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Penitentiary   /pˌɛnɪtˈɛntʃəri/   Listen
Penitentiary

adjective
1.
Used for punishment or reform of criminals or wrongdoers.
2.
Showing or constituting penance.  Synonym: penitential.  "Wrote a penitential letter apologizing for her hasty words"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Penitentiary" Quotes from Famous Books



... our Lord one thousand two hundred and seventy-one, before us, Hierome Cornille, grand penitentiary and ecclesiastical judge to this, canonically appointed, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... "It was at Joliet—Joliet Penitentiary. Your time expired before mine. I envied you the six months' advantage you had of me. When I came out I searched for you everywhere, ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... had made him epileptic and immoral. If this asylum for insane criminals had not been in existence, he would have ended in a padded cell, the same as another man whom I and my students saw a few years ago in the Ancona penitentiary. The director, an old soldier, said to me: "Professor, I shall show you a type of human beast. He is a man who passes four fifths of the year in a padded cell." After calling six attendants, "because we must be careful," we went to the cell, and I said to that director: "Please, ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri

... that were made in Italy in plague times and smell like the 16th century every time they are opened. So I suppose we must have a hospital for the children to be sick in, a workshop for them to work in, and what would you say to a small chapel and penitentiary, with a dungeon or two? While we are about it, let's have a ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... this voice from St.-Quentin in France substantially echoes another voice from another St. Quentin in California—the seat of the State Penitentiary in that young and active and opulent American commonwealth. In California the plan of giving instruction in morality, independently of religion, has been tried much longer than in France, and certainly in circumstances much more favourable ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... the provisions of the act of May 20th, 1825, to provide for erecting a penitentiary in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes, three commissioners were appointed to select a site for the erection of a penitentiary for the District, and also a site in the county of Alexandria for a county jail, both of which objects have been effected. The building of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... in 1373 by the Pope, who rejected the monk's nominee, their prior, John Hertley; a Benedictine of Norwich; had been penitentiary to the Roman see; ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... she was a drunkard. The poor fellow had only gone a little too far; the court must be merciful. At this same assize, there was a man indicted for theft. He had made good his entrance into a jeweler's shop, and stolen therefrom a watch. The theft was proved, and the culprit sent to the penitentiary for three years. Query: Which was the greater crime, killing a woman or ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... July, nearly a thousand men were at work at Homestead. On July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had been, an employee. The chairman recovered from his wounds and his assailant was sent to the penitentiary. ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... but Bob has Carey on the floor with his shoulders touchin', so he won't sell an' he won't consolidate. If she don't 'tack up that-a-way, I'm an Injun. Carey wouldn't compromise with me an' take back his fifteen hundred. Why! There's a reason. He'd sooner see young Bob in the penitentiary because it'd mean more money to him. He wants Bob out o' the way, so he won't be on hand to draw cards, an' then this Carey person 'll just reach out his soft little mitt and rake in the jack-pot. All right, T. Morgan Carey! Bob's out of it, but even if he is a crook I'll string a bet ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... orange-tree she found the name—Thomas J. Thorington. Thomas? Tom? Tom Thorington! Why, the last she had heard of Tom had been fifteen years back. He had gone out West. She had received a picture of him in a uniform, with a gun on his shoulder. She dimly recollected that he had been a guard at some penitentiary. How long ago it seemed! He must have become a missionary or something, to be away off in China. And he had remembered her! She sat for a long time looking at the labels. She wondered if the queer Chinese letters spelled ABBIE SNOVER, ALMONT, MICHIGAN. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... respectable young men of Vichy, Missouri, hired horses and saddles at the livery barn and came out to the schoolhouse to attend the meeting. Two desperate characters, reputed to have escaped from the penitentiary, were present, but remained outside the house. The services proceeded unmolested; but, after the service, when the nine young men from Vichy went to get their horses, they found that some one had cut the saddles and bridles in pieces and turned their horses ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... life is almost impossible—and that out of self-defence he is compelled to resort again to the same criminal enterprises for which he has already suffered. Struck with this view, the reformer would institute a penitentiary of so effective a description, that the having passed through it would be even a testimonial of good character. But