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Butchery   /bˈʊtʃəri/   Listen
Butchery

noun
1.
A building where animals are butchered.  Synonyms: abattoir, shambles, slaughterhouse.
2.
The business of a butcher.  Synonym: butchering.
3.
The savage and excessive killing of many people.  Synonyms: carnage, mass murder, massacre, slaughter.






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"Butchery" Quotes from Famous Books



... meeting that night at the throne of Heavenly Grace;—yet waiting for the light of the holy Sabbath that they may see how most surely to destroy one another! And yet the masses of these have no ill feeling. It is human butchery, at the bidding of arch-conspirators. Upon them be all the blood shed! A ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... if they lifted their eyes at all to look at the ghastly procession, they dropped 'em agin quick as they could so's not to delay their work of signin' licenses, makin' new laws, fixin' over old ones, and writin' permits to the murderers to go on with their butchery. Queer sight! queer in the sight of other nations, in the sight of men and angels, and of ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... he did, feeling every heart throb, living and suffering as John Danton was supposed to be living and suffering, Phillips was nearly distracted. To him this was a wanton butchery of his finest work. He interrupted, at last, in a heart-sick, hopeless tone which sorely offended ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... man; he was stamped under foot, his face and chest were beaten in. Ever and anon, in the midst of furious cries of "Death to the poisoner!" heavy blows were audible, followed by stifled groans. It was a frightful butchery. Each individual, yielding to a sanguinary frenzy, came in turn to strike his blow; or to tear off his morsel of flesh. Women—yes, women—mothers!—came to spend their rage ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... observe the steps by which, were it only through impulses of self-conservation, and when searching with a view to more effectual destructiveness, war did and must refine itself from a horrid trade of butchery into a magnificent and enlightened science. Starting from no higher impulse or question than how to cut throats most rapidly, most safely, and on the largest scale, it has issued even at our own stage of advance into a science, magnificent, oftentimes ennobling, and cleansed ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... one party drove the other, as if by accident, toward the fort. The soldiers were attracted to watch the game. At length the ball was thrown over the pickets, and the Indians jumping after it, began the terrible butchery. The commander, Major Henry, writing in his room, heard the war-cry and the shrieks of the victims, and rushing to his window beheld the savage work of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. Amid untold perils he himself escaped. At ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... and faced him, valiantly as ever: "It is true; I abhor it, because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply because I am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why cannot nations adjust ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... was encamped at the Falls of St. Anthony, and a smaller party encamped on the St. Croix, on their way home, without the least suspicion of treachery on the part of the Sioux. While they were thus peaceably encamped, they were surprised by the Sioux, who commenced their butchery. They immediately rallied, but before the battle terminated the Chippewas lost one hundred and fifty at the Falls and twenty on the St. Croix. The number of Sioux killed on the occasion amounted to about fifty. We do not much wonder at the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... know with whom you have to deal!" she continued, with the same bitter emphasis. "You terrified me with stories of butchery—the butchery of innocent women and children; and no doubt you thought the stories were fine; and now you too would show you are one of the race by taking revenge on a woman. But if she is only a woman, you have not conquered her yet! Oh, you will find out before long that ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... soldiers burst open the door, and found from two to three hundred women, children, and old men engaged in prayer; and proceeded to put them to the sword. But the marshal, impatient at the slowness of the butchery, ordered the men to desist and to fire the place. This order was obeyed, and the building, being for the most part of wood, was soon wrapped in flames, from amidst which rose the screams of women and children. All who tried ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... their near relations were placed in the position of having to fight for lawful supremacy and even for life? I think this might be trying to their faith in theoretic and sentimental government. But the question might be made more impressive still by devoting a chapter to the hideous butchery which horrified creation when the news came of the mutiny of the Flowery Land and the Caswell. I should like people who are so deadly virtuous as to repudiate self-preservation to picture the decks of these two vessels washed in human ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... enter into details of this matter; of the second rising which preceded it; of the dead blank which followed it; of the heartless and disgusting cruelty which made the prisoners death a foregone conclusion at his mock trial; or of the deeds worse than butchery which characterized the last scene. Still, before quitting the revolting subject, there is one point that deserves remark, as it seems to illustrate the feeling entertained by the leaders themselves. On the night of the murder