dial faces, two streets converging toward one. In the open space on which it stood was a pillory, and the culprits who stood here were often most brutally stoned. One John Waller, charged with perjury, was killed in this manner ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... all Falsehood would soon be out of Countenance; and an Address in imposing upon Mankind, would be as contemptible in one State of Life as another. A Couple of Courtiers making Professions of Esteem, would make the same Figure under Breach of Promise, as two Knights of the Post convicted of Perjury. But Conversation is fallen so low in point of Morality, that as they say in a Bargain, Let the Buyer look to it; so in Friendship, he is the Man in Danger who is most apt to believe: He is the more likely to suffer in the Commerce, who begins ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Durand, and of Sorensen, the longshoremen's leader. He had to listen to exposure after exposure of the tricks which Guffey had played; he had to hear the district attorney of the county denounced as a suborner of perjury, and his agents as blackmailers and forgers. Peter couldn't understand why such things should be permitted—why these speakers were not all clapped into jail. But instead, he had to sit there and listen; he even had to applaud and pretend to approve! ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... sou{er}ayn ne se en, for slaue one, As for bobau{n}ce & bost & bolnande p{r}iyde, roly i{n}-to e deuele[gh] rote man ry{n}ge[gh] bylyue, 180 [Sidenote: [Fol. 59b.]] [Sidenote: He is ruined by covetousness, perjury, murder, theft, and strife.] For couetyse, & colwarde & croked dede[gh], For mon-sworne, & men-scla[gh]t, & to much drynk, For efte, & for repy{n}g, vn-onk may mon haue; [Sidenote: For robbery and ribaldry, for preventing ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... lively sensation in general society, as well as in legal and commercial coteries. "All the great counsel in the kingdom" were employed in the cause; and though maritime causes then, as now, usually involved much hard swearing, the case was notable for the prodigious amount of perjury which it elicited. For the most part the witnesses were sailors, who, besides swearing with stolid indifference to truth, caused much amusement by the incoherence of their statements and by their free use of nautical ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... thence he is vomited into a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, unfurnished with money, unsupported by friends, three thousand miles from all means of calling upon or confronting evidence, where no one local circumstance that tends to detect perjury can possibly be judged of;—such a person may be executed according to form, but he can never ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od. xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)." Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... be to reward perjury, selfishness and the mad ambition of this unnatural mother. I will acknowledge my daughter; you will adopt her, and thus, as I hoped, she will find in ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... involuntarily, at some time and in some way did participate in resistance to the lawful authority of the General Government. The question with the citizen to whom this oath is to be proposed must be a fearful one, for while the bill does not declare that perjury may be assigned for such false swearing nor fix any penalty for the offense, we must not forget that martial law prevails; that every person is answerable to a military commission, without previous presentment by a grand jury, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... arms, appeared with their officers, and took service again under the British king, swearing a solemn oath of allegiance. They certainly showed throughout the most light-hearted indifference to chronic perjury and treachery; nor did they in other respects appear to very good advantage. Clark was not in the least surprised at the news of their conduct; for he had all along realized that the attachment of the French would prove but a slender reed on which ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... those who maintain that the magistrate should not legislate against the breach of some statutes in the first table of the law, to show why he is warranted in punishing, in any manner, the crime of perjury; and how some species of penalty may be attached to the refusal to swear a lawful oath in certain circumstances, and also to the breach of its engagement: while an individual who might object to engage in the exercise of Covenanting when invited to ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... a member of the British parliament, delivered an unfeeling speech relative to Ireland, in which he speaks of their untameable ferocity, and systematic guilt, supported by perjury, related this most affecting anecdote, which was to shew the feeling of abhorrence entertained against those who gave evidence against those who were tried for resisting a government they detested.—A man who was condemned to death ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... affords the clergy upon the same article. He supposes[33] all that reverend body, who differ from him in principles of church or state, so far from disliking Popery, upon the above-mentioned motives of perjury, "quitting their wives, or burning their relations;" that the hopes of "enjoying the abbey lands" would soon bear down all such considerations, and be an effectual incitement to their perversion; and so he goes gravely ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... Quakerism, he turned to the Baptists, where, for a time, he met with better success. Ellwood, at this time, rendered good service to his friends, by exposing the true character of these wretches, and bringing them to justice for theft, perjury, and other misdemeanors. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... down; for the idea of your perjury has enfeebled me so, that I cannot move. (Sits down.) Propose to the honour of your Creator and the salvation of your soul, that ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland

