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Bribery   /brˈaɪbəri/   Listen
Bribery

noun
(pl. briberies)
1.
The practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage.  Synonym: graft.



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"Bribery" Quotes from Famous Books



... greatly to be lamented, that all civil causes have not been made subject to a similar revision as those of a criminal nature, which would strike at the root of an evil that is most grievously felt in China, where the officers of justice are known, in most cases, to be corrupted by bribery. They have, however, wisely separated the office of judge from that of the legislator. The former, having found the fact, has only to refer to the code of laws, in which he is supplied with a scale ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... by bribery we tried to do by stealth and concealed ourselves behind bushes with the camera focused on a certain spot upon the road. The instant a Tibetan discovered it he would run like a frightened deer and in some mysterious way they seemed to have passed ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... work my father was more sure than of a god in heaven. For he had thought very little about a god, and all his life he had thought about this. For this he had spent at least half his wealth on the congressmen that he despised. Bribery? ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... Manager of the Opera-house,—it would have been such a consolation to all the rejected operatives,—it would have been the prettiest hardship entailed on a great man ever since the time of that speaker who was forced himself to put the question whether he had been guilty of bribery, and should be expelled the House, and had the pleasure of hearing the Ayes predominate. Je me mete with the affairs of the Theatre—they are in my diabolic province, you know. But if the stage be the fosterer of vice, as you know it is said, vice just ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... passing of the Reform Bill, Elections were not only protracted and attended with open bribery, revelry, rowdyism, and popular excitement, but the machinery for arriving at the wish of the constituency was also of a very rough and ready kind. If, for instance, a voter was objected to, the sheriff's assessor, a barrister, was found sitting ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... at any great distance from the bungalow, and the savage loyalty of the ferocious Waziri warriors who formed a great part of Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude the possibility of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or of the bribery ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... my dear Weg, that this must be the result of bribery and corruption! The volume to which the dedication stands as preface seems to me to stand alone in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so sincere, so articulate in substance, and what you always were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... request of the high local officials for the President's accession to the Throne have been represented as inspired by the unanimous will of the people, it is well known that the same has been the work of ignoble men whose bribery and intimidation have been sanctioned by the authorities. Although inept efforts have been made to disguise the deceit, the same is unhidden to the ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... hot coal closer and even closer to the High Priest's naked foot. The priest writhed in anticipation of the agony and turned his eyes away, and as he turned them they met Ruth's. High priests of a religion that includes sooth-saying and prophecy and bribery of gods among its rites are students of human nature, and especially of female human nature. Knowledge of it and of how it may be gulled, and when, is the first essential of their calling. Her pale face, her blue eyes strained in terror, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... enables them to inflict every kind of punishment. The crimes which are subject to political jurisdiction are, in the federal constitution (Section 4, Art. 1); in that of Indiana (Art. 3, paragraphs 23 and 24); of New York (Art. 5); of Delaware (Art. 5), high treason, bribery, and other high crimes or offences. In the Constitution of Massachusetts (Chap. I, Section 2); that of North Carolina (Art. 23); of Virginia (p. 252), misconduct and maladministration. In the constitution of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... his Father-in-Law had been dispossess'd, became vacant, and Zeokinizul's Honour required, that he should lay hold of this Opportunity to restore him. After a fruitless Trial of all the peaceable Ways of Bribery and Negotiation to compass his End, the Mollak was at last oblig'd to order the Kofiran Troops to march. The first Body marched towards the Nhir, to oppose the Emperor of the Maregins, the second towards the Kingdom ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... Galba dined with him, Otho went the length of presenting a hundred sesterces to each of the soldiers on guard, on the pretext that this was instead of entertaining them.[53] This system of public largess Otho extended by making presents in confidence to individuals, and such spirit did he show in bribery that when a member of the Body Guard, Cocceius Proculus, brought an action to claim part of his neighbour's farm, Otho bought the whole property out of his own pocket and gave it to him. He was enabled to do this by the inefficiency of the Prefect Laco, who was no less ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... cathedral was rebuilt after the pattern of Charlemagne's church at Aix-la-Chapelle. In his time also Walter de Lacy built the Church of St. Peter at Hereford. He was a keen man of business, and it has been suggested that he was open to bribery, but this accusation is hardly compatible with his intimate companionship with the high-minded Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, the date of whose death, January 19, 1095, is included in the calendar of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... no other way being open to him, the Persian who does wish to get rid of his wealth, prefers to squander his money, both capital and income (the latter if he possesses land), in luxurious jewellery and carpets, and in unhealthy bribery and corruption, or in satisfying caprices which his voluptuous nature may suggest. The result? The Persian is driven to live mostly for his vanity and frivolity—two unbusiness-like qualities not tending to the promotion of commercial enterprise on a large scale, although it is true that in a small ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... prevented by strict professional etiquette from seeing either party except in the full glare of the court-room, and from listening to any argument of counsel, save where both sides are represented. Accusations of bribery, even of judges, were common in old France. The lower officers of the court took fees openly. Thick books, under the name of memoires, were published, with the avowed intention of influencing the public and the courts in pending cases.