the body was interred in a very deep hole which had been ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... Paris, but he was forced by Marcel and his party to grant some urgent reforms, and a Committee of National Defence was organised by the trade guilds and the provost, who became virtually dictator of Paris. Marcel's rule was however stained by the butchery of the Marshal of Champagne and the Duke of Normandy before the very eyes of the Dauphin in the palace of the Cite, who, horrified, fled to Compiegne to rally the nobles. During the ensuing anarchy the poor, dumb, starving serfs of France, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... cause, provided the fighter come out conqueror; and many a poet praises only that right which is might over-trampling weakness. I have heard the withered hag of an Indian camp chant as spirited war-song as your minstrels of butchery; but the strange thing of it is, that the people, who have taken the sword in a wantonness of conquest, are the races that have been swept from the face of the earth like dead leaves before the winter blast; but the people, who have held immutably by ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... treachery from within. Alphege, the good old archbishop, was obliged to witness the savagery of the Danes when they burst through the gates and began a horrible slaughter, which included the monks of Christ Church, and it is said that about 7,000 Saxons perished. Not content with all this butchery, they burnt the cathedral. Archbishop Alphege was carried off by the victorious Danes, who at Greenwich gave way to drunken excesses, and in brutal fashion killed their prisoner. The body was brought from London, where it had been buried, ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home

... the time of the horrible butchery of the Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more fortunate than most poetical predictions. The independence of the Greek nation which it foretold, has come to pass, and the massacre, by inspiring a deeper detestation of their oppressors, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... bloody act is done,— The most arch deed of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of. Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn To do this piece of ruthless butchery, Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, Melted with tenderness and mild compassion, Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story. "O, thus," quoth Dighton, "lay the gentle babes,"— "Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, "girdling ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... the right under Eugene, and the left under the Prince of Orange, met on the heights in the French rear, and several volleys were exchanged between there, before the error was discovered, and, by great exertions of their respective commanders, the useless butchery was stopped. To prevent a repetition of such disasters orders were given to the whole troops to halt where they stood, and to this precaution many owed their safety as it was impossible in the darkness to distinguish friend from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... persecution of the new steam whalers. The walrus is exterminated everywhere in Labrador except in the north. The seals are diminishing. Every year the hunters are better supplied with better implements of butchery. The catch is numbered by the hundreds of thousands, and this only for one fleet in one place at one season, when the Newfoundlanders come up the St. Lawrence at the end of the winter. The woodland ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... a prodigious slaughter, a mad scene of butchery, in which the Indians exulted like fiends. Late in the afternoon they returned to camp, stained with blood and loaded with the spoils of the chase. Snoqualmie distinguished himself by killing a large bear, and its claws, newly ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... this announcement, I return[ed] to London sorrowing. Although my lodging was not far distant from the place of execution, yet I could not become an eye-witness to the butchery of such an illustrious lady, and of the exalted personages who were beheaded along with her.—(Foreign ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... and the deadly English fire, their sails torn, their masts shot away, the crowded galleons had become mere slaughter-houses. Four thousand men had fallen, and bravely as the seamen fought, they were cowed by the terrible butchery. Medina himself was in despair. "We are lost, Senor Oquenda," he cried to his bravest captain; "what are we to do?" "Let others talk of being lost," replied Oquenda, "your Excellency has only to order up fresh cartridge." But Oquenda stood alone, and a council of war resolved on ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... work of butchery was going on, numbers were observed pushing off in the barks that lined the shore, and making the best of their way across the lake. They were constantly intercepted by the brigantines, which broke the flimsy array of boats, sending off their volleys to the right and left as the crews of the latter ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... committee through whom was transacted all their public business, and through whose hands passed all their correspondence with their agent in London, and having in our possession several documents relating to the before mentioned brutal butchery, we deem it a duty we owe to our murdered countrymen and fellow-citizens in general ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... not believe," says Captain Furneaux, "that this butchery was premeditated on the part of the natives, for in the morning Mr. Rowe said that he observed two vessels pass us, and remain all the forenoon in sight of the ship. The bloodshed was most likely the result of a quarrel ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... Whitworth, and in presence of La Corne and other Canadian officers, as well as of a French guard stationed within forty feet of the spot; and, declares the surgeon under oath, "none, either officer or soldier, protected the said wounded men."