... the Insurance Company prosecuted the farmer for perjury; but the jury that tried this case took almost a stronger view of the farmer's virtue than he did himself and found a verdict of "Not Guilty," adding a rider very depreciatory of the Insurance Company. Encouraged by this verdict, the farmer sued the Insurance Company for malicious prosecution, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various

... character and mature age, unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never existed; the inquisition was silenced and their conscience was satisfied (says the historian Mirchond [203] with this holy and meritorious perjury. [204] But the greatest part of the temples of Persia were ruined by the insensible and general desertion of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... all over. "An' I wish you joy av the perjury," sez she, duckin' a curtsey. "You've lost a woman that would ha' wore her hand to the bone for your pleasure; an' 'deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped...." Lascelles must ha' spoken plain to her. "I am such as Dinah is—'deed I am! Ye've lost a fool av a girl that'll niver look at you again, ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... say that if I would publish nothing, and would abandon the interests of the colonists, he would give me a handsome sum of money. I soon gave him to understand that he had applied to the wrong person for anything of that kind; and he then laid a plan to accomplish by fraud and perjury, what he had failed to do ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... Malos you wish to see; I thought so. I knew you could not keep his name concealed. Amelia, sweet Amelia, take heed, take heed of perjury; you are on the stage of death, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... in here for the night. To-day we took on board three convicts in chains, two bound for Fazogloo, one for calumny and perjury, and one for manslaughter. Hard labour for life in that climate will soon dispose of them. The third is a petty thief from Keneh who has been a year in chains in the Custom-house of Alexandria, and is now being taken back to be ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Graham, though one of the most fashionable, was by no means the best beloved of Flint's acquaintance; and it was with an inward conviction of perjury that he murmured, "Most happy, I'm sure," and made his way to the table by the centre window which the Grahams had selected. The lady already seated there was sleek and well appointed. Flint noticed that the people at the other tables did her the honor to prolong their casual glance ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... description. Of course, in the case of men of humbler degree, money is even harder to recover. I may add, that my own long experience as a magistrate goes to confirm this statement. It is extraordinary to what meanness, subterfuge, and even perjury, a man will sometimes resort, in order to avoid paying so little as 1s. 6d. a week towards the keep of his own child. Often the line of defence is a cruel attempt to blacken the character of the mother, even when the accuser ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... another message, which met with a similar answer; and then the Duke published far and wide through Christendom what he termed the perjury and bad faith of his rival; and proclaimed his intention of asserting his rights by the sword before the year should expire, and of pursuing and punishing the perjurer even in those places where he thought he stood most strongly ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... called the justices have to retire at least once for refreshments and cigarettes. I have to amuse myself by listening to the other cases, and some of them, I can assure you, are amusing enough. The walls of that room must be by this time pretty well saturated with perjury, and many of the witnesses catch at once the infection. Perhaps I may tell you some other time a few of the amusing incidents that I have seen there. At last my case is called. It is as clear as daylight, but the rascally ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... whole world! And though I scarcely take a French paper now-a-days (I lived in early days as groom in a French famly three years, and therefore knows the languidg), though, I say, you can't take up Jools's paper, the Orriflam, without readin that a minister has committed bribery and perjury, or that a littery man has committed perjury and murder, or that a Duke has stabbed his wife in fifty places, or some story equally horrible; yet for all that it's admiral to see how the French gents will swagger—how they ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... between Charles, Lord Gerard, and Alexander Fitton, of which a narrative was published at the Hague in 1665. Granger was a witness in the cause, and was afterwards said to be conscience-stricken from his perjury. Some notice of this case will be found in North's "Examen," p. 558; but the copious and interesting note in Ormerod's "History of Cheshire," Vol. iii., p. 291, will best satisfy the reader, who will not fail to be struck by the paragraph with which it is closed-viz., "It is not improbable that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the liar has to resort to additional sin in defending himself against his lying. One lie begets another lie to sustain it. Sometimes it calls forth an oath, a blasphemy, a curse, perjury, and other kinds of sin. Gehazi lied to Naaman concerning his master, and then to clear himself before his master he lied a second time (2 Kings v. 22, 25). Peter also lied in saying that he knew not Jesus, and to sustain himself in it, when discovered, he cursed and swore, and thus doubled ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... presence of the highest dignitaries, and sworn to on the most sacred relics, were frequently violated, and often with impunity. Neither excommunication nor public penance were latterly inflicted as an atonement for such perjury: a fine or offering to the Church was the easy and only mulct on the offender. When we see the safeguard of the Bishop of Cork so flagrantly disregarded by the assassins of Mahon, son of Kennedy, and the solemn peace of the year 1094 so readily broken by two such men as ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... man Who'll dare some novel venturesome conceit, Air, Zeus's chamber, or Time's foot, or this, 'Twas not my mind that swore: my tongue committed A little perjury on its own account. ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... required—that I will stand by them one and all in every emergency, and, if occasion require, will not hesitate to give false testimony in courts of justice, to clear them in suits at law, or in criminal prosecutions, choosing rather to brave the penalties of perjury than violate this my most solemn oath. And as I faithfully perform this my oath to the Order, in whole and in part, may I prosper; but if I willfully fail in anywise, to fulfill all that I have herein obligated myself to perform, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... or twice, but Whitlocke principally. Bradshaw, who was then a dying man, had appeared at one meeting, but only to protest that, "being now going to his God," he must leave his testimony against a compromise founded on perjury to the Republic. But on the 26th of October, after much consultation, the Council of State gave place to a new Supreme Executive, chosen by the Wallingford—House officers, and called The Committee of Safety. It consisted of twenty-three ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... exhibited; he would condemn to death the man who commits wilful homicide, whether by his own hand or by poison;[288] whereas the other Halakah allows it only in the former case. He who commits perjury also is to suffer capital punishment.[289] He adds a law which finds no place in the Palestinian tradition, making the exposure of children a capital crime.[290] Again, following the text of the Biblical law literally ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... he held in secret a contrary counsel with the Secretary Escovedo, Rhodus, Barlemont, and others, ministers of the Spanish tyranny, formerly practised, and now again intended. But let us now see the effect and end of this perjury and of all other the Duke's cruelties. First, for himself, after he had murdered so many of the nobility; executed (as aforesaid) eighteen thousand and six hundred in six years, and most cruelly slain ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... demonstrations with the "sword of the spirit." Professors of the theological seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, swear to defend certain dogmas and to attack others. They swear sacredly to keep and guard the ignorance they have. With them, philosophy leads to perjury, and reason is the road to crime. While theological professors are not likely to make an intellectual discovery, still it is unwise, by taking an oath, to render that certain which ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... was my meaning," replied the chief. "If they ask why I did not slip away from Pharaoh and escape his power, say that Hosea desired to enter on his new office as a true man, unstained by perjury or, if it is the will of God, to die one. Now repeat ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... must take an oath to that effect. After which, you shall know what it's for. Enough now to say it's a thing that needs swearing upon. If there's to be treason, there shall be perjury also. Are you ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... which Love's beauteous empress most delights, 300 Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel, Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil. Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn; For thou, in vowing chastity, hast sworn To rob her name and honour, and thereby Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury, Even sacrilege against her deity, Through regular and formal purity. To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands: Such sacrifice as this Venus demands." 310 Thereat she smil'd, and did deny him so, As put[18] thereby, yet might he hope for mo; Which makes him quickly reinforce his speech, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... with the Maid apart in a recess, the great hall being full of the Court and followers; so that this was strictly true.) Asked further, if she saw a crown over the head of her King when she showed him this sign, but replied: "I cannot answer you without perjury." Asked further if her King had a crown when he was at Rheims, answered, that in her opinion her King had a crown which he found at Rheims, but a very fine one was afterwards brought for him. He did this to hasten matters, at the desire of ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... speech to "salve" their "perjury" (IV, iii, 309-383) the moral of the piece? If so why should not the Play end here? How does Berowne's final speech in this Act foreshadow the conclusion of ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke

... Madame Delphine, swears Olive is not her child, that she may secure the girl's legal marriage with a white man who loves her honorably. On the afternoon of the marriage-day, when the wedded pair have taken their departure, Madame Delphine seeks her confessor, owns the perjury, receives absolution, and falls dead in the confessional.