[Footnote: For a statement that influential persons went unpunished ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... not only against ordinary usurers, but also against doctors who lent money to students in order to attract them to their lectures. That the ignominious position of the Bologna doctors had an evil effect upon their morals, is evident not only from this, but also from the existence of bribery, in connection with examinations for the (p. 034) doctorate, although corruption of this kind was not confined to ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... exactly bribery. One man has oysters, and another epithets. It is an exchange of hospitalities; one gives a "spread" on linen, and the other on paper,—that is all. Don't you think you and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the critical line? I am sure I couldn't resist the softening ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Buren, I'm sure this man has cheated you out of your claim! We ran the line ourselves—my brother, Mr. Pratt, and I—yesterday—we finished yesterday! We found the claim is not inside the reservation! My money was used—I'm sure for bribery! But they've got to give you back your claim, if it takes every penny I've got! I was sending Glen to let you know. I asked Mr. Lawrence to confess! You won't let him go! You mustn't let him go! I am sure ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... difficult to say which of the two is out of pocket, the elector or the Sheik. There is no doubt that every Takrurie will eat and drink to the full amount of his dollar; is content with paying his homage, and wishes to have the worth of his money. Bribery is unknown! The drums, the sign of royalty, have been silent for three days (during the interregnum), but the cows are no sooner slaughtered and the merissa handed round by black maidens or fair Galla slaves, than their monotonous beat is again ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... unless they made haste to get hold of the lands, the people's Legislature would divide them out or sell them to the Federal Government. So they formed another conspiracy, and this time they laid their plans very deep. Acting on the principle that every man has his price, they managed, by bribery and other underhanded schemes, to win the sympathy and support of some of the most prominent men in the State,—men whose names seemed to be far above suspicion. Some of the highest judges lent their aid to the land grabbers. Members of Congress were concerned in the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... or business simulates what he does not feel, is not frank or sincere in his statements and believes firmly that the end justifies the means. He uses the indirect force of the lie, the slander, insinuation —he has no aversion to flattery and bribery—he uses spies and false witnesses. He is a specialist in the unexpected and seeks to lull suspicion and disarms watchfulness, waiting for the moment to strike. Sometimes he weaves so tangled a web that he falls into it himself, and one of the stock situations in humor, the novel and ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... change the category, as happened last year on upper Rock Creek. This is particularly true in view of metropolitan plans' inevitably hodgepodge nature, which makes them somewhat arbitrary and vulnerable to attack. Bribery and personal-interest scandals often are rooted in zoning matters. Furthermore, residential zoning of the standard minimum-lot-size sort, not adapted to cluster housing and such sophistications, may actually encourage sprawl and rectilinear violation of the landscape by ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... to the surface again. He was breathing thickly, and his high, bald forehead was damp with perspiration. "That's bribery," ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... enfranchisement meant reconstruction, with its theft and bribery and incompetency as well as its public schools and enlightened, social legislation. It would mean today that black men in the South would have to be treated with consideration, have their wishes respected and their manhood rights recognized. Every ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the independents; the Comas would secure complete control of the Toban timber and fix prices. But here were the ringleader Latisans in a way to smash the corner which Craig had manipulated by bulldozing and bribery! In the past Craig had not bothered headquarters with any minute explanations of how he accomplished results. This crusher which threatened all his plans and promises would make a monkey of him in New ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... a most difficult problem for any Government to be asked to deal with, needing as it did a very efficient service both of craft and men afloat, and an equally able and incorruptible guard on land that could not be turned from its purpose either by fear or bribery. We shall see from the following chapters how these two organisations—by ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Normandy. Instead of employing his mediation to render his brother's government respectable, or to redress the grievances of the Normans, he was only attentive to support his own partisans, and to increase their number by every art of bribery, intrigue, and insinuation. Having found, in a visit which he made to that duchy, that the nobility were more disposed to pay submission to him than to their legal sovereign, he collected, by arbitrary ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... dozen years later when a venturesome Hollander, Cornelius Houtman, who was risking imprisonment and even death by trading surreptitiously in the forbidden city on the Tagus, succeeded in obtaining through bribery a copy of one of the secret charts. The Spanish authorities scarcely could have been aware that he had learned a secret of such immense importance, or his silence would have been insured by the headsman. As ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... din about abuses of power. Hardly an officer, either of the general or state governments, from the President down to the ten thousand postmasters, and from governors to the fifty thousand constables, escapes the charge of 'abuse of power.' 