[522] The opportune butchery relieved them of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... his vassal, could not conscientiously make war. He had refused to take this oath because it might impose upon him the necessity of surrendering his friends and relations, his children, nay, even his wife, who was a Lutheran, to butchery. According to it, moreover, he must lend himself to every thing which it should occur to the king's fancy or passion to demand. But the king might thus exact from him things which he shuddered even to think of, and even the severities which were now, and had been ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... could bear this scene no longer; while we were alive to prevent it, this butchery should not be per- mitted, and we rushed forward simultaneously to snatch the victim from his murderers. A furious struggle ensued, and in the midst of the melee, I was seized by one of the sailors, and hurled violently ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... He had been very cold and sweatingly hot, furiously hungry with no meal to satisfy his healthy appetite, madly thirsty and no long drink attainable; unable to sleep for three nights at a time owing to the noise of the bombardment; surfeited with horrible smells; sickened with butchery; shocked at his own failures to retrieve life, yet encouraged by an isolated victory, here and there, over death and disablement. So the never-before-appreciated comfort of his Park Crescent home filled him with intense ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... a good deal like butchery, and Colin felt a little uncomfortable. Moreover, he was not hardened to the odor arising from the blubber of the seal. He beat ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... human affairs through ten generations, and the force of whose labors, whether those labors were blindly or rationally wrought, is apparently as unspent as it was on that day on which, having provided for the butchery of the noblest of his servants, he fell into his final sleep. At the head of these philosophic writers, and so far ahead of them as to leave them all out of sight, is Mr. James Anthony Froude, whose "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" has been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... through which the besiegers sought to enter. But the worst was over there too. Fink came to meet them, the bloody axe of an insurgent in his hand, and, flinging it away, he cried to Anton and his party, "Put new boards into the windows. I hope the butchery is at an end." ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... the homely narratives of the Indian wars in New England, there is a touching account of the desolation carried into the tribe of the Pequod Indians. Humanity shrinks from the coldblooded detail of indiscriminate butchery. In one place we read of the surprisal of an Indian fort in the night, when the wigwams were wrapped in flames, and the miserable inhabitants shot down and slain in attempting to escape, "all being dispatched and ended in the course of an hour." After a series of similar ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... French, was so often attacked with fire-arms and infernal-machines that one becomes dizzy in thinking of his escapes. Napoleon III. has been in great peril from assassins. Orsini's attempt to kill was a terrible piece of butchery, causing the death or mutilation of many persons, resembling in that respect the result of Fieschi's attempt to murder Louis Philippe. Had Orsini's attempt proved as successful as Booth's, it is probable that there never would have been a Secession War in this country. The Rebels counted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... should live in the wilderness, and die there by natural process, after having had more education in God's loving care, than that they should be driven unwillingly to a conflict which, in their state of mind, would have been but their butchery. None the less, it is an awful condemnation for a man to be brought by God's providence face to face with a great possibility of service and of blessing, and then to show himself such that God has to put him aside, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... maddened by fanaticism, it seemed that to waylay and murder the King and his brother was the shortest and surest way of vindicating the Protestant religion and the liberties of England. A place and a time were named; and the details of the butchery were frequently discussed, if not definitely arranged. This scheme was known but to few, and was concealed with especial care from the upright and humane Russell, and from Monmouth, who, though not a man of delicate ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the tow with which they light their cigars. The life of the courier was saved by one of them, who had formerly been his postillion; he was, however, robbed and stripped. As we passed by the scene of the butchery, the poor fellow wept, and, though a Spaniard, cursed Spain and the Spaniards, saying that he intended shortly to pass over to the Moreria, to confess Mahomet, and to learn the law of the Moors, for that any country and religion were better than his ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... sake of the mercy which we daily pray for," said the kind hearted old King to the Duke of Albany, "let this be ended! Wherefore should these wretched rags and remnants of humanity be suffered to complete their butchery? Surely they will now be ruled, and accept ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... trees, his homely audience stood silent and spellbound. Many of his hearers had seen with their own eyes horrors that compared with the infamous butchery at Schenectady almost a hundred years ago. Doubtless that was what fascinated ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... the body of the living animal, and losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood. ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... in South America. All of these wars, great and small, are probable; most of them are humanly certain. They will be fought ferociously, and with the aid of destructive engines of the utmost efficiency. They will bring about an unparalleled butchery of men, and a large proportion of these men will be under forty ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... "Do you know that old gentleman across the aisle?" "No," replied I. He told me he was no less a personage than Mr Jefferson Davis, Ex-president of the Confederate States of America. Instantly my mind was involuntarily set a-thinking about the American Civil War, and its four years of human butchery—all brought about by this man in front of me who was now coolly listening to the word of God! However, the service was over, and the Volunteers filed out of the church and marched to the strains of their drum and fife band, which played rollicking ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... blood; why should that dark place be like a charnel house or a butcher's shambles; why, from all the trees around, should there be hanging the rotting carcases, not of goats and horses merely, but of MEN, sacrificed to Thor and Odin, the thunder and the wind? Why that butchery, why those works of darkness in the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... our Maratist observed, that "this want of food would best defend those counties from Scottish invasion!"[331] The slaughter of Drogheda by Cromwell, and his frightening all London by what Walker calls "a butchery of apprentices," when he cried out to his soldiers, "to kill man, woman, and child, and fire the city!"[332] may be placed among those crimes which are committed to open a reign of terror—but Hugh Peters's solemn thanksgiving to Heaven that "none were ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... could not pray, one would not like to see the service of God rendered in a building that had been thus bespattered with blood. S. Nazaire is later. It was almost wholly rebuilt in the fourteenth century, and within it one can forget the horrors of that hateful siege and butchery. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... he said, as he rose and took up his hat, "it will not be a war. If your people resist, it will be a butchery. Better to find yourself in one of the Baroness' castles in Austria when that time comes! It is never worth while to draw a sword in a lost cause. I wish you good night, Baroness. I wish you ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a visit to Denonville, who had lately arrived with his wife and family. At four o'clock in the morning, the troops in this encampment heard a cannon-shot from one of the forts. They were at once ordered under arms. Soon after, they saw a man running towards them, just escaped from the butchery. He told his story, and passed on with the news to Montreal, six miles distant. Then several fugitives appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois, who gave over the pursuit at sight of the soldiers, but pillaged several houses before their eyes. The day ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... first language of nations. The Lyric Muse has especially chosen the land of natural sublimity, of mountain and of flood; and such scenes she has only abandoned when the inhabitants have sacrificed their national liberties. Edward I., who massacred the Minstrels of Wales, might have spared the butchery, as their strains were likely to fall unheeded on the ears of their subjugated countrymen. The martial music of Ireland is a matter of tradition; on the first step of the invader the genius of chivalric ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... been no economy with regard to the sacrifices, your Majesty. I have ordered sacrifices to be made to High Heaven of one hundred dogs, sacrifice of one hundred horses to the Sun, and of one hundred cats to the Moon. (Aside.) I, for my own part, Heaven knows, expect nothing from this Imperial butchery except sausages ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller

... "Butchery? It seems to amount to about that. Poor beggars! But war is war," Mr. Howland tapped the rail with his finger by way of emphasis, "and those who attempt to overthrow governments generally do either one of two things: they succeed, or they pay the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... ferocity, which seem to stain religious wars above every other. It was in vain Navarro called them off. They returned like bloodhounds to the slaughter, and never slackened, till at last, wearied with butchery, and gorged with the food and wine found in the houses, they sunk down to sleep promiscuously in the streets ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... only one thing to do. My sergeant called out: "Look out, sir! We'll be seen in a minute. What will we do?" The contest was short and sharp; they outnumbered us, but we went to it with a will. It was sheer butchery, but I had rather send a thousand of the swine down to the fatherland than lose one of my boys. And perhaps it was charity to some wife and daughter who would now be free from the brutality of her ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... at the end of this butchery, and ordered the women who were still alive to get up, and shouted to ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... storm, the soldiers become maddened and behave sometimes like demons, the lives of peaceful people are never menaced. Soldiers fight against soldiers, and not against quiet traders or cultivators of the ground. To me all that has been done to-day is nothing short of a murderous butchery, and to-morrow I would much more willingly join in a charge on the rabble who have done these things than upon the French soldiers, who are for the most part honest fellows and have injured no one since they came into the town, though they ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... beast. 