—George W. Cable, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, the calls upon Miss De Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately been frequent, perjury having declined in the Monterey market, through excessive and injudicious supply, until the line of demarcation between it and absolute verity was so finely drawn that Victor Garcia had remarked that "he might as well tell the truth at once and ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... daughter's confession of shame, any more than his soul was moved to tenderness and warmth for her honest rescue of Joe Newbolt from his overhanging peril. He was voluble in his declarations that they would "put the screws" to Ollie on the charge of perjury. Sim would have kept his own mouth sealed under like circumstances, and it was beyond him to understand why his daughter had less discretion than her parent. So he bore down on the solemn declaration that she stood face to face with ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... learning all his own, of the corruption and 'vampire oppression of Oxford'; its sacrifice of the public interests to private advantage; its unhallowed disregard of every moral and religious bond; the systematic perjury so naturalised in a great seminary of religious education; the apathy with which the injustice was tolerated by the state and the impiety tolerated by the church. Copleston made a wretched reply, but more than twenty years passed before the spirit of reform ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... carried out in practice with vigorous elbowings, cuffings, and pinchings. The weaker must yield to the stronger. Where physical strength—which here is the power of money, of property—does not suffice, the most cunning and unworthy means are resorted to. Lying, swindle, deceit, forgery, perjury—the very blackest crimes are often committed in order to reach the coveted object. As in this struggle for existence one individual transgresses against the other, the same happens with class against class, sex against sex, age against age. Profit is the sole regulator of human ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... to sell the place to me for ten thousand dollars cash," the father stated. "He's no fool—and he's a bad customer, Charlie; he said he would send me to prison for perjury if I tried to ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... Jove is king! Now have we carnage foul, And wreckful seas, and countless ways to die. Nay! spare me, Father Jove, for on my soul Nor perjury, nor words blaspheming lie. ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... legally compelled to swear to the accuracy of his statement, and if it is found that he has knowingly sworn to a false statement, he may be brought to task for perjury. ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun

... recent armed enemies of the country, or confiscate their property? No. It simply ordains that the national debt shall be paid and the Rebel debt repudiated; that the civil rights of all persons shall be maintained; that Rebels who have added perjury to treason shall be disqualified for office; and that the Rebel States shall not have their political power in the Union increased by the presence on their soil of persons to whom they deny political rights, but that representation shall be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... upon any man to accuse himself, is only to call upon him to commit perjury, and has therefore been always accounted irrational and wicked: in those countries where it is practised, the confession is extorted by the rack, which indeed is so necessary on such occasions, that I should not wonder to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... treachery, fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, and unprovoked murder.—He offered to make out that those who have led in that business had conducted themselves with the utmost perfidy to their colleagues in function, and with the most flagrant perjury both towards their king and their constituents: to the one of whom the Assembly had sworn fealty; and to the other, when under no sort of violence or constraint, they had sworn a full obedience to instructions.—That, by the terror of assassination, they had driven away a very great number of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of law its appropriate fine, but breaches of etiquette were expiated in a similar manner. False news was hardly treated: 13 shillings 4 pence was exacted for that [Pipe Roll, 12 Henry Third] and perjury [Ibidem, 16 ib] alike, while wounding an uncle cost a sovereign, and a priest might be slain for the easy price of 4 shillings 9 pence [Ibidem, 27 ib]. The Prior of Newburgh was charged three marks for ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... sounds, without any meaning at all. And besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every proposition: though at the same time I think he cannot with any justice be taxed for perjury, when he invokes God and Christ, because he has often fairly given public notice to the world, that he believes ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... later—after I had got my breath and had found some excuse. That wasn't enough? Ah, I see that you are all models of courage and magnanimity. You would have laid yourselves open to every reproach rather than let a little necessary perjury pass your lips. But I am no model. I am simply an old man who has been too hardly dealt with for seventy long years to possess every virtue. I made a mistake—I see it now—trusted a dog when I shouldn't—but if Rudge had not seen ghosts—well, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... not have been executed with more rigour than it has been on the perjury, treachery, and usurpations of the French. I hope Mr.-Pitt will not leave them at the next treaty an opportunity of committing so many national crimes again. How they or we can make a peace, I don't see; can we give all back, or they give all up? No, they must come hither; they have nothing left ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... toward Renaud. She accused him, and it brought about a little quarrel between Miss Jierdon and young Houston. I had forced her, by devious ways, to pretend that she was in love with him—keeping that perjury thing hanging over her all the time and constantly harping on how, even though he was a nice young fellow, he was robbing us both of something that was rightfully ours. All this time, I had dodged marrying her, promising that ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... he ought to have been at play, that father, bent and heavy-eyed with unceasing toil, flung back the charge with the bitter reproach that we gave him no other choice, that it was either the street or the shop for his boy, and