'Oppression,' 'Extortion,' 'Venality,' 'Bribery,' 'Corruption,' 'Perjury,' 'Misrule,' 'Spoils,' 'Defalcation,' stand on every newspaper. Now without any estimate of the lies told in these mutual charges, there is truth enough to make each party ready to believe of the other, and of their best men too, any abuse of power, however monstrous. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... length both agreed to visit the horde in person. It was a perilous movement, and Vassali, as yet but a boy sixteen years of age, wept bitterly as he left the church, where he had implored the prayers of the faithful, and set out upon his journey. All the powers of bribery and intrigue were employed by each party to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... his beloved poodles, and a large bundle of debts, as well as an increased luggage of eccentricities. While Weber was trying to secure loans to pay off one of his father's debts, he was innocently implicated in a scandal of bribery, by which it was made to seem that he had offered a post in the prince's household, in return for an advance of money. The king had been driven to despair by the disasters of the German army, and the increase of discontent of the German ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... the exercise of that power should be made as absolutely honest and independent as possible. But how can it be made honest and independent if it is not protected so far as practicable from the constant bribery of selfish interest and the illicit solicitation of personal influence? The experience of our large patronage offices proves conclusively that the cause of the larger number of removals is not dishonesty or incompetency; ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... largely by appeal to personal feeling, with or without success; as, a child coaxes a parent to buy him a toy. One may be brought over, induced, or prevailed upon by means not properly included in persuasion, as by bribery or intimidation; he is won over chiefly by ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... that to the average citizen, leading a small, quiet life and dealing with affairs in corner-grocery retail, the stupendous facts of accumulations of wealth and wholesale, far-and-wide purchases of the politicians, the vast system of bribery, with bribes adapted to every taste and conscience, seem impossibilities, romancings of partizanship and envy and sensationalism. Nor can he understand the way superior men play the great games, the heartlessness of ambition, the cynicism of political and commercial prostitution, the sense of ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... in Rives' constituency had gone to bitter lengths. The government forces had poured money into the campaign and under the practiced hand of Harrington Rives the "Machine" had gone to indiscreet lengths to defeat Waring. Bribery and corruption, which for a long time had characterized the administration's political organization, had become more open and Rives' opponent quietly had gathered the irrefutable evidence which ended in the arrest of Rives ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... cultivating and working, all this going about and making things right with this little jobber here, that contractor there, all the squaring of small political clubs and organizations, all the subscription blackmail and charity bribery, that now makes a Parliamentary candidature so utterly rotten an influence upon public life, will be killed dead by Proportional Representation. You cannot job men into Parliament by Proportional Representation. Proportional Representation lets in the outsider. ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... of bribery that left conviction and a term in prison as the alternative to resignation, District Attorney William H. Langdon had complete control of the situation. In consultation with those who had proved their interest in the welfare ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... already said above, by the king, and by his brother and by this men, the king was considering how he might wreak his vengeance on his brother Robert, harass him most, and win Normandy of him. And indeed through his craft, or through bribery, he got possession of the castle at St. Valeri, and the haven; and so he got possession of that at Albemarle. And therein he set his knights; and they did harm to the land in harrowing and burning. After this he got ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... throne. Many of the judges were Huss's bitter personal enemies, for as he had assailed the measureless corruptions of their order, that was an unpardonable sin. Besides, history is careful to tell that bribery was largely employed to make sure of his destruction—and now the last act of the dark tragedy has arrived. No further defence was permitted to Huss, yet he uttered one solemn appeal. Once and again ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... sovereign the heartfelt allegiance of men who at home not only love but enjoy for themselves the liberty which our soldiers and our sailors are fighting by land and by sea to maintain and to extend for others. There is no question of compulsion or bribery. What we want we believe you are ready and eager to give as the free-will offering of a free people. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... candidate for the Assembly than the leading spirits of the Compact aroused themselves to defeat him. This was natural enough. That they should employ against him every means which their ingenuity could devise—among others, bribery, vilification and deliberate slander—that also was natural, when the time and persons are considered. "Every engine within the reach of authority," writes Mr. Jackson, "was used for the purpose of defeating the wishes of the people on ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... Barnum was surprised to see in the newspapers an announcement that the seat of his successful rival was to be contested on the ground of bribery and fraud. " This," he said, "was the first intimation that I had ever received of such an intention, and I was never, at any time before or afterwards, consulted upon the subject. The movement proved to have originated with neighbors and townsmen of the successful candidate, who claimed ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... accusers and judges; and, dispensing with appeal to a popular assembly, subjected even royalty to a trial of life and death. Before the Persian war they sat in judgment on the King Cleomenes for an accusation of bribery;—just after the Persian war, they resolved upon the execution of the Regent Pausanias. In lesser offences they acted without the formality of this council, and fined or reprimanded their kings for the affability of their manners, or the size [135] of their wives. Over ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... going to try a little personal bribery,' he responded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind the lightness of his chaff; 'of course I know,' he added, 'that you have been buying up building sites in commanding situations ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... sinking into the abyss. Why should I risk an imprudent step? It might alienate my protector. He has two means of extricating me from this dilemma,—the one by a mysterious escape, managed through bribery; the other by buying off my judges with gold. I will say and do nothing until I am convinced that he has quite ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... what should have been a matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was astonished to find himself ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... been taken by the State Department looking to the making of bribery an extraditable offense with foreign powers. The need of more effective treaties covering this crime is manifest. The exposures and prosecutions of official corruption in St. Louis, Mo., and other ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... B.C. 103, and was appointed by the senate to take the command in Sicily, where there was a formidable insurrection of the slaves under Athenion and Tryphon. He was not however successful, and was recalled; and subsequently prosecuted by Servilius for bribery and malversation, convicted and banished. The exact time of the birth of this Lucullus his son is not known, but was probably about B.C. 109. His first appearance in public life was prosecuting Servilius, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... "The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms"; and the curious catalogue contained "avarice, fraud, cheating, violence, rapine, extortion, cruelty, oppression, tyranny, rancor, envy, malice, detraction, hatred, revenge, murder, bribery, corruption, pimping, lying, perjury, subornation, treachery, ingratitude, gaming, flattery, drunkenness, gluttony, luxury, vanity, effeminacy, cowardice, pride, impudence, hypocrisy, infidelity, blasphemy, idolatry, and innumerable other vices, many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... fathers are mostly considered by their offspring as friend enemies. Determined as the impressions of children inevitably are by the treatment they receive; and oscillating as that treatment does between bribery and thwarting, between petting and scolding, between gentleness and castigation; they necessarily acquire conflicting beliefs respecting the parental character. A mother commonly thinks it sufficient to tell her little boy that ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... precise as ever, seemed to have turned gray, and one of his eyelids had acquired a slight nervous twitch which persisted for some months. He took his seat at the desk, however, as calmly as ever. In three days the scandalised howls of bribery and corruption had given place in the newspapers to some ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... forging my signature, has just been fully acquitted. But,' she added vehemently, 'as a Frenchwoman, accept my condolence. A people is very unfortunate to have for its supreme tribunal a lot of men who consult nothing but their passions, and of whom some are capable of bribery and others of an audacity which they have always displayed towards authority, and of which they have just given a striking example against those who are clothed therewith.' The king entered at this moment. 'You find the queen in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... a degree as to become entirely superfluous personages." On the other hand, the majority of the National Volunteers are composed of "men bought by the communes" and administrative bodies, worthless characters of the street-corners, rustic vagabonds forced to march by lot or bribery,"[3346] and along with them, enthusiasts and fanatics to such an extent that, from March, 1792, from the spot of their enlistment to the frontier, their track is everywhere marked by pillage, robbery, devastation, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... engaged in the discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections. This section protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or any interference with them, by bribery or solicitation or otherwise, crimes against ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... exact that they read today like the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, dated three years later. A representative of the New Haven called upon the editor of Hampton's with a proof of the first article—obtained from the printer by bribery—and was invited to specify the statements to which he took exception; in the presence of witnesses he went over the article line by line, and specified two minor errors, which were at once corrected. At the end of the conference he announced ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... plundering of the royal tombs is a typical instance of the lawlessness of the times. The corruption, too, which followed on the disorder was appalling; and wherever the King went he was confronted by deceit, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and official tyranny. Every Government officer was attempting to obtain money from his subordinates by illegal means; and bakshish—that bogie of the Nile Valley—cast its shadow upon ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... landowners. Both Walpole and Newcastle resorted to the outright purchase of these seats, and when the time came George did not shrink from doing the same thing. He went even further. All preferments of whatsoever sort were bestowed upon those who would do his bidding, and the business of bribery assumed such proportions that an office was opened at the Treasury for this purpose, from which twenty-five thousand pounds are said to have passed in a single day. Parliament had been for a long time only partially representative ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... rob you of your poet.