"Conscript" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Government sought to recover excessive profits realized on war contracts did the Supreme Court have occasion to affirm the broad authority of the National Government to mobilize the industrial resources of the nation in time of war. Using the power of Congress to conscript men for the armed forces as a measure of its power to regulate industry, the Court sustained the legislation, saying: "The Renegotiation Act was developed as a major wartime policy of Congress comparable to that of the Selective Service ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... position of a master. He may work for a short period in his native town as a journeyman, but forth he must; nor is he in any way loth. One only contingency there is, which may serve to arrest him in his course,—he may be drawn as a conscript—and, possibly, forget in the next two or three years, as a soldier, all he has previously learned in four as a mechanic. But we suppose Hans to have escaped this peril, and to be on the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... as I hear that the last balloon is to start to-night. How lucky for the English public that, just when the siege of Paris ceases, the conscript fathers of the nation will furnish them with reading at their breakfast tables. The light, airy wit of Professor Fawcett, and the pleasant fancy of Mr. Newdegate, will be served up for them with their hot ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... men who could approach the continental field in, say, the first year, even under the most vigorous efforts, would never reach anything like the numbers that could be afforded by a conscript nation. The very maximum that can be or is hoped for by the most sanguine is the putting into the field, after at least a year of war, of less than three-sixteenths of the total Allied forces, although her ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... and conscript not only incomes but capital, I would ask to answer the riddle not only in what equitable and practicable manner they would do it,[1] but what the Nation would gain ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... appointment of Commissary of Police at Niort. On the order of Rougon, he arrested Martineau, Madame Correur's brother. He was removed from his position on account of having compromised himself by taking a bribe to procure a conscript exemption from ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... of Jehu. By Alexandre Dumas. Complete Angler. By Walton And Cotton. Conduct of Life. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. Confessions of an Opium Eater. By Thomas de Quincey. Conquest of Granada. By Washington Irving. Conscript. By Erckmann-Chatrian. Conspiracy of Pontiac. By Francis Parkman, Jr. Conspirators. By Alexandre Dumas. Consuelo. By George Sand. Cook's Voyages. By Captain James Cook. Corinne. By Madame de Stael. Countess de Charney. By Alexandre Dumas. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... known as the famous Regulus, whose alleged speech to the "Conscript Fathers" has been declaimed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labor: and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... because the people of St. Philemon did not receive any more letters than they sent. The postman had little to do on his rounds but to eat soup at one house, to have a drink at another and, once in a long while, to leave a letter from some conscript, or a bill for taxes at some distant farm. Nevertheless, since St. Robert's Day was near, which, as you know, conies on the 29th of April, the abbe thought it wise to write to the only three friends worthy of that name, whom death had left him, a layman and two priests: "My friend, do ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... cleared out of the profession altogether. I want to do what's right, but I can't reconcile my two duties, Quinny. I've a duty to England, of course, but I think I have a bigger duty to Rachel and Eleanor. If they'd only conscript us all, this problem wouldn't arise ... not so acutely anyhow. I suppose the Government is having a pretty hard time, but they do seem to act the goat rather! There's a great deal of talk about a man's duty to England, but very little talk ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... extinguishing the flames, and in two hours an entire block was burned down. Police Superintendent Kennedy was assailed by the rioters and left for dead. The most exaggerated rumors of the success of the mob spread through the city, and other anti-conscript bands were rapidly formed, especially in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... story-teller that the stomach freely gives to the limbs the nourishment which it freely receives, but that the patricians gave to the plebeians only for cash, and lent to them only at usury, he undoubtedly would have silenced the wily senator, and saved the people from a great imposition. The Conscript Fathers were fathers only of their own line. As for the common people, they were regarded as an impure race, exploitable, taxable, and workable at the discretion and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the town was talking to Kami's cook. The moonlight glittered on the scabbard of his sabre, which he was holding in his hand lest it should clank inopportunely. The cook's cap cast deep shadows on her face, which was close to the conscript's. He slid his arm round her waist, and there followed the sound ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... choice. But in endeavouring to realize his supreme wisdom, nothing helps us more than the pettiness of the accusations brought against him by such historians as Suetonius—that he once remained seated to receive the whole body of Conscript fathers, that he had a gilded chair in the Senate house, and appointed magistrates at his own pleasure to hold office for terms of years, that he laughed at an unfavourable omen and made himself dictator for life; ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... right to seal every man's lips, and stop every man's mouth, on questions of great national interest. They claim to take with them the right to condemn as a felon the man who may utter and maintain the Declaration of Independence, or the opinions of the conscript fathers of the Republic. They claim to take with them the right to condemn as a felon the man who dares proclaim the precepts of our holy religion. They claim to take with them the right to strip naked and cut into gashes ...
— Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do - Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio • Cydnor Bailey Tompkins
... I was looking at a little engraving I had framed myself, and hung over my writing-table; it is a design of Gavarni's; in which, in a grave mood, he has represented a veteran and a conscript. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Paris but spent most of his youth in Havre, where he met a painter of harbours and shipping scenes called Boudin. Through his influence Monet studied out-of-door effects, and was beginning to do fairly good work, when he was drawn as a conscript and sent to Algeria. It is written that Monet discovered that "green, seen under strong sunshine is not green, but yellow; that the shadows cast by sunlight upon snow or upon brightly lighted surfaces are not black, but blue; and that a white dress, seen under the shade of ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... virtues of ancient Rome, and because practically the papacy had prevented the union of Italy. Naturally Machiavelli cherished the army as the prime interest of the state. In advocating a national militia with universal training of citizens he anticipated the conscript armies of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... it that they had a right to go home. They had done their duty faithfully and well. They wanted to see their families; in fact, wanted to go home anyhow. War had become a reality; they were tired of it. A law had been passed by the Confederate States Congress called the conscript act. A soldier had no right to volunteer and to choose the branch of service he ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... habits. He is also too much in earnest to have business rules. If we wish to understand him, we must compare him not with the French shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but with the same French shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the trenches as a conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the roughness and apparent laxity of the French soldier, the looseness of his clothes, the unsightliness of his heavy knapsack, in short his inferiority in every detail ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... rhima, but even Spenser's will not allow the epic movement as exhibited by Homer, Virgil, and Milton. How noble is the first paragraph of the Aeneid in point of sound, compared with the first stanza of the Jerusalem Delivered! The one winds with the majesty of the Conscript Fathers entering the Senate House in solemn procession; and the other has the pace of a set of recruits shuffling on the drill-ground, and receiving from the adjutant or drill-serjeant the commands to halt at every ten or ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Legislature of Massachusetts. Thus at the early age of thirty-six years, he had attained to the highest legislative body of the Union. Young in years, but mature in talent and experience, he took his seat amid the conscript fathers of the country, to act a part which soon drew upon him the eyes of the nation, both in admiration and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... the troubles of the country. Among the causes of the Civil War the ambition to be made President must be reckoned. Every politician has carried a term at the White House in his portfolio, as every French conscript carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack; and the disappointments of so many aspirants swelled the number of the disaffected to the proportions of an army, counting all who expected office as the consequence of this man's or that man's elevation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... centre of the kingdom, but communicating with the ocean by a ship canal. The railways, canals, and river navigation are very highly developed. The government is a limited monarchy; the king, senate, and house of representatives form the constitution. There is a conscript army of 50,000 men, but no navy. Transferred from Spain to Austria in 1713. Belgium was under French sway from 1794 till 1814, when it was united with Holland, but established ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... said: "Conscript Fathers, I beg to withdraw my plea to be excused as inadequate," and the House approved the modesty of the remark and the reason. However, I was drawn to act as I did not only by the applause of the Senate, though that had great weight with me, but by a variety of other reasons, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... skeptically; most people would have done the same; but most would also have been struck, as I was, by these prophetic words. But, conscript though I was, I felt that I could trust my thoughts to no one, and that it was my duty to seem always calm ...
— How The Redoubt Was Taken - 1896 • Prosper Merimee