that perjury for him was cheaper than the ruin of the child, we were mute. What, indeed, was there to say? The crime was ours, not his. That was seven years ago. Once since then have we been where we could count the months to ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... the cause is decided. But if any perjurer or false witness laid his hand thereon, immediately it was wont to pour forth water, and the holiness of Patrick openly showed unto all how accursed was the crime of perjury or of false testimony; yet at any other time it did not use to exude one drop, but always remained in its natural dryness. Which opinion of the people, however, as to this stone, is the more probable, we know not, though the latter may seem the nearer unto the truth. Let it suffice, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... Peace Resolutions, set out with a statement dissevering the Association from the Nation newspaper. If the statement were embodied in a resolution of expulsion, it would clash directly with the failure of the prosecution against it, and brand the jurors who refused to find a verdict with perjury. But the admission of the Nation that, in 1843, it inculcated principles having a remote tendency to effect the redemption of the country, by arms if need were, supplied the Association with a pretext for expelling ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... mildly. The Prescotts might have sued your father for a round sum in damages for false arrest. And, if you and Bayliss had sworn falsely as to the nature and causes of the fight, you might both have been sent away to the reformatory on charges of perjury. Remember that the law against false swearing applies to boys as much as it does to men. And now, good day, Mr. Dodge. I trust you will be able to convince your son ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... the family of plagues That waste our vitals. Peculation, sale Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds By forgery, by subterfuge of law, By tricks and lies, as numerous and as keen As the necessities their authors feel; Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat At the right door. Profusion is its sire. ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... name is, will you?" Mr. Skimpin, in propounding this inquiry, inclining his head on one side and listening with great sharpness for the answer, "as if to imply that he rather thought Mr. Winkle's natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him." Giving in, absurdly, his surname only; and being asked immediately afterwards, if possible still more absurdly, by the Judge, "Have you any Christian name, sir?" the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... you say that you have not legislated personal virtue in America?" he asked. "You have laws, I believe, against theft and murder, and slander and incest, and perjury and drunkenness?" ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... invaded and searched. No hearth was safe from intrusion. The negro could not testify in his own behalf. It was practically impossible to counteract the oath or affidavit of the pretended master, and a premium was practically put upon perjury. The pursuit of slaves became a regular business, and its operation was often indescribably horrible. These cruelties were emphasized chiefly in the presence of those who were known to be averse to slavery in any form, and they could not escape ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... a law of the Decalogue itself. There can be little doubt that the third commandment is quoted and criticised by our Lord, in this discourse. That commandment forbids, not chiefly profanity, but perjury; by implication it permits judicial oaths. And Jesus expressly forbids judicial oaths. "Swear not at all." I am aware that this is not the usual interpretation of these words, but I believe that it is the only meaning that the words will bear. Not ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... Tariff of Indulgences," which went through more than forty editions. The least delicate ears would be offended by an enumeration of all the horrors it contains. Incest, if not detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known. There was a stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, &c. Polygamy cost six ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine; murder, eight; ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... it with utter penitence and shame. I knew that he would come again; I knew His feet would bring him, though his soul rebelled; I knew that cheated heart of his would toy With the seductive chains that gave it thrall, And strive to reconcile its perjury With its own conscience of the better way, By fabrication of ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... neither good Republicans nor good Frenchmen. From the moment it was enacted and executed, the Republic ceased to be a national government. It was a coup d'etat and not a legal act, and every legislator who voted for it committed perjury at least as distinctly as the author of the coup d'etat of 1851. Could such a law possibly have ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... $400,000 to unmask the Claimant and drive him out; and even after the exposure multitudes of Englishmen still believed in him. It cost the British Government another $400,000 to convict him of perjury; and after the conviction the same old multitudes still believed in him; and among these believers were many educated and intelligent men; and some of them had personally known the real Sir Roger. The Claimant was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... take the cup from my people, and give it in their stead to me." And there was a whisper around me like the word "Amen." Such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution all. However, none of those dead whom I saw, fell on the 15th of March. They were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of March. The anniversary of our Revolution has not the stain of a single drop ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... consider, that rash and