'Many hands make light work,' so the crowd soon had the dead animal extricated, rolled him into the creek, and floated him down to the village, where we found them already beginning to hack and hew the flesh, completely spoiling the skin, and properly completing the butchery. We were terribly vexed that we were too late, but endeavoured to stop the stupid destruction that was going on. The body measured eleven feet three inches from the snout to the tail, and stood six feet nine. The horn was six and a half inches long, and the girth ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... enter a train of machinery alive and issue transformed into cans of preserved meat, sausages, lard, and rolled hams. I am reminded of these establishments because the beetle I am about to speak of will show us a compatible celerity of butchery. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... wheresoever he went, the advantage was in favour of the Borderers. He was the champion of the field—the hero of the fight. The king gave a signal (perhaps because his young queen was horrified with the game of butchery), and at the command of the marshals the combatants on both sides laid down their arms. Reiterated shouts again rang from the spectators. Some clapped their hands and cried—"Eyemouth yet!"—"Wha's like Andrew!"—"We'll ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... thought of these poor beasts being killed. I managed to save their lives by proposing that I should give them to officers of the general staff in exchange for their worn out mounts, which I then sent to the butchery. These horses were later paid for by the state, on production of an order for their delivery. I have kept one of these orders as a curiosity; it bears the signature of General ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... were divinely inebriated, to seem without feeling in a mortal body?" She called for her brother, and said to him and Rusticus, "Continue firm in the faith, love one another, and be not scandalized at our sufferings." All the martyrs were now brought to the place of their butchery. But the people, not yet satisfied with beholding blood, cried out to have them brought into the middle of the amphitheatre, that they might have the pleasure of seeing them receive the last blow. Upon this, some of the martyrs rose up, and having given ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the big cowpuncher from the north, and that there was a call for fighting. What chance would he have in the dim and bewildering light of that moon against the surety of Sinclair who shot, he knew, as other men point the finger —instinctively hitting the target? It would be a mere butchery, not a battle. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... Romaine, calmly, "for I do not intend to survive this wholesale butchery, and did not, from the first. I was determined that Anderson should die, at all events. He won the pistol, for the coin fell with the tail uppermost. Had he stooped to examine it, I would have blown out his brains, just the same. But hark! the boarders and inmates of the house have been ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... violent French Revolutionary, originally a tragic actor, once hissed off the Lyons stage, "tearing a passion to rags"; had his revenge by a wholesale butchery there; marched 209 men across the Rhone to be shot; by-and-by was banished beyond seas to Cayenne, and soon ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... hulky volume full of facts. I was not able to procure all of his books. Anyone in Manila found in possession of one of them during Spanish rule, would have been taken to the ground selected for human butchery in the appointed place of festivity, and shot as he was, making a holiday for the rulers of the islands. He wrote two novels, "Touch Us Not" and "The Filibusters," the latter a sequel of the former. These are books using the weapons put into the hand of genius to smite oppressors in command ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... without a word or a sign from the apartment, I instantly followed. I suppose I must be at bottom possessed of some humanity; at least, this accumulated torture, this slow butchery of a man as by quarters of rock, had wholly changed my sympathies. At that moment I loathed both my uncle and the lawyer for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dudley North, brother of Lord Keeper North, was one of the sheriffs chosen by the Court party to pack juries. He was celebrated for his splendid house in Basinghall Street, and Macaulay tells us "that, in the days of judicial butchery, carts loaded with the legs and arms of quartered Whigs were, to the great discomposure of his lady, 'driven ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... concealment he hears Saint Bris unfold the plan of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which is to be carried out that night. The conspirators swear a solemn oath to exterminate the Huguenots, and their daggers are consecrated by attendant priests. Nevers alone refuses to take part in the butchery. When they all have left, Raoul comes out of his hiding-place, and in spite of the prayers and protestations of Valentine, leaps from the window at the sound of the fatal tocsin, and hastens to join his friends. In the last act, which is rarely performed in England, Raoul first warns ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... carried out. The redoubt becomes the scene of a huge massacre. In other parts of the field also the action almost ceases to be a battle, and takes the form of wholesale butchery by the thousand, now advantaging one side, now ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... course, Mercier laughed at the project, and made the projector ashamed of it.