... arrival here, I found my predecessor (General Hovey) had issued an order permitting the departure south of all persons subject to the conscript law of the Southern Confederacy. Many applications have been made to me to modify this order, but I regarded it as a condition precedent by which I was bound in honor, and therefore I have made no changes or modifications; nor shall ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... production of his French Play of Salome, accepted by SARAH B., having been refused by the Saxon Licenser of Plays, The O'SCAR, dreams of becoming a French Citizen, but doesn't quite "see himself," at the beginning of his career, as a conscript in the French Army, and so, to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... a large following, in the extreme words: "No act of the Government of the United States prior to the secession of Georgia struck a blow at constitutional liberty so fell as has been stricken by the conscript acts." ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... power over other lives except what God allows, and bewildered humanity concedes. Not only is the great plan whole in the mind of God, but every single minutest life is considered as well. In the very case you spoke of, the little conscript, torn from his home to fight a tyrant's battles, hectored and ill-treated, and then shot down upon some crowded battle-field, that is precisely the discipline which at that point of time his soul needs, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you like. He 's right about our "individualismus" being another name for selfishness, and showing the usual deficiency in external features; it's an individualism of all of a pattern, as when a mob cuts its lucky, each fellow his own way. Well, then, conscript them, and they'll be all of a better pattern. The only thing to do, and the cheapest. By heaven! it's the only honourable ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hopeless. He accepted as law whatever his friend said or did. And although their friendship, such as it was, lasted only two years, Keith did not take up smoking until he was in camp as a conscript at the age ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... drawing, the correspondence of a man who never wrote unwisely should lie mouldering in private repositories, ere long to be irretrievably destroyed; that the 'picture of a mind' who was among the conscript fathers of the human race should still be left so vague and dim. This letter is addressed to Schwann, during Schiller's first residence in Weimar: it has already been ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... missing: the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey could no longer lay claim to the patriarchship; he had laid it down with a half-sigh and gone his way. Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing him closely, with Peter Bradbury no ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... having been sufficiently made proof of, the consuls at length said: "Conscript fathers, that you may not say that you have not been forewarned, know that a great disturbance is at hand. We demand that those who accuse us most loudly of cowardice shall assist us when holding the levy; we will proceed according to the resolution of ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... stealing. Severe punishment was meted out when ammunition was thrown away. The debris on the line of march, and the waste, was tremendous. Only strict military discipline made property respected. Even then, the new conscript had to look out for his bright and serviceable musket when the old veteran's arms were lost or out of order. The newspaper correspondent owning a good horse had to keep watch and ward, while so many dismounted cavalrymen whose horses had been shot were as restless ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... to escape from service, and might use the cars for that purpose. He was ordered, therefore, to arrest any such runaways that he might find. When he looked at George it is probable that he thought: "This boy is too young to be a conscript," and he evidently gave unconscious voice to what was passing through his mind. Fortunately enough, he saw nothing suspicious in any ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... itself; and let me tell you, you are obliged to us for describing it with so much modesty and brevity; for with whatever amplifications we might have chosen to decorate the subject, you lay entirely at our mercy, since the Fathers Conscript of our city have decreed that the venerable edifice itself shall not remain in existence to confirm or ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... contrary, they met with a determined purpose of resisting the exaction, and were only undecided as to the mode of grounding their opposition, when the cooper, a very important person on a fishing-station, and one of the conscript fathers of the village, observed, "That their hens had caickled mony a day for the Lords of Ravenswood, and it was time they suld caickle for those that gave them roosts and barley." An unanimous grin intimated the assent of the assembly. "And," continued the orator, "if it's your wull, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Baden army, had succeeded Fremont, and his corps was composed of those same Germans whom Ewell had used so hardly at Cross Keys. Many of them were old soldiers, who had borne arms in Europe; but the stern discipline and trained officers of conscript armies were lacking in America, and the Confederate volunteers had little respect for these foreign levies. Nor were Sigel's dispositions a brilliant example of offensive tactics. His three divisions, Schurz', Schenck's, and Steinwehr's, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... always grew eloquent as he referred to his exile for conscience' sake and to the planting by the conscript fathers of Canada of a new Troy under the ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... like