who sees not that the infamy is of the very essence of the punishment? A good character is the appropriate reward of the good citizen; if the criminal does not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... official capacity, or having wrongfully done or omitted to do any official act, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than seven years in the penitentiary at hard labor, or both such fine and imprisonment at the direction ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... seem to share in the nation's pride. His spirit was broken. He anticipated the glad wishes of the metropolis, and walked home from the penitentiary clouded and gloomy. It was evident something within him had died. However, he went back the next day, and left the prison the second time in the midst of public rejoicings never surpassed on any occasion in his life. His addresses on that day, and subsequently ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry did not follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he came out. All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr. Richard! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir"— ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the place of worship, near some wagons loaded with liquor and provisions. Two men, James H. Norris and William D. Armstrong, were indicted for the crime. Norris was tried in Mason County, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of eight years. The popular feeling being very high against Armstrong in Mason County, he took a change of venue to Cass County, and was there tried (at Beardstown) in the spring of 1858. Hitherto ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... for her—liberty, with peace and respect. Think it over, Monsieur; at the first outrage, I shall arise from my tomb to prevent a second, and dig a trench between you and her which never can be crossed—the penitentiary!" ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... was unsafe for a lady to go alone, have become orderly. Local option has established temperance in Georgia. Out of 137 counties 115 are controlled by prohibition. In Iowa under prohibition, the Fort Madison Penitentiary is for the first time short of the supply of convicts sufficient to fulfil the usual contracts. England now has a national prohibition party, and Mr. Axel GUSTAFSON is ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... the riotous proceedings of the strike had been arrested, tried and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. Of this number were Tom Steel, and Carrots, whose red banner had more than once caught the eye of ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... law in New York against the violation of the seventh commandment, and the penitentiary was the punishment. The law had failed to catch its first victim, but it had been used in Massachusetts with success. The threat ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... factory portion; the office did not front on the shut-in yard, but opened out freely on to the street, through a little grassy square of its own, tree-shadowed, with paved walks and flower beds. As with all the mills in its district, the suggestion was dangerously apt of a penitentiary, with its high wooden barrier, around all the building, the only free approach from the world to its corridors through the seemly, humanized office, where abided the heads, the bosses, the free men, who came and went at will. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... in my reckoning," said the other, solemnly, "it was part of a pair of steel handcuffs such as officers fasten to the wrists of prisoners when taking them to the penitentiary!" ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... He had it thrust upon him. After Ted had served his term he came back home to visit his mother's grave, intending to take the next train out. He wore none of the prison pallor that you read about in books, because he had been shortstop on the penitentiary all-star baseball team, and famed for the dexterity with which he could grab up red-hot grounders. The storied lock step and the clipped hair effect also were missing. The superintendent of Ted's prison had been one of ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... and the conduct of the ceremonial, were considered. At twelve o'clock the corpse was removed from the Metropolitan Chapel. The procession was a mile and a half (Irish) in length, composed of the Trades' Unions on foot, followed by the triumphal car which had been used to convey him from Richmond Penitentiary to his house in Merrion Square, when his acquittal of the charge upon which he had been incarcerated was pronounced by the House of Lords. The coffin was placed on a large open hearse, constructed with very little regard to taste. The hearse was covered with rich Genoa velvet. It was immediately ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... out of the hotel, feeling that every eye was upon him, every finger pointing at him, every tongue whispering, "There goes Joe Hamilton, whose father went to the penitentiary the other day." ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... Mr. Straight was made a member of the City Council. In 1868 he was appointed by the Chamber of Commerce as a member of a committee in regard to improvements in the cities of the State. In 1872 he was appointed a member of the International Penitentiary Congress, to assemble in London, Eng., which appointment, however, he was unable to accept. He received other marks of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens. In 1869, at the incorporation ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various

... laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... said her chum at that. "Joe Fenbrook is in the penitentiary now, and he is not bothering us. But other people are ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... than to be the most pampered among the slaves of America. I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress. The felon's home in a penitentiary is preferable. He may repent, and turn from the error of his ways, and so find peace; but it is not so with a favorite slave. She is not allowed to have any pride of character. It is deemed a crime in her to wish to ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... Mahoney made a written confession, supplemented by three or four codicils relating to items which, to use his own language, "at first did not to me occur." He was tried the following February, and sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... regret at leaving, as he had another family, a very sad case, to visit that night. As he passed Coristine, the latter refused his proffered hand and hissed in his ear: "You are the most damnable scoundrel I ever met, and I'll serve you out for this with the penitentiary." The masquerader grinned unclerically, his back being to the other occupants of the house, and whispered back, "Not much you won't, no nor ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... the city is," said King James; "our Exchequer is as dry as Dean Giles's discourses on the penitentiary psalms—Ex nihilo nihil fit—It's ill taking the breeks aff a wild Highlandman— they that come to me for siller, should tell me how to come by it—the city ye maun try, Heriot; and donna think to be called Jingling Geordie for nothing—and in verbo regis I will pay the lad if you get ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... consideration of the sex and age of the said Mary E. Surratt, if he can, upon all the facts in the case, find it consistent with his sense of duty to the country, to commute the sentence of death, which the Court have been constrained to pronounce, to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life." This recommendation for executive clemency remained unknown to the public until it was incidentally referred to by the Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, counsel for the government in the trial of Mrs. Surratt's son in 1867. This was followed in subsequent years, and after Andrew Johnson had ceased ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... well with the lofty pine-trees around it. But they, in turn, invested it with an air of secrecy and gloom, unrelieved by flowers or blossoming shrubs, of which there were no traces near the house, although in the rear there was a garden so formally regular that it looked like a penitentiary for flowers. ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... troublesome fellow on the line once, although he was the biggest worker," the boss replied. "He got five years in the penitentiary and that seems to have taken ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Christmas day, an official stood in the Executive chamber in my presence as Governor of Tennessee, and said: "Governor, I have been implored by a poor miserable wretch in the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. It was made by his own hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. It is absolutely valueless, it is true, but it is his petition to you for mercy. He begged me to say that he has neither ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... a poor unfortunate who should have been sent to an asylum instead of the penitentiary. He killed Mart Wiley, a deputy sheriff, at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... envelope for Martin & Company containing fifteen thousand dollars in currency, and is making off with it. Cut this rope instantly that I may pursue him, or I give you my word that, as a partner in his crime, rich as you are, and influential as you are, you shall go to the State penitentiary." ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... said Nannie, turning squarely on Mr. Earnest, "after that he was sent to the penitentiary for life, and everybody said 'Good enough!' 'Served him right, nasty, mean, horrid old thing!'" and away she went, slamming ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... far-away-looking people coming up in rows to their faraway books. "A library," I say to myself, "is a huge barbaric, mediaeval institution, where behind stone and glass a man's dearest friends in the world, the familiars of his life, lie helpless in their cells. It is the Penitentiary of Immortals. There are certain visiting days when friends and relatives are allowed to come, but it only—" At this point a gong sounds and tells me to go home. "Are not books bone of a man's bone, and flesh of his flesh? Oughtn't they to be? Shall a man ask permission ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... they did by what they do now. It (share cropping) hasn't changed a particle since. About Christmas was the time they usually settled up. Nobody was forced to remain as a servant. I know one thing,—Negroes did not go to jail and penitentiary like they do now. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... distinguished Negro leader to declare that "every revised Constitution throughout the Southern States has put a premium upon intelligence, ownership of property, thrift and character." So does every penitentiary sentence put a premium upon good conduct; but it is poor consolation to the one unjustly condemned, to be told that he may shorten his sentence somewhat by good behavior. Dr. Booker T. Washington, whose ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... dumb, and Ainley, convinced that he had stumbled on the truth, laughed harshly. "Stoney Mountain Penitentiary is not a nice place. The silent places of the North are better; but if I hear of you breathing a word of that rot you were talking just now, I will send word to the nearest police-post of your whereabouts, and once the mounters start after a ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... infliction on women, not, however, from religious motives, but to guard against the consequences of a disease not uncommon among them. The infliction upon women is the result of infidelity, or a sacrifice of chastity to loose gratification. As a preliminary, they retire to the bunda, or penitentiary, and are there secluded from all sexual intercourse. When the season of penitence is over, the operation is performed by the rude application of two stones, fashioned and sharpened for the purpose; this obliterates all delinquincy, and on their return to the world they ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... joy to hear music with. She knows what she's listening to. A fellow can sort of forget that he's got her along, an still be glad he has. As for you, you old money-hunting blunderbuss, the way you squirm in the presence of music ought to be a penitentiary offense. I'm almost glad you can't go." He gave a laugh that was dangerously genuine, and bolted for the hall to get his coat ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... faculty of a cynical, a consuming self-irony. He is said to be admirable in Der Kammersaenger. It must not be forgotten that he has, because of a witty lampoon in the publication Simplicissimus, done his "little bit" as they say in penitentiary social circles. These few months in prison furnished him with scenic opportunities; there is more than one of his plays with a prison set. And how he does lay out the "system." He, like Baudelaire, Flaubert, and De Maupassant, was summoned before ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Union Pacific railroad, and when the stages began to run between Cheyenne and Deadwood, in the Black Hills, they robbed the coaches and passengers, frequently making large hauls of plunder. They kept this up for some time, till finally most of the gang were caught, tried, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for a number of years. Bill Bevins and nearly all of his gang are now confined in the Nebraska state prison, to which they were transferred, ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... came that he had been detected in pilfering goods from the house of his landlord. A warrant was immediately issued for him—he was seized, taken to the police office—convicted, and sentenced to six months' hard labor in the penitentiary. His name being published in the newspapers, in connection with those of other convicts—was immediately recognised by the officer under whom he had enlisted.—This officer proceeds to the city—claims the prisoner—and it is at length agreed that he shall return to the ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... awful picture of the gallows and the penitentiary, and said, "Think of it. To be choked to death on the gallows. To be for years behind prison bars; or to go home to your old father and mother and be blessed, and be a blessing and get back your ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... step-mother by clinging to life in spite of his grievous hurt, and was now on the road to recovery, so that the trial of Vernon Ashley for his attempted murder soon took place, and the prisoner received sentence of a term of years in the penitentiary. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... moment while they stared at each other. Then Amory went briskly to the bureau and, taking his pocket-book, beckoned peremptorily to the girl. He heard one word from Alec that sounded like "penitentiary," then he and Jill were in the bathroom with the door ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... by this morning's papers that Rives has been released from the penitentiary," interposed their host. "Good conduct has got him out three years ahead of time. His sentence ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... best of counsel. The circumstances were against him, however, and in spite of an able defense he received a sentence of ten years. No one questioned the justice of the verdict, the law must be upheld, and the poor fellow was taken to the penitentiary to serve out the sentence. My wife and I concealed the facts from the younger children, who were constantly inquiring after his return, especially my younger girls, with whom he was a great favorite. The incident was worse ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... vessels and who stood high in social circles in New Jersey. Scott cut quite a prominent figure in both the social and business world. He went to Jersey City with splendid recommendations. His career there was considerably checkered however, and he only escaped a long sentence to the penitentiary, which his partner Alexander Letts is now serving, by turning State's evidence in a case of embezzlement in which Jackson and Letts had embezzled a large amount, said to have been $32,000 from ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... are not the only ones who ought to be in the penitentiary," he said hotly. "You can keep your old boards. And I ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... to