[98] Robespierre, rather fiend than man, now ruled the destinies of France. On the 7th of July, 1794, Mercier happened to be passing along the streets when he saw sixty-seven human beings about to undergo the butchery of the GUILLOTINE. Every avenue was crowded by spectators—who were hurrying towards the horrid spectacle. Mercier was carried along by the torrent; but, having just strength enough to raise his head, he looked up ... and beheld his old and intimate friend the ex-abbe ROGER ... in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... those among them who profess the Roman Religion have warning orders to remove for a time, so that all things now again seem to point to an exterminating onslaught on those most miserable creatures who were left over from that last butchery. That you will not allow this to be done I beseech and conjure you, Most Christian King, by that right hand of yours which sealed alliance and friendship with Us, by that most sacred ornament of the title of Most Christian; that you ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... shown the most heart-rending photographs portraying the butchery of the mother and the starvation of her little ones. He collected all the photographs that he could secure, had the most graphic text written to them, and began their publication. He felt certain that the mere publication of the frightfully ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... monarchy now is, in all human probability, lost. Many things invite to flight; but if the king fly, will there not be aristocrat Austrian invasion, butchery, replacement of feudalism, wars more than civil? The king desires to go to St. Cloud, but shall not; patriots will not let the horses go. But Count Fersen, an alert young Swedish soldier, has business on hand; has a new coach built, of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... Basil's eye, I flew to him and plied him with prayers and angry expostulations. All in vain; he beckoned Spira to lead me away as one should give over a petted but troublesome child to its nurse, and deliberately put a pistol to the old man's head. "Now, if this is not butchery, I don't know what is!" I heard John exclaim; and without a moment's hesitation, he snatched at the pistol and tried to wrest it from Basil's grasp. I could not see exactly what passed, but there was a moment's struggle, ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... past midnight, and after several heated discussions, that a relief party was finally organised; but when they got to the cathedral there was hardly anything to see, for the butchery was nearly over and the ruin completed. Several hundred native Roman Catholics had disappeared, only a few Boxers were seen and shot and a few ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... up from the butchery he had been at between decks, and seeing the captain still alive, he went close up to him and shot him, as he confessed, with a brace of bullets. What part he shot him in could not be known, though they said he had shot him in the head; however, he had yet life enough (though they ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... the outer side of the Elbe when this dreadful piece of butchery was done. The city of Magdeburg had a sconce or fort over against it called the toll-house, which joined to the city by a very fine bridge of boats. This fort was taken by the Imperialists a few days before, and having a mind to see it, and the rather because from thence I could have ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... accordingly established a special court for the speedy trial and condemnation of all those whose fidelity to Philip was suspected. This was popularly known as the Council of Blood, for its aim was not justice but butchery. Alva's administration from 1567 to 1573 was a veritable reign of terror. He afterwards boasted that he had slain eighteen thousand, but probably not more than a third of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... it had begun, the butchery was over. More than three thousand of the natives had died, and an unknown number more badly wounded. Those who had managed to get out and get away from the city kept on going. They told the troops who had been ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... "It's butchery, nothing short of Smithfield," said the ancient person definitely, rising and moving to a more remote distance as he spoke the words, yet never for a moment relaxing the aggressive angle at which he thrust out his staff before him. "You're ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... of atrocities, stories of the shooting of old men and the butchery of children by the wayside, stories of wounded men bayoneted or burnt alive, of massacres of harmless citizens, of looting and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... adultery and was demanded to be put to death. Her father took a solemn oath that she was innocent. Far from being content with this, the husband's kin began a fight and the matter ended in a wholesale butchery at the ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... had never done this! Would I had never tempted you in a fatal hour! Does not this butchery and eating of raw meat and rabbit's fur disgust you? Are you a monster in your soul as well as in your body? Have you forgotten what it is to ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett

... hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. Few succeeded in effecting their escape from what was little less than a general butchery. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... in readiness to justify the punishment of it. But, alas! in this case many hundreds were punished who had never been in rebellion, never thought of it, never knew it, were incapable of it. The vengeful spirit of their "High Mightinesses" in Batavia, was glutted to the throat. Butchery could not do her work more thoroughly. Not a drop of blood was left in Chinese veins to circulate disaffection, or boil in the agony of despairing hate. Extermination smiled in the gloom of Death,—merciful in this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... single soldier of his guard escaped into the woods. Challeux, chisel in hand, on his way to his work, swung himself over the palisade and ran like a boy. In the edge of the forest he and a few other fugitives paused and looked down upon the enclosure of the fort. It was a butchery. Some of the Huguenots in the woods decided to return and surrender rather than risk the terrors of the wilderness. The Spaniards, they said, were at least men. Six of them did return, and were cut down as they came. Pierre ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... shouted, in a clarion voice, "this is a butchery to-day; let us stop a moment, take a drink, and fill ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... arrows. It is true that the modern Lee-Enfield and Mauser claim to be the most precise and deadly weapons of destruction ever devised. But they were intended for proper, gentlemanly warfare, with the opposing sides set out in straight lines, a convenient distance apart. In the hand-to-hand butchery which calls itself war to-day, the rifle is rapidly becoming demode. For long ranges you require machine-guns; for short, bombs and hand-grenades. Can you empty a cottage by firing a single rifle-shot in at the door? Can you exterminate twenty Germans ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... to compel them to criminate friends. By scores they were daily consigned to the scaffold. Thirty executioners, with their assistants, found constant employment in beheading the condemned. In the middle of the town, the scaffold was raised for this butchery. The spot is still called "The Bloody ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest solicitude—had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spot—had then caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned away in the midst ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... commended for so refusing. Wherefore, excepting in this one thing—for which I ought not to be rebuked—I shall, I trust, in despite of slandor and falsehood, discover myself at all times a peaceable anl obedient subject. But if nothing will do, unless I make my conscience a continual butchery or slaughter-shop—unless, putting out mine own eyes, I commit myself to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some—I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... carrying his musket on the left arm. As soon as the women were close to the ambuscade, Higbee, who was in charge of the detachment, gave a signal, which had evidently been prearranged, by saying to his command, “Do your duty”; and the horrible butchery commenced. Most of the men were shot down at the first fire. Three only escaped from the valley; of these, two were quickly run down and slaughtered; the third was slain at Muddy Creek, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... began. Not only men in arms, but old men, women, and children were ruthlessly slaughtered, the wooden houses set on fire, the bridges broken down, and the throng of helpless people who sought to escape into the city driven ruthlessly into the waters of the Vistula. In this butchery not only ten thousand soldiers, but twelve thousand citizens of every age ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Mr. Clews all the tyrannies of the past, all the horrors that have afflicted the human race, all the sufferings which men have endured from sword and pestilence, from servitude, from the butchery of war and the cruelty of the Inquisition, have been right merely because they have been natural. Under this rule every monster that has tormented society from the first day until now can find full justification for itself on the simple ground that it exists! ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... since 'forty-four, when Opechancanough came down upon us. The brush with the Ricahecrians seven years ago was nothing. They are utterly broken, both here and in Accomac. Further up the rivers the devil still holds his own, we hearing doleful tales of the butchery of pioneers with their wives and children; and above the falls of the far west, in the Monacan country, and towards the Blue Mountains, is his stronghold and capitol; but here in the lowlands all's safe enough. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... relative to the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books, cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... bring to bear sent its missiles of death hurtling into the Union lines, the next charge to be made under cover of that cannonade. But probably even they had not calculated upon such a reply as was given by the artillery of McClellan. Never before, since war became a science of butchery, did so many pieces thunder at once upon the devoted ranks of any attacking force. Never before were the very peals of the artillery of heaven so terribly rivalled. Only a portion of the Union guns had before been brought into play: now nearly the whole three hundred belched forth their ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... call tyrannies I call defending the public domain," replied Redfield. "If I had my way, I'd give my rangers the power of the Canadian mounted police. Is there any other State in this nation where the roping of sheep-herders and the wholesale butchery of sheep would be permitted? From the very first the public lands of this State have been a refuge for the criminal—a lawless no-man's land; but now, thanks to Roosevelt and the Chief Forester, we at least have a force ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... to personate God, and bring him in saying, I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness; and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend, to the cruel and execrable actions of murthering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and set, out of the bark of ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... fast approaching, the bodies were cast into the Seine. Opinions were divided as to the nature and details of this execution, some terming it a crime, and others a painful duty; but this day of unresisting butchery still retains the name given it by the people, The Massacre of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... felt herself choking, dizzy with anguish, all hopes gone; it seemed to her that everything was ended, even time itself, and that Lantier would return no more. Her eyes vacantly wandered from the old slaughter-house, foul with butchery and with stench, to the new white hospital which, through the yawning openings of its ranges of windows, disclosed the naked wards, where death was preparing to mow. In front of her on the other side of the octroi wall the bright heavens dazzled her, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... 'do you say? Go to Fort Pillow; stand upon its ramparts and in its trenches, and recall the horrid butchery of the black man there because he had joined you against rebellion, and then say, if you will, 'This is the white man's Government.' Go to Wagner. Follow in the track of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, as they went to the terrible assault, with the ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... then, without suffering any loss, managed to beat a retreat to a house, where they stood a siege, and made so valiant a defense that they gave the pope time—he knew nothing of the author of this butchery—to send the captain of his guard to the rescue, who, with a strong detachment, succeeded in getting nearly forty of them safely out of the town: the rest had been massacred on the piazza or ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... saying that the former offences deserved death, and he had no greater punishment for the latter. Of course, the legislation of Draco failed to calm the prevailing discontent, and human nature soon revolted against such legalized butchery. Says an English author, "The first symptoms in Athens of the political crisis which, as in other of the Grecian states, marked the transition of power from the oligarchic to the popular party, now showed itself." ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... warfare, has, in many respects, a prototype in General Gideon, and also in General Jephthah, "a mighty man of valor" and "the son of a harlot," as the author of the Book of Judges declares him to have been. We deprecate the savage butchery of the one—what ought we to say of the renown of the others? War is everywhere terrible, and "deeds of violence and of blood" are sad reminders of the imperfections of mankind. The men of those "colonial days" were far from being patterns of excellence; ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... to the place where it should come in, if it did not come in I did not care, but I had it marked in the paper. And these masters of mind used to wonder why it was my speech came out in the morning in the first person, while theirs went through the butchery of synopsis. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... plane, signalling it to descend. He wasn't going to let his men ride aloft to helpless butchery. Nothing could be done until some means was discovered of counteracting the enemy's ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... the close of his celebrated Essay on the Immutability of Truth, denounces every sincere outspoken unbeliever as a 'murderer of human souls,' and it being obvious that the murderer of a single soul must to the 'enlightened' majority of our people appear an act infinitely more horrible than the butchery of many bodies, it really does at first view seem 'passing strange' that body murderers are almost invariably hanged, whilst they who murder 'souls,' if punished at all, usually escape with some harmless abuse and ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... what are called the ways of God to man, if indeed people are willing to put themselves off with a form of omnipotent justice which is simply a partial retribution inflicted on the monster, while torture and butchery fall upon victims more or less absolutely blameless. As if the fact of punishment at length overtaking the guilty Franceschini were any vindication of the justice of that assumed Providence, which had for so long a time awarded ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... boy butchered to-day, and I shall never forget it. It is wicked to speak of Doctor Blake's clean cut work as butchery, but when you actually see a child's leg severed from its body, what ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley



Words linked to "Butchery" :   murder, Alamo, slaying, business, building, edifice, Battle of the Little Bighorn, Battle of Little Bighorn, business enterprise, Little Bighorn, bloodbath, battue, commercial enterprise, butcher, bloodletting, abattoir, Custer's Last Stand, bloodshed, execution



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