a forlorne and abandoned place. The fathers seing the citie thus relinquished, Horatius and Valerius, with diuers of the fathers, exclamed in this wise. "What do ye expect and looke for, ye fathers conscript? Will ye suffer al thinges to runne to extreame ruine and decay? Shall the Decemuiri still persiste in their stubburne and froward determinacions? What maner of gouernement is this (O ye Decemuiri) that ye thus lay holde vpon and enioye? Will ye pronounce and make lawes within your owne ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... kissing when either of us goes out, this parting kiss being accompanied with the words, 'My sweet angel, I am going out.' Finally, I have taken measures for the future to make my wife as truly a prisoner in the house as the conscript in his sentry box! For I have inspired her with an incredible enthusiasm for the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... man has come here to hide from the conscript officers. He has brought no end of provisions, and is here for the war. He has chosen well, for this county is so cleaned of men it won't pay to ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... potent illusion of free-will (if illusion it be) rests all morality and all the admiration that we feel for good and evil deeds. Not even at Alan Seeger's bidding can we quite persuade ourselves that, when he took up arms for France, he was exercising no brave, no generous choice, but was the conscript of Destiny. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... was stationed in Polotzk. I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, on a Sabbath. I felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed and worried themselves to ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... terror, and death, and the other full of the pleasures of peace. As the tide of war surged nearer and nearer, and the demand for recruits became clamorous, the people of the valley bethought them of the gaunt but sturdy men who lived on the mountain. A conscript officer, representing the necessities of a new government, made a journey thither—a little excursion full of authority and consequence. As he failed to return, another officer, similarly equipped ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... slightly dragging, vibrating voice: "'First, the toil-worn craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man's.—Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, you know, for you and me—Venturists—to be maundering like this. Charity—benevolence—that ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... common denominator and apply it to armaments. The varying costs of a soldier in Europe and in Japan have no relation to each other. The cost of a voluntary soldier in Great Britain has no relation to the cost of a conscript on the Continent. Therefore, that line of approach, when applied too broadly, is not fruitful. I think myself it is quite possible that you may be able to apply financial limitations to the question of ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... Orsini Subjection of the French Effect of Universal Suffrage Causes which may overthrow Louis Napoleon Popularity of a war with England Condition of the Roman people Different sorts of courage in different nations Destructiveness of war not found out at first Effect of service on conscript Expenditure of Louis Napoleon Forebodings of the Empress Prince Napoleon Ampere on Roman affairs Inquisition Infidelity Mortara affair Torpor of Roman Government Interference with marriages Ampere expects Piedmont to take possession ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of Bismarck after a stiff struggle with the Reichstag, raised the peace establishment to 479,000 men. Count Caprivi at the same time reduced the period of compulsory service from three years to two; but while this reform lightened the burden on the individual conscript, it meant a great increase in the number of those who passed through military training, and an enormous increase of the war strength. The Franco-Russian entente of 1896 was a sign that France began to feel herself ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... poison, working busily in the darkness. It was the croakers who bought up the supplies, and hoarded them in garrets, and retailed them in driblets, thereby causing the enormous prices which, according to them, foretold the coming downfall. They evaded the conscript officers; grew fat on their extortions; and one day you would miss them from their accustomed haunts—they had flitted across the Potomac, and were drinking their wine in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to possess one small fragment of the world's surface; to have a hut, a cabin, or a cottage that was verily my own, to eat the fruits of my own labour on the soil—this seemed to me the crown and goal of all human felicity. Conscript of the city as I was, drilled and driven daily in the grim barrack-yard of despotic civilisation, yet I was a deserter at heart; an earth-hunger as rapacious and intense as that of any French or Irish peasant burned in my bones, and, like the peasant conscript that I truly was, my dreams ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... reasonable. They forgot that a power that could lead them by fire and cloud could protect them even against conscript troops and modern methods of fighting. They forgot that if so much trouble had been taken to put them where they were, it was not that—assuming that they behaved themselves—it was not that they might be easily rooted ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... petulant; there were tears in it. It was not a decision of strength. Here the press-gang was at work driving the unwilling conscript. She was going; there was no doubt about her going; but it was a hard ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... names: list], vietcong; shining path; contras; huk, hukbalahap. mercenary, soldier of fortune; hired gun, gunfighter, gunslinger; bushwhacker, free lance, companion; Hessian. hit man[criminals specializing in violence: see bad man], torpedo, soldier. levy, draught; Landwehr[Ger], Landsturm[Ger]; conscript, recruit, cadet, raw levies. infantry, infantryman, private, private soldier, foot soldier; Tommy Atkins[obs3], rank and file, peon, trooper, sepoy[obs3], legionnaire, legionary, cannon fodder, food for powder; officer &c. (commander) 745; subaltern, ensign, standard bearer; spearman, pikeman[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... his testament in their favor.