vain swearing is very apt often to bring the practiser of it into that most horrible sin of perjury. For "false swearing," as the Hebrew wise man saith, "naturally springeth out of much swearing:" and, "he," saith St. Chrysostom, "that sweareth continually, both willingly and unwillingly, both ignorantly and knowingly, both in earnest and in sport, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... arose the noise, the clatter, the swearing, the lying, the perjury, the cheating, the crowd, the bustle, the hurry, the rush, the heat, the ardour, the impatience, the hope, the terror, the rapture, the agony of the race. Directly the first heat was over, one asked me one thing, one bellowed another; I fled to Lord Chester, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to "do away with this inquiring into a man's religious opinions. He desired to keep it out of the Constitution. It was the fear of the penalties of perjury that restrained men from stating what was ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh

... filled with the things they love best. They may take in pleasure through every aperture, through eye and ear, nostril and palate; nor are the claims of Aphrodite forgotten. The turbid stream surges everlastingly through our streets; avarice, perjury, adultery,—all tastes are represented. Under that rush of waters, modesty, virtue, uprightness, are torn from the soul; and in their stead grows the tree of perpetual thirst, whose flowers are ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... which Mark dreaded most the taking of the oath before the Registrar. He had managed with the help of subtle High Church divines to persuade himself that he could swear he assented to the Thirty-nine Articles without perjury. Nevertheless he wished that he was not bound to take that oath, and he was glad that the sense in which the Thirty-nine Articles were to be accepted was left to the discretion of him who took the oath. Of one thing Mark was positive. He was assuredly not assenting to those ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... hundred, by the thousand without any warrant whatever, sometimes without even any written authority whatever, or anything beyond the word of a policeman, constantly without any statement whatever of the nature of the offense. Charges were fabricated to get rid of inconvenient persons. Perjury and forgery were resorted to in order to establish charges, and the whole mode of conducting trials ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... we begun to know each of us could depend on the other when we were in a pinch, up to his last dollar, word of honor or perjury, bullet, or drop of blood we had in the world. We never even spoke of it to each other, because that would have spoiled it. But we tried it out, time after time, until we came to know. I've grabbed my hat and jumped ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... am inclined to think, that children accustomed to use such expressions on every trifling occasion, will, when they grow to riper years, pay very little respect to the sanctity of an oath. It is, perhaps, one of the reasons why we hear of so much perjury in the present day. At all events, little children cannot avoid hearing such expressions, not only from those who are rather older than themselves, but, I am sorry to say, even from their parents. I have known repeated instances of this kind. Many little ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... six men, whose names were John Derby, alias Wright, a bowyer, Richard Smyth, a carpenter, William Sympson, a fuller, Henry Stokton, a fishmonger, Thomas Yong, a saddler, and Robert Jakes, a shearman—all of whom had more than once been convicted of perjury, and on that account been struck off inquests—had contrived to get themselves replaced on the panel, and had been the chief movers in the recent actions against the late mayor and other officers of the city. They had, moreover, taken bribes for concealment of offences of forestalling and regrating. ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... 'An' I wish you joy av the perjury,' sez she, duckin' a curtsey. 'You've lost a woman that would ha' wore her hand to the bone for your pleasure; an' 'deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped....' Lascelles must ha' spoken plain to her. 'I am such as Dinah is—'deed I am! Ye've lost a fool av a girl that'll niver look ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... address my self to you, as a Person of more remarkable Moderation than ordinary in your Letter to Dr. Rogers: And one, who had, long before, in your Defence of the Constitution in Church and State; in answer to the Charge of the Nonjurors, accusing us of Heresy and Schism, Perjury and Treason, "valu'd [142] and commended the Integrity of the Nonjurors in declaring their Sentiments:" and who, tho you justly charge those of them you write against, "as attacking us with such uncommon Marks of Violence [143] as most plainly intimate, ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... necessary that the laws should not be altered, but that the duty should not fluctuate. To effect this all duties should be specific wherever the nature of the article is such as to admit of it. Ad valorem duties fluctuate with the price and offer strong temptations to fraud and perjury. Specific duties, on the contrary, are equal and uniform in all ports and at all times, and offer a strong inducement to the importer to bring the best article, as he pays no more duty upon that than upon one of inferior quality. I therefore ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... suggested in his behalf that the wife had purloined it some time before, and had suddenly produced it when she came to her husband's apartments in Surrey Street. If that could be proved, then the woman had been guilty of perjury, and her evidence would collapse altogether. Now there were some portions of her evidence which were most unsatisfactory. She had led a dissolute life, and was cursed with an ungovernable temper. But, on the other hand, she had told a consistent tale as to the occurrences of that fatal