(2) As for you, never lose him, who will always fight for the cause of justice in his Comedies; he promises you that his precepts will lead you to happiness, though he uses neither flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute to ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... begging for a king, and urging, as one reason for the change, the unfitness of his sons to succeed him. They were mercenary and open to bribery, and it is not strange that they were disliked by the people. It is one of many instances of departure by children from the counsels and prayers of the kindest parents, and choosing the ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... foe. George III. came to the throne in 1760. By temperament he was unusually adapted to play his part in changing the New World's history. He was determined to rule according to his own personal inclinations. He dominated his cabinet and controlled Parliament by bribery. He decided that the American colonies should feel the weight of his authority, and in 1763 his prime minister, George Grenville, undertook to execute measures in restraint of colonial trade. Numbers of commodities, like tobacco, for instance, could ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... of the dead beside her. In a moment the whole shameful scheme had flashed upon her mind; Virginie's treachery and clever fraud; its connection with the torn fragment of paper which Julia had seen only a few minutes before; the deliberate falsehood of which Lady Sarah had been guilty; the bribery, by means of which she had probably corrupted Virginie's fidelity; the cruel disappointment and suffering of her lover; all these things pressed themselves upon her reeling brain, and gave birth to the suggestions of madness. Stooping down, she put her lithe ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... No such thing. Legal responsibility signifies liability to punishment for misconduct or maladministration. But the Protest does not mean that the President is liable to be impeached and punished if a secretary of state should commit treason, if a collector of the customs should be guilty of bribery, or if a treasurer should embezzle the public money. It does not mean, and cannot mean, that he should be answerable for any such crime or such delinquency. What then, is its notion of that responsibility ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... for me the count delayed the promulgation of the decree for a week, so that the people of Udine heard the news from Venice before it had reached Trieste, and everybody thought that the Venetian Government had achieved its ends by bribery. The secretary of the Tribunal did not answer my letter, but he wrote to the consul ordering him to give me a hundred ducats, and to inform me that this present was to encourage me to serve the Republic. He added that I might hope great things from the mercy of the Inquisitors ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... in. It is an understood thing, and there is no real objection to it, though they are very strict about bringing in spirits. Still we can get vodka if we have a mind to; it is only a question of bribery." ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... those great new cities whose population and wealth and energy represent the goal towards which the rest of American civilisation is apparently tending. In England, to any one who looks forward, the rampant bribery of the old fishing-ports, or the traditional and respectable corruption of the cathedral cities, seem comparatively small and manageable evils. The more serious grounds for apprehension come from the newest inventions of wealth and enterprise, the up-to-date newspapers, the power ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... parchment, leaf, bark, stick, or stone, or anything, so that it may be known; and I do further swear, that I have not, to my knowledge or belief, been proposed and rejected in, or expelled from any other Orange Lodge; and that I now become an Orangeman without fear, bribery, or corruption. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... "thy nation so easily entertain suspicion that it may well render themselves suspected. Have I not told thee that Saladin desires no converts saving those whom the holy Prophet shall dispose to submit themselves to his law? violence and bribery are alike alien to his plan for extending the true faith. Hearken to me, my brother. When the blind man was miraculously restored to sight, the scales dropped from his eyes at the Divine pleasure. Think'st thou that any earthly leech could have removed ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... diplomat; he had imbibed the idea that every man had his price; in other words, that every man could be influenced for or against a cause by bribery ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... passed between them on the occasion of a supper, had called at Phoebe's lodgings on the previous day, and had tried to entrap her into communicating what she knew of Mrs. Farnaby's secrets. The trap failing, Mrs. Sowler had tried bribery next; had promised Phoebe a large sum of money, to be equally divided between them, if she would only speak; had declared that Jervy was perfectly capable of breaking his promise of marriage, and "leaving them both in the lurch, if he once got the money into his own pocket" and had thus informed ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... the opportunity to enter upon an extended review of the public life and character of Demosthenes, in which he boldly charges him with cowardice in the battle of Chaeronea, with bribery and fraud in his public administration, and declares him to have been the prime cause of innumerable calamities that had befallen his ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... candidates. Constituencies which had long obeyed the orders of great landlords were no longer to be reckoned upon. No political question was exciting public interest, and the borough elections were decided rather by money than by measures. Bribery was carried to a preposterous height, and the new-rich bought seats as openly as they bought their horses. The borough of Sudbury went so far as to advertise itself for sale. Those who without political aims or connexions forced themselves into parliament ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... companions of my glory?