criminality, and commits a second crime, you show yourself ten times more severe toward him than for his first fault. That is unjust; for it is almost always the necessity you impose on him which conducts him to a second crime. Yes; for it is shown that, instead of correcting him, your penitentiary system depraves. Instead of ameliorating, it makes worse; instead of curing slight moral affections, it renders them incurable. Your aggravation of punishment, applied without pity to the backslider, is, then, iniquitous, barbarous, since this backsliding ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... latter advanced boldly upon his purpose, and hurried events to the described crisis. It was just what Antoine had expected; and acting himself as the accuser, the conviction of the avocat was easy and certain. A sentence of five years to the State Penitentiary wound up Gayarre's connexion with the characters ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... robbers in this country. He's an expert at the business, but has now retired from active work. The fact of the matter is, Joe didn't know he was robbing, at the time he did it, but he got there, just the same, and come mighty nigh doing time in the penitentiary ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... apparently prosperous business under an assumed name. Following the man to his office and managing to talk with him alone, the lawyer, by means of threats, made the man go right to the bank and draw out the whole thousand then. It meant payment in full or the penitentiary. The man understood it and went white as a sheet. In all his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln had no pity on the flourishing criminal. Money could not purchase the ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... blacksmith in de forks of de road 'cross de railroad from Concord Church. He was a powerful man! Him use de hammer and tongs for all de people miles and miles 'round. Him jine de Springvale Afican Methodist 'Piscopalian Church, but fell from grace. Him covet a hog of Marse Walt Brice and was sent to de penitentiary for two years, 'bout dat hog. Him contacted consumption down dere and come home. His chest was all sunk in and his ribs full of rheumatism. Him soon went to bed and died. Him was buried on top of de hill, in de pines just north of Woodward. Uncle Pompey ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... obeyed; but however willing to afford consolation, his ingenuity and theological skill suggested nothing better than a recitation of the penitentiary psalms, in which task he continued until fatigue became too powerful for him also, when he committed the same breach of decorum for which he had upbraided Wilkin Flammock, and fell fast asleep in the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... were field hands. My mother was too young to carry a row when she was freed, but she worked on an older person's row. They worked from can till can't. You know what I mean, from the time they could see till the time they couldn't. Reb time was something like the penitentiary now. It never got too cold nor too hot to work. And there wasn't any pay. My parents never were given any chance to earn any money. I heard that my grandpa used to make a little something. He was a wagoneer you know. He would carry a little extra on his load and sell it. His ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... since last issue of the Free Speech one at Little Rock, Ark., last Saturday morning where the citizens broke(?) into the penitentiary and got their man; three near Anniston, Ala., one near New Orleans; and three at Clarksville, Ga., the last three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racket—the new alarm about raping white women. The same programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... Raleigh dere wuz a building dey called de Governor's Palace, it stood whur de Auditorium now stands. Right back o' where de courthouse now stands wuz a jail and a gallows an' a whuppin' pos' all dere together. I know when dey built de Penitentiary dey hauled poles from Johnston County. Dey called dem Johnston County poles. Dey hauled em in on trains. Dis post office wuz not built den. De post office den wuz built of plank set up ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... me that I saw somethin' flash every time they moved this way and that. No, it wasn't the field glasses either; but somethin' about their clothes. Brass buttons, I reckon, boys! Them men might 'a' been wardens from the penitentiary, lookin' for a prisoner that escaped some ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... or separated only by an avenue, is a heavy, monastic-looking building, used as a bridewell, and called the City Penitentiary. Having remained a considerable time in the hall where the trial was going on, the agonized state of the prisoner and sickening details of the murder caused a disinclination for the present to continue my perambulations, so I ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... is not one group of phenomena for the acute fear of the president of a bank in a financial crash and another for the hitherto trusted official who suddenly and unexpectedly faces the imminent probability of the penitentiary; or one for a patient who unexpectedly finds he has a cancer and another for the hunter when he shoots his first big game. Nature has but one means of response to fear, and whatever its cause the phenomena are always ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... loosed; its scope includes preaching, exhorting, consoling, saying mass, giving