afternoon, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... and two of his three witnesses were on guard that day, and could not have been at drill, even if there had been one. To some it might appear that the slight inconsistencies existing between the sworn testimony of those cadets and the official record of the Academy, savored somewhat of perjury, but they succeeded in explaining the matter by saying that 'Cadet Beacom only made a mistake in date.' Of course he did; how could it be otherwise? It was necessary to explain it in some way so that I might be proved a liar to the corps ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... fixed. Don Juan Tenorio was indeed a Spaniard of his age, a man of turbulent instincts, with a love of adventure and a fine contempt for danger, of an overwhelming pride; careful of his own honour, and careless of that of others. He looked upon every woman as lawful prey and hesitated at neither perjury nor violence to gain his ends; despair and tears left him indifferent. Love for him was purely carnal, with nothing of the timid flame of pastoral romance, nor of the chivalrous and metaphysic passion of Provence; it was a fierce, consuming fire which quickly burnt itself out. He was ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... reach me, thumped me and mauled me. I was horrified to realize all of a sudden that those who had made most of me had always envied me in secret; that, to a man, they hated me; that each and all would use every effort to ensure my ruin; that I had to face perjury, unanimous perjury, gushing from an abundant well- head of malignity, spite, and enmity. My valet alone seemed on my side, and he could ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... lady then explained the whole mystery of Monimia's death, as a stratagem she had concerted with the clergyman and doctor, in order to defeat the pernicious designs of Fathom, who seemed determined to support his false pretensions by dint of perjury and fraud, which they would have found it very difficult to elude. She observed, that the physician had actually despaired of Monimia's life, and it was not till after she herself was made acquainted with the prognostic, that she wrote ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... dreamer. If you are banished to foreign lands, death will be your portion at an early date. To banish a child, means perjury of business allies. It is a ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... During 1888 and 1889 a malignant and unprecedented inquisition was maintained to vilify them, backed by all the resources of British power. No war then raged to breed alarms, yet no weapon that perjury or forgery could fashion was left unemployed to destroy the characters of more than eighty National representatives—some of whom survive to join in this Address. That plot came to an end amidst the confusion of their persecutors, but fresh accusations may be daily contrived and ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... opinion destitute of a show of reason. It was impossible to deny that Roman Catholic casuists of great eminence had written in defence of equivocation, of mental reservation, of perjury, and even of assassination. Nor, it was said, had the speculations of this odious school of sophists been barren of results. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the murder of the first William of Orange, the murder of Henry the Third of France, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... misfortune, within a certain time (at once, in seven days, in a fortnight, or even half a year) happen to the one that has sworn, he will be guilty. This oath-test is also employed in the case of witnesses at court, perjury being indicated by the subsequent misfortune ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... eloquent and pious young minister, taught that each person should think for himself in all religious matters, and be responsible to his own conscience alone. He declared that the magistrates had, therefore, no right to punish blasphemy, perjury, or Sabbath-breaking. The clergy and magistrates were alarmed at what they considered a doctrine dangerous to the peace of the colony, and he was ordered (1635) to be sent to England. It was in the depth of winter, yet he fled to the forest and found refuge among the Indians. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... principles apart from all personal partakers in it,—we may and we must ponder. Now in this respect, if these views of our national oaths be just, our present Rebellion has not been merely treasonable, but its cradle-wrappings, its very swaddling-bands, have been manifold layers of perjury,—its infancy has been "clad with cursing as with a garment."[*] Can a jealous God consolidate and perpetuate a ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... I have known in your parlor, is really Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her secret kindness? That rigid lady would commit a perjury to deny one of her own good actions. Young Kranich has written her a letter confessing his lies. Don't you know? The very same day when you were determined to fight him in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;" and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared, that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being under the standard of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... called idols. Shall we not then call the ceremonies idols, which are observed with the neglecting of God's commandments, and which are advanced above many substantial points of religion? Idolatry, blasphemy, profanation of the Sabbath, perjury, adultery, &c., are overlooked, and not corrected nor reproved, nay, not so much as discountenanced in those who favour and follow the ceremonies; and if in the fellows and favourites, much more in the fathers. What if order be taken with some of those abominations ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie



Words linked to "Perjury" :   lying under oath, misdemeanour, infringement, subornation of perjury



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