-Take the still rude brain of a contemporary peasant and deprive it of the ideas which, for eighty years past, have entered it by so many channels, through the primary school of each village, through the return home of the conscript after seven years' service, through the prodigious multiplication of books, newspapers, roads, railroads, foreign travel and every other species of communication.[5301] Try to imagine the peasant of the eighteenth century, penned and shut up from father ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... service. Comparatively few fell before the bullets or machetes of the insurgents—for, as we shall see, the revolutionists adopted the tactics of Fabius—but by thousands they succumbed to fevers of every kind. Death without glory was the hapless lot of the Spanish conscript. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... threw across a platinum badge. "Take that—captain at large—and conscript any of the Municipal Force you want, up to a hundred. Pick out any place you want, train them to handle those damned Legals the way Murdoch handled the Stonewall boys. In return, the sky's the limit. Name your own salary, once you've done the job. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... anxiously deliberated among themselves what fit colleague for Nero could be nominated at the coming comitia, and sorrowfully recalled the names of Marcellus, Gracchus, and other plebeian generals who were no more—one taciturn and moody old man sat in sullen apathy among the conscript fathers. This was Marcus Livius, who had been consul in the gear before the beginning of this war, and had then gained a victory over the Illyrians. After his consulship he had been impeached before the people on a charge of peculation and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... a mediaeval bakehouse), not of the tower of the glaciere and the horrors perpetrated here in the Revolution, but of the military burden of young France. One wonders how young France endures it, and one is forced to believe that the French conscript has, in addition to his notorious good-humour, greater toughness than is commonly supposed by those who consider only the more relaxing influences of French civilisation. I hope he finds occasional compensation for such moments as I saw those damp young peasants passing on the mattresses ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... nevertheless been the basis of the latest military organisation of Prussia and of Europe generally. The problem was solved by the adoption of a short period of service and the rapid drafting of the trained conscript into a reserve-force. Scharnhorst, President of the Military Commission, to whom more than to any one man Prussia owed its military revival, proposed to maintain an Active Army of 40,000 men; a Reserve, into which ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the early steps of nascent ambition. In the time of the great Napoleon every conscript carried the baton of a marshal in his knapsack; and in our happy land every rogue may be said to have an appointment to office in his ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... one heard noise, and one saw flame, I only knew he named my name: But what is the world to me, for sorrow Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow It drops the remark, with just-turned head Then, on again, "That man is dead"? Yes, but for me—my name called,—drawn As a conscript's lot from the lap's black yawn, He has dipt into on a battle-dawn: Bid out of life by a nod, a glance,— Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's chance,— With a rapid finger circled round, Fixed to the first poor ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... laved by two oceans, as also by the lakes and the gulf, with a more genial sun, and a soil far more fertile and productive than that of England, and nearly thirty times greater in extent. She saw us raise within the loyal States a volunteer army of three fourths of a million, without a conscript, the largest, and far the most intelligent and effective force in the world, and millions more ready, whenever called, to rush to the defense of the Union, whilst a great and gallant navy rose, as if by enchantment, from the ocean. She marked the rapid transfer of the command of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... come, as father's old friend Captain Mordaunt said only the other day when talking to us both under the old mulberry-tree in our garden, when this state of things will be changed, and a boy who enters the service as I did on board one of our training-ships, will, as Bonaparte said the conscript carried a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, keep snugly stowed away an admiral's cocked hat ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... was, we are told, directly held under the King, and would only therefore be touched by a general levy en masse—not even perhaps by that, so far off were they, and so near the frontier, where a reluctant man-at-arms could without difficulty make his escape, as the unwilling conscript sometimes does now. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... spectacle, like all of the same kind that have preceded and followed it—a glorious spectacle, when the faces of most of the men were observed, and nothing of the despairing dullness of the conscript's eye seen there, but the vigorous pride and determination of men who were going forth at the call of their country to battle for that country to the death. And yet a sad spectacle, as all the others have been, when waste of life and mismanagement of power were taken into the account, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Abdication by the soldier of private judgment and free will 98 Distinctions and compromises 99 Cases in which the military oath may be broken.—Illegal orders 100 Violation of religious obligations.—The Sepoy mutiny 101 The Italian conscript.—Fenians in the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... of the campaign, to speak of the danger that might be incurred and finally to express a desire to in passing the Oder, see peace concluded. Napoleon received this communication with a very bad grace. He thought the Senators very bold to meddle with his affairs, treated the conscript fathers of France as if they had been inconsiderate youths, protested, according to custom, his sincere love of peace, and told the deputation that it was Prussia, backed by Russia, and not he, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... families who enjoy the title of Conscript. From these are chosen, every three months, three Conservatori and a Prior of the Wards, who form a committee for the superintendence of the walls and public monuments, and for the administration of the income of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... But this may be said with truth that of the many days of surpassing fame and happiness which Publius Scipio saw in his lifetime, the most glorious was the day before his death when on the adjournment of the Senate he was escorted home by the Conscript Fathers, the Roman people, the men of Latium and the allies, [Footnote): Scipio had at that session of the senate proposed a measure in the utmost degree offensive to Caius Gracchus and his party. The law of Tiberius Gracchus would have disposed, ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... and its part in costal or rib-breathing, care should be taken to make clear why it is that, while this muscle is a valuable aid to inspiration, its value would be impaired were it whipped into action like a conscript instead of being drafted, so to speak, as ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... fell over the corner of a chair. Her father afterwards related her simple history in brief. She was the belle in Vienne, and was courted by two or three of her own condition, but was inflexibly attached to a young conscript. "You will doubtless hear him before you depart," continued the landlord, "for he is almost always behind that garden hedge, playing on his flageolet."—The lover it seems was the young fifer. Mademoiselle St. Sillery now became very restless. "You wish to see this gentleman," ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... will doubtless note the combination: be so strong as to make victory certain, and strike when you have made it certain, and they will then, in the light of this advice, be able to put the right interpretation upon our endeavours to create a great conscript force and our arrangements, which have been going on for some years, to throw an expeditionary force ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... industrial more than to strengthen our military power; and the extension to Ireland handed that country over to Sinn Fein and necessitated the diversion thither of large British forces, which might otherwise have been sent to the front, without producing a single Irish conscript. The proposal was, indeed, so foolish that its authors made no attempt to carry it out. Wiser was the speedy dispatch to France of 300,000 superfluous troops who had been kept in England by nothing better than an ignorant fear of invasion. But ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... then Regulus, standing up, said, as one repeating a task, "Conscript fathers, being a slave to the Carthaginians, I come on the part of my masters to treat with you concerning peace, and an exchange of prisoners." He then turned to go away with the ambassadors, as a stranger might not be present at the deliberations ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... different might have been the result? All this could have been done in the then condition of public sentiment; not a dissentient voice would have been heard. It would have been far more popular than the "Conscript Act" was a year later, and that ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... purposes. The diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined and rewarded"—a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s "old people are respected and comforted." More than one association has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at the opening of every new year, when good ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... [Vitellius, when Priscus opposed him in the senate and denounced one of the soldiers, called the tribunes to his side as if he had some need of their assistance. He did not himself do Priscus any harm and did not allow the officials to hurt him, but merely said: "Be not indignant, Conscript Fathers, that we two out of your number have had a little dispute with each other." This act seemed to have been due to a kindly disposition. The fact, however, that he wished to imitate Nero and offered sacrifices ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... respect for his father sprang from the halo of military service encircling Moses ever since it leaked out through the lips of the Bube, that he had been a conscript in Russia and been brutally treated by the sergeant. But Moses could not be got to speak of his exploits. Solomon pressed him to do so, especially when his father gave symptoms of inviting him to the study of Rashi's Commentary. To-night ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... —Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... moderation which neither justifies the belief that the demagogue was playing to the army, nor accredits the view that his interference relaxed the bonds of discipline amongst the legions.