the Sacrament, etc. Therefore, none of the three passages fits the power of the pope over all Christendom, except he were made the one confessor, or penitentiary,[63] or anathematizer, to rule only over the wicked and the sinners, which is not their desire at all. And if these words should establish the papal power over all Christians, I should very much like to know who could absolve the pope when he sins. He must certainly remain in his ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... justice and protection, and they could not but expect a stern rebuke from all the friends of morality and good order. The only prospect before them, upon a fair trial, was a sentence of twenty years to the penitentiary. This was by no means cheering, especially to those who had lived in ease and affluence, whose bodies were enervated by voluptuousness and hands made tender by years of idle pleasures. Crowds were ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... Lady Bentham, wife of General Sir Samuel Bentham, the originator of that Panopticon, which was the germ of all our prison discipline as well as of all penitentiary improvements, the world over,—"Here is an autograph you will think worth having, I am sure, after what I have heard you say of the writer, and of her tragedies, and I want you to see her";—handing me, as she spoke, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... colored. We visited the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, some of the editors, the Baptist and Wesleyan missionaries, and several merchants. We likewise visited the public schools, the house of correction, penitentiary, hospital, and other public institutions. We shall speak briefly of several individuals whom we saw in Kingston, and give some ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... of the players, a grim old jailbird who had escaped from the Ceuta penitentiary and who looked just like a fox. "When a guy has the nerve, he rakes in all the dough," and he made a gesture of scooping up all the coins on the table ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... Navarre, Castile, and Portugal; Granada being in possession of the Moors. Ten years later, in a council at Tarragona, the chief technicalities of the Spanish Inquisition were settled. At the invitation of Peter, Archbishop of Tarragona, Raymund of Penaforte, the Pope's penitentiary, presided. The definitions of the council are notable for the determination they evidence to conduct the affairs of the tribunal with entire legal precision and formality. The "vocabulary" was now settled, and one has only to turn to the Acts of the Council of Tarragona to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... who, having run the gamut between royalist and radical, had turned conspirator, having, in 1800, plotted to seize the First Consul on his way to Marengo, and again, in 1807, having been imprisoned in the penitentiary of La Force for attempting to overthrow the Empire. Feigning madness, he succeeded in being transferred to an asylum, where he successfully reknit his conspiracies, and finally escaped. On October twenty-third, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... opportunity; knowing, too, that I was the owner of the bark, and supposed to have money. He was heard to say in a rum-mill a day or two before the attack that he would find the —— money and his life, too. His chum and bosom friend had come pretty straight from Palermo penitentiary at Buenos Aires when he shipped with ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... news to send you to-day I can hardly write it fast enough. The Territorial Court has been in session, and yesterday that horse thief, Billy Oliver, was tried and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary! The sheriff and a posse started for Canon City this morning with him and another prisoner, and I hope that he will not make his escape on the way over. The sheriff told Faye confidentially the route he intended to take, which is not ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... ruffled the same as the Lingerie in an Advertisement, and the Watch Chain was of Human Hair, which is now regarded as a Penitentiary Offense. ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... master-hand at writin', and then I didn't want him to know anyhow. When Danyul got into trouble, I signed over the little farm his pa left us, to pay the lawyer person to defend him. Danyul had enough trouble, so he went to the penitentiary without finding out I was homeless. I should think you would be put out to know Danyul has been to the pen, but he has. He always said to me that he never done what he was accused of, so I am not going to tell you what it was. Danyul was always a good boy, honest and good ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... leader of the radicals of America was convicted by jury of violation of the Espionage Law on September 12, 1918, and two days later sentenced to serve ten years in the penitentiary. The case was appealed on the ground that the Espionage Act was an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of free speech. The decision of the United States Supreme Court was handed down on March ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... served two terms in the penitentiary. Sometimes twice a week I would be brought into the Police Court for drunkenness. Every time I went out and got drunk I would get arrested. I tried to get away from this life and went out West. I thought if I got out there and got into new ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman

... do," he continued, "is to give myself up, and go to the penitentiary; arranging, somehow, to do it in such a way that the reward will go to Auntie Sue. God knows she deserves it! Sheriff Knox would help me fix ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... sitter's portrait upon it in the usual way. An appropriate background for these pictures is a view of the asylum for feeble-minded persons, the group of buildings at Somerville, and possibly, if the penitentiary could be introduced, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... friends, and most of 'em aren't worth thinkin' about. They're big people here, but back where I came from, in old Virginia, the best of 'em wouldn't be overseers on a plantation. That's why they like it so much out here. Look at that gang! Casey has been in the penitentiary, Rowlee ran some little blackleg sheet down South until they run him out—-I tell you, sir, as a Southerner I'm not proud of the Southerners out here. They're a cheap lot, most of 'em. They were a cheap lot home. The only difference is that back there ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... thought we were undergoing transportation for life to some lonely island, and the very waiters who brought us meals, that any warden of any penitentiary would blush to offer convicts, seemed to think it was a glaring error our not being ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... his injured employers. He must have gone with quakings of heart: but not even then did his cool assurance fail him, or the blush rise to his cheek, until he was made conscious that all his trickery was understood, and that public exposure and the penitentiary were before him. Then he gave way, and confessed all. He had not, in the beginning, planned deliberate villany—very few ever do who have been brought up to know the right. But the temptations to extravagance had proved too much for him, and his principles, never strong, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... half crazed with anxiety, Gordon knew that the avalanche had not only wrecked his fortunes, but was bearing him swiftly toward the penitentiary. Its gates yawned to welcome him, and he felt a chilling terror such ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... old shirts, and not much more is wanted through the tropics. For the cold regions there were two sets of extra thick woollen underclothing, two thick hand-knitted woollen jerseys, six pairs of knitted stockings, Iceland and other lighter jackets, socks and stockings from the penitentiary. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... half an hour in W——, I had received the report of my shadower; it was startling. John Burrill had been murdered. Here was a disappointment. I had fully intended that Burrill should do some honest work in the State penitentiary, and was almost prepared to make some arrests. I attended the inquest, and was again discomfited. The enemies of Sir Clifford had abandoned their first infamous scheme for his ruin, and had succeeded in ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... having made certain contracts he had not fulfilled, of procuring money and certain other property for the sale of secrets he did not possess, and indeed of having deceived and defrauded the plaintiffs, and of committing crimes enough to have sent at least a dozen men to the penitentiary. And all this to the serious damage, as well in reputation as pocket, of the highly enterprising and rapidly advancing firm of Topman and Gusher. And the plaintiffs prayed, as virtuous gentlemen are known to pray in ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... looked at him inquiringly, he continued, "You see I am well acquainted with Lyons. People's brains there are as foggy as the streets when the morning mists roll up from the Rhone. That city looks magnificent to travellers who like the long avenues, wide boulevards, green grass, and penitentiary architecture of modern cities. But Lyons is also the refuge of mysticism, the haven of preternatural ideas and doubtful creeds. That's where Vintras died, the one in whom, it seems, the soul of the prophet Elijah ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... visiting a Southern penitentiary, when one prisoner in some way took his fancy. This prisoner was a negro, who evinced a religious fervour as deep as it was gratifying to ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... them Archibald Dixon, raised $500 in order to secure Brown's conviction and sentence to penitentiary. ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle says I am a miserable sinner, and ought to be in the penitentiary. I don't deny it; but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you condemn me, too? Have ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... we are put through mythology; that is, under the guidance of reverend professors we make the acquaintance of a set of imaginary beings who, had they veritably lived, and in our day, would have soon found their way to the penitentiary." ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... was waiting for Carnes and Dr. Bird when the Langley Field plane slid down to a landing at Atlanta. At the penitentiary, Dr. Bird went direct to the infirmary where Karuska had been confined. As he entered, he shot a keen glance around and gave an exclamation ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... venal one's itching palm. Our only safety, then, is in the aggregate fidelity to personal rectitude, which may lessen the chances of representative dishonesty, or, at the worst, constitute a public opinion that shall make the whole country a penitentiary for such treason, and turn the price of public honor to fairy-money, whose withered leaves but mock the possessor with the futile memory of self-degradation. Let every man remember, that, though he may be a nothing in himself, yet every cipher gains the power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... for safe keeping to the penitentiary at Columbus, but on the night of November 7th, Morgan and six of his comrades made their escape, by digging into an air-space under the floor of his cell with their table-knives, passing through this ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... especially with Casey, and epithets a la "Eatanswill" were soon bandying back and forth between them. One evening of May, 1856, King published, in the Bulletin, copies of papers procured from New York, to show that Casey had once been sentenced to the State penitentiary at Sing Sing. Casey took mortal offense, and called at the Bulletin office, on the corner of Montgomery and Merchant Streets, where he found King, and violent words passed between them, resulting in Casey giving ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... de), born about 1733, a Dominican, grand penitentiary of Toledo, vicar-general of the Archbishopric of Malines; a venerable priest, unassuming, kindly and large of person. He adopted Emmanuel de Solis, his brother's son, and, retiring to Douai, under the acceptable protection of the Casa-Reals, was confessor and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... on the front of Richmond Penitentiary, Dublin, in which O'Connell and the other political prisoners were confined in the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... very soon afterward, and the lawyers for the defense made a very strong fight to clear their client. They were successful to the extent of saving him from execution, but he was sentenced to a term of ten years in the penitentiary. ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... I suspect is true," Ned said, "you will need all the political pull a member of the senate has in order to keep yourself out of the penitentiary." ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... been governor of Van Diemen's Land. Both Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews suffered death. Von Shoultz, and a number of Americans who had invaded the country in 1838, were also executed, and some persons in both provinces were transported to New Holland or sent to the penitentiary, but in the majority of cases the Crown showed clemency. The outbreak was an unfortunate episode in the history of Canada, but it caused the "family compact" to break up, and brought about a ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... father, who had entered a car to get his overcoat, left there the night before the strike, was arrested as he was leaving the car. No explanation was asked or taken. A "striking motorman," he was caught in the act; and accordingly he was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in Stony Mountain Penitentiary. Then began the hard struggle against poverty and disease, the hard struggle in which thousands have already been worsted, the battle against fearful odds which so many are now fighting. With no one to support her and little Ned the old woman was forced to go out and scrub offices and to do ...
— Irish Ned - The Winnipeg Newsy • Samuel Fea

... the grate settled down with a slight crash; and Michaelis, the hermit of visions in the desert of a penitentiary, got up impetuously. Round like a distended balloon, he opened his short, thick arms, as if in a pathetically hopeless attempt to embrace and hug to his breast a self-regenerated universe. He gasped ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... seems. But proof's what it's best to have before you ring up the curtain. You'd have to have it yourself. So would Palford & Grimby before it'd be stone-cold safe to rush things and accuse a man of a penitentiary offense." ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... probably do to them. The penalty for stealing a policeman's horse would be only a step short of capital, they were sure. They would not be hanged; but vague, looming sketches of something called the penitentiary began ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... between two peculiar stone houses dark as dungeons. They puzzled me from the outside, but when once past them, I was no longer in doubt. I had entered the open gateway leading to the courtyard of the Yuma penitentiary. No wonder the buildings looked like dungeons. This was a new experience for me, but somehow I had always imagined just how it would look. I was considering beating a retreat when a guard hailed me and asked me if I was not lost. With the assistance of the guard, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... himself, and when I think of it in the streets I have to run to keep myself from doing something silly, and then people think I'm chasing an omnibus, when I'm really only chasing my tears. I can't tell you much about the Brotherhood. It looks like a cross between a palace and a penitentiary, and it appears that ritualism has gone one better than High-Churchmanship, and is trying to introduce the monastic system, which, to an ordinary woman of the world, seems well enough for the man in the moon, though the man in the moon might have a different way of looking at ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine



Words linked to "Penitentiary" :   repentant, penitent, punitive, punitory, correctional institution, penitence



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