—They are dead." Barras, who well knew that Buonaparte would never forgive him for having boasted that the conqueror of Italy and Egypt owed everything to his early favour, and whose infamous personal conduct in the articles of bribery and exaction made him tremble at the thought of impeachment, resigned his office: so did his colleagues, Gohier and Moulins. Sieyes and Ducos had done so already. Bernadotte, indeed, repaired to the Luxembourg ere Moulins and Gohier had resigned, and offered his sword and influence, provided ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... great apprehensions to all classes. The new State government possessed neither the confidence nor the affection of the people, and in the pandemonium of bribery and corruption there was justification for the fears of men, who, in corrupt and reckless appropriations and corrupt and reckless expenditures, foresaw ruin to all material interests of ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... St. Nicholas, part of the cloister, the long stable, granary, larder, and two solars. He was buried in the new chapter-house, leaving the monastery in debt, caused no doubt by his lavish expenditure in bribery at Rome. On his death in October, 1166, the King kept the abbacy vacant for several months, for at this time the great conflict between the King and the Archbishop, Becket, was raging, and the King wished visibly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... freedom has thus been saved from a serious misfortune, and our own country from a great iniquity. The other subject to be mentioned is the fight kept up by a body of advanced Liberals in the session of 1868, on the Bribery Bill of Mr. Disraeli's Government, in which I took a very active part. I had taken counsel with several of those who had applied their minds most carefully to the details of the subject—Mr. W.D. Christie, Serjeant Pulling, Mr. Chadwick—as well as bestowed much thought of my own, for the purpose ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... has been most beneficial to the neighbourhood, but the inferior officials, indignant at the attempts of the Germans to obtain justice, without any regard to 'the customs of the country' (that is, to bribery), have thrown every obstacle they can devise in the way of the community, both individually ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... York City, as the time drew closer for the election, there was every intimation that the contest would be an unusually "hot" one, and that there would be much bribery and corruption. It was said by some that police methods were very lax at that time, and that the saloons, which ought to be closed on election day, would be almost if ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... profitable. Its aim was to exploit, not to improve the local population. The miseries of the people were aggravated rather than lessened: but they were concealed. For the rough injustice of the sword there were substituted the intricacies of corruption and bribery. Violence and plunder were more hideous, since they were cloaked with legality and armed with authority. The land was undeveloped and poor. It barely sustained its inhabitants. The additional burden of a considerable ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... without money was impossible in those days, for large sums had to be expended in bribery and in gaining the favor of the idle and dissolute Roman people, who refused to work but demanded to be amused at the expense of others, and would always follow the man who treated them with the greatest display of liberality. So Caesar borrowed huge sums of money which he planned ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... street and her warring newspapers. Just at present there is an epidemic of politics in Manitoba, and brass bands and notices of committee meetings are splashed about the towns. By reason of their closeness to the Stages they have caught the contagion of foul-mouthedness, and accusations of bribery, corruption, and evil-living are many. It is sweet to find a little baby-city, with only three men in it who can handle type, cursing and swearing across the illimitable levels for all the world as though it were ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... the hands of Miss Stanbury's Martha, not with purposes of corruption, not intended to buy back the allegiance of Dorothy,—folded delicately and temptingly in one of the best table napkins, with no idea of bribery, but sent as presents used to be sent of old in the trains of great ambassadors as signs of friendship and marks of true respect. Miss Stanbury was, no doubt, most anxious that her niece should return to her, but was not, herself, low spirited ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... had been ruled by one of those "peace at any price" Ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed the baser commercial instincts of Englishmen. Sir Robert Walpole, the reputed organiser of an unrivalled system of bribery and corruption, the Minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members of Parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply "you will soon come off that and grow wiser," the autocrat enamoured of power who could brook no colleague ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... A Light to a Cigar Evening Amusement Trip to MATANZAS—El Casero Slave Plantation Sugar Making Luxuriant Vegetation Punic Faith and Cuban Cruelty H.M.S. "Vestal" Bribery Admiralty Wisdom Cigars and Manufactory Population—Chinese Laws of Domicile—Police and Slavery Increase of Slaves and Produce Tobacco, Games, and Lotteries Cuban Jokes Sketch of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... expressed, why, it is merely a resurrection of one of the theories of some of our very 'spiritual deists' a century ago. Collins and Shaftesbury were, in like manner, apprehensive lest an elevated 'virtue' should suffer at all from this bribery of a hope of a 'blessed immortality'; as you may see in the Characteristics. For my own part, I certainly have my doubts whether virtue will be the less virtuous, or spirituality the less spiritual, for such a doctrine; and I must believe it even on the hypothesis of you spiritual ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... this point that Drayle attempted bribery. He offered fifty thousand dollars to the man who would abandon Mrs. Farrel. But this scheme fell through because both men sought the opportunity ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... the lobby and succeeded in catching some wonderful orchestral strains by applying my ear to a keyhole. But my pleasure was short-lived. An attendant espied me and summarily ordered me off the premises, despite my humble entreaties and attempts at bribery. I now resolved to make a personal appeal to Wagner; so, a few days later, as he was entering the theatre, arm in arm with Wilhelm, I boldly walked up to him and told him I had bought tickets to all the performances, but was very anxious to attend the rehearsals, adding that I represented ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... and takes it for private use? Is the girl who carries away sugar from the table any better than the government employee who misappropriates funds or supplies in his charge? We cry out in horror at revelations of bribery. Ah, but in our class elections do we vote for the candidate who will best fill the office, or for our friends? I have known a girl who desired to be president of the Athletic Association to bargain away her influence to another who was running ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... la Rochejaquelein to let you have another pistol, each, before you leave. Of course, you will hide your arms under your clothes. I don't know that it will be necessary to use force; of course, at first we shall try bribery. ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... alter Ego. But he had not limited his researches to the directions indicated in his author. Encouraged by the success which had attended his initial efforts, he determined upon an independent experiment in bribery, and after the same manner that Leo Taxil procured the "Ritual of the New and Reformed Palladium," so he succeeded in obtaining the "Collection of Secret Instructions to Supreme Councils, Grand Lodges, and Grand Orients," ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... adjournment, he said: 'Prayer will ascend from thousands of hearts of the citizens of this State at noon to-day for their deliverance from this Legislature. It began its session with the corrupt election of a United States Senator. It lived in bribery, and it dies a farce.' No one here regrets the adjournment except the gamblers and the lobbyists. Even the lobbyists would be glad for a vacation, as their labors in bidding for the legislative cattle the last month have been most arduous. The people of Albany ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... wealth I would use it in such a campaign of bribery and corruption in that country of tyrants that I should release two innocent men. I'd first find out where they were, then I'd use all the influence I possessed with the American Ambassador to ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... Beecher trial; his character as told by H. B. S.; love for Prof. Stowe; his youth and life in West; Brooklyn and his anti-slavery fight; Edmonsons and Plymouth Church; his loyalty and energy; his religion; popularity and personal magnetism; terrible struggle in the Beecher trial; bribery of jury, but final triumph; ecclesiastical trial of; committee of five appointed to bring facts; his ideal purity and innocence; power at death-beds and funerals; beloved by poor and oppressed; meets accusations by silence, prayer, and work; his thanks and speech at Stowe Garden ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... cuisine decreased in quantity and quality in exact ratio to augmentation of their custom. The Richmond hotels, always mediocre, were now wretched. Such a thing as a clean room, a hot steak, or an answered bell were not to be bought by flagrant bribery. I would fain believe that all concerned did their best; but rapid influx absolutely overwhelmed them; and resources of the neighboring country—ample to support one-third the numbers now collected—were quickly exhausted under suddenly tripled demand. No transportation for private ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... as his granddaughter without expressing anger, and with Sir Henry he himself so spoke of her. He appeared to be quite reconciled to the marriage. In spite of all his entreaties to George, all his attempted bribery, his broken-hearted sorrow when he failed, he seemed to be now content. Indeed, he had made no opposition to the match. When Caroline had freely spoken to him about it, he made some little snappish remark as to the fickleness ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... near as brothers and sisters, compete against each other, and eagerly force up the price. Every Irish land agent will tell you of underhand intrigue in connection with land. Not only do brothers secretly strive to obtain advantage over each other by means of higher bidding, but bribery is tried. Mr. Robert Hare, of the Dublin Board of Works, said:—"My father was an agent, and on one occasion he was weighing the respective claims of two brothers to a piece of land which was about to become vacant and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... they were enabled to regain their liberty. Even if they were sent before the courts, justice was at that time so corrupt as to permit of easy avenues of escape for those who could afford to pay; and Colonel Sleeman records the deposition of a Badhak describing their methods of bribery: "When police officers arrest Badhaks their old women get round them and give them large sums of money; and they either release them or get their depositions so written that their release shall be ordered by the magistrates. If they are brought to court, their old ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... quarrelled with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted them, continually, repeating from door to door that one must be unnatural to sell one's child; that it was horrible, disgusting, bribery. Sometimes she would take her Charlot in her arms, ostentatiously ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... But if our enemies seem to us to have got either by flattery, or fraud, or bribery, or venal services, ill-got and discreditable power at court or in state, it ought not to trouble us but rather inspire pleasure in us, when we compare our own liberty and purity and independence of life. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... at hand. No movement could become formidable with out a life and death struggle, when its aim frankly was to snatch power from the dominant class and to place it where that class could not hope to prevail either by direct means of force or by its favorite indirect means of bribery. What would Kelly do? What would be his stroke at the very life of the League?—for Victor had measured Kelly and knew he was not one to strike until ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... the attitude of Miss Royle, Thomas and Jane; where, previous to the birthday, it had seemed the main purpose of the trio (if not the duty) to circumvent her at every turn—to which end, each had a method that was unique: the first commanded; the second threatened; Thomas employed sarcasm or bribery. But now this wave of thoughtfulness, generosity and smooth speech!—marking a very era in the history of the nursery. Here was fresh evidence that it ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... of a demagogue, and at a time when the whole of Europe was undergoing, a great revolution in principles, was welcomed gladly as "The Man of the People." In the beginning, of the year he had been convicted of bribery, but in spite of this his popularity increased.... The election for Westminster, in which Fox was opposed by Sir Cecil Wray, was the most tempestuous of all. There were 20,000 votes to be polled, and the opposing parties resorted ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... admitted that such a course is open to suspicion and might be used as a basis for unpleasant rumors. Mr. Leveson, who kept this hotel, took great pride in saying that nothing in all New York bore a better name, and no amount of bribery would have induced one of his employes—on that side of the house—to vary ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... lawsuit, it went on gloriously, according to the assertions of my brisk little lawyer, who had declared so emphatically that he liked making quick work of a suit. And, at last, what with bribery and feeing and pushing, a day was fixed for the final adjustment of my claim. It came—the cause was heard and lost! I should have been ruined, but for one circumstance; the old lady, my father's godmother, who had witnessed my first and concealed marriage, left ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... he could reach it, as it deserved. It is true that Andre was a man of talent, well-bred and courageous, and of engaging manners. He deserved all the sympathy and sorrow which he excited at the time, but nothing more. He was not only technically a spy, but he had sought his ends by bribery, he had prostituted a flag of truce, and he was to be richly paid for his work. It was all hire and salary. No doubt Andre was patriotic and loyal. Many spies have been the same, and have engaged in their dangerous ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... angry at the plain attempt at bribery, so he turned back to a table and took up the message ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson

... renowned throughout the Italian world, we do not so much set before you either that or any other example, as your own past character, exhorting you to rule consistently with that. You have always been averse from bribery; now earnestly help the victims of injustice. We have purposely delayed your accession to this high office that you might be the more heartily welcomed by the people, who expected to see you clothed ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... the strangers who may come to visit the city are also spoken of, and the manner in which they are to be received. Laws are added respecting sureties, searches for property, right of possession by prescription, abduction of witnesses, theatrical competition, waging of private warfare, and bribery in offices. Rules are laid down respecting taxation, respecting economy in sacred rites, respecting judges, their duties and sentences, and respecting sepulchral places and ceremonies. Here the Laws end. Lastly, ...
— Laws • Plato

... that, in the middle of the last century, we had but just safely freed ourselves from our Bourbons and all that they represented. The corruption of our state was as bad as that of the Second Empire. Bribery was the instrument of government, and peculation its reward. Four-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons were more or less openly dealt with as property. A minister had to consider the state of the vote market, and the sovereign ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... shore. The mate began to laugh at me, and to joke me on my desire to go to sea, questioning me about my knowledge. I was willing to do anything; but, perceiving that I made little impression, I resorted to bribery. Prince Edward had made me a present, before he left Halifax, of a beautiful little fowling-piece, which was in my own possession; and I mentioned to the mate that I was the owner of such an article, and would ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... he said hesitatingly, "that you will not regard this as an ordinary attempt at bribery and corruption. I have simply asked you to aid me in setting right a ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... had been a very active agent in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. At Lorraine Catharine took leave of him, and he went on his way in a very melancholy mood. His election had been secured by the greatest efforts of intrigue and bribery on the part of his mother. The melancholy countenances of the Protestants, driven into exile, and bewailing the murder of friends and relatives, whose assassination he had caused, met him at every turn. ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... said he to Talbot, who came near, "to find out which one of these fellows is the most susceptible of bribery and corruption. They're all a hard lot; the trouble is that one watches the other so closely that I can't ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... with the attendant sponging- houses, Cursitor Street, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs; and no great Fleet Prison, Marshalsea, or King's Bench for imprisoning debtors. There are no polling days and hustings, with riotous proceedings, or "hocussing" of voters; and no bribery ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald



Words linked to "Bribery" :   barratry, felony, graft, commercial bribery, bribe



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