[611] The most scandalous anomaly in the Roman army-system was the miserable pittance earned by the conscript when the legal deductions had been made from his nominal rate of pay. His daily wage was but one-third of the denarius, or five and one-third asses a day, as it had remained unaltered from the times of the Second Punic War, in spite of the fact that the conditions of service were ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... field," Captain Muggs displayed his extraordinary knowledge of tactics. He it was who first discovered the method of "dressing" a line, by backing it up against a curbstone. He also divested military science of many pedantic terms, which tend only to confuse the young conscript, and dampen the military ardor of the patriot soldier. He substituted the brief and soldierly words of command, "haw!" "gee!" and "whoa!" for "left," "right," and "halt." His spirited "let her rip!" was an infinite improvement on the "fire" ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... seed-plot of conservative influences, where "Saigo and his constantly augmenting band of samurai found a congenial environment." On the one hand, the Central Government steadily proceeded with the organization of a conscript army, teaching it foreign tactics and equipping it with foreign arms. On the other, the southern clan cherished its band of samurai, arming them with the rifle and drilling them in the manner of Europe, but leaving them always in possession of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the return of the first of the fallen among the French soldiery made a terrible spectacle. At suburban stations, generally in the middle of the night, long lines of third-class railway carriages, as well as rectangular, box-shaped cattle wagons, such as in conscript countries are used for purposes of mobilization, would draw up ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... his task in an extremely unfinished state, and Marshal Le Boeuf, who succeeded him, persevered with it in a very faint-hearted way. The regular army, however, was kept in fair condition, though it was never so strong as it appeared to be on paper. There was a system in vogue by which a conscript of means could avoid service by supplying a remplacant. Originally, he was expected to provide his remplacant himself; but, ultimately, he only had to pay a sum of money to the military authorities, who undertook to find a man to take his place. Unfortunately, in thousands ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... they conceived themselves to be roughly handled, made this soft answer. 'Fathers conscript, that you may please to take notice it was foretold some horrid sedition is at hand, we shall only desire that they whose valor in this place is so great, may stand by us to see how we behave ourselves, and then be as resolute in your commands as you will; your fatherhoods may know if ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... to the balloon type of aircraft has received a further illustration. They have rejected Highgate's fat conscript. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... the Conscription Law operated mainly as a stimulus to voluntary enlistment. The volunteer received, as the conscript did not, a bounty from the Government; States, counties, and smaller localities, when once a quota was assigned to them, vied with one another in filling their quota with volunteers, and for that purpose added ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... smile among them—have I not said that they are going down to a grim sector?—but with faces of granite. There was a time when we talked of stiffening the French army. I am prepared to believe that our first expeditionary force was capable of stiffening any conscript army, for I do not think that a finer force ever went down to battle. But to talk about stiffening these people now would be ludicrous. You might as well stiffen the old Guard. There may be weak regiments somewhere, but I have never ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they know it. The lives of our men are at stake. . . . Their brothers, mark you, Vane. What do they care? Not a dam, sir, not a dam. More money, money—that's all they want. They know the State won't dare a lock-out—and they trade on it. . . . Why don't they conscript 'em, sir?—why don't they put the whole cursed crowd into khaki? Then if they strike send 'em over into the trenches as I said, and let 'em rot there. That would soon bring 'em to their senses. . . ." Sir James attacked his ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... 1775. This enticed slaves to run away and enlist as free blacks, a practice the assembly tried to halt by requiring all black enlistees to have certificates of freedom. Then an odd reversal occurred after 1779 when the state began to conscript white males into the militia. Taking advantage of the provision in the draft law allowing draftees to send substitutes, some slave owners offered their slaves as substitutes. This was as far as the enlistment of slaves went. James Madison proposed in 1780 that the ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... - military age and obligation: 19-30 years of age for compulsory military service; conscript service obligation - 18 months ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in the hope that his entire influence will be employed in the right direction when the decisive moment arrives, and that he will insist upon such crucial questions as the reduction of armaments, the substitution of "citizen" for "conscript" armies, the control of armament firms and their occult influence, the effective extension of arbitration and the elimination of impossible time-limits, being discussed in all seriousness, and not merely dismissed with a few ironic platitudes and expressions ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Russian—the Slavophilist of the lower classes—and hence extreme to the point of absurdity. His revolt against authority has more resemblance to that of La Vendee than to that of the Jacobins. Like a conscript obstinately refusing to join his regiment, he holds back from all part and lot in the changes of modern Russia; and in this light the schism is the feature which above all others assimilates Russia to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our Conscript on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred.' It is through such passages that Carlyle has won his way to the hearts of many who care little for history, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... directly a teacher, he robs himself of more than half his strength with those he can move only through the realization of themselves in others. The simple pathos, and the apparent indirectness of such a tale as that of 'Poticoushka,' the peasant conscript, is of vastly more value to the world at large than all his parables; and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,' the Philistine worldling, will turn the hearts of many more from the love of the world than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... agents of the Indian Office keep faith with the refugees. Quite strenuously, too, he advocated further enlistments from among the Indians, especially from among those yet in Indian Territory. If the United States did not take care, the Confederates would successfully conscript where the Federals might easily recruit. In this matter as in many another, he had Blunt's unwavering support; for Blunt wanted the officers of the embryo fourth and fifth regiments to secure their commands. Blunt's military district was none ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... early in the mornings, and I poked my head out to get another glimpse of those lads marching forward to the firing-line. For as long as history lasts the imagination of our people will strive to conjure up the vision of those boys who, in the year of 1915, went out to Flanders, not as conscript soldiers, but as volunteers, for the old country's sake, to take their risks and "do their bit" in the world's bloodiest war. I saw those fellows day by day, touched hands with them, went into the trenches with them, heard their first tales, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... worm. Scientists tell us that without this creature's work in preparing the soil, but little of the earth's surface would be fit for cultivation. To its voluntary efforts we owe our supplies of vegetable food, but not satisfied with this, we conscript him that he may help us ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... with the controversies over conscription, had harassed him. He was not a keen believer in the conscript principle; he was more than justified in his preference for a voluntary army by the response he had received on his appeal to the manhood of England. There was a wonderful completion of the task he had ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... mission in life seems to be to make such discoveries, and the number of these pleasure-hunters was considerably increased on the occasion of the assembling of the Diet at Pressburg, when many of our younger conscript fathers spread the report of newly found female virtue as far as possible. Who did not know of the Meyer girls in those days?—and those who did, could not help knowing likewise that there was a fifth sister. Now, where was this last little sister ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... am sure that I shall seem to some of you, Conscript Fathers, to have made an incredible choice. For what each one of my hearers would not wish to do himself, he does not like to believe when another states it as accomplished. This is chiefly because every one is jealous of every ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... swing at home from tree to tree, A symbol of democracy that's woolly, blythe and free. And yet for what my captors are I would not change my lot, For I have tasted liberty—these others, they have not! So, even caged, the democratic 'coon more glory feels Than the conscript German puppets with their swords about ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... one but recently returned to so-called civilisation after the horrors of two years of war ["Conscript!" said John], may I venture to give you my opinion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... Carolina Regiment, was given a commission as Captain, and he, with others, raised a company of cavalry and was given a thirty days' furlough. A great many companies volunteered in a body, not knowing at the time that the Conscript Act soon to be enacted would retain in service all between certain ages in the army, even after their ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... servitude, as well as for commercial sexual exploitation in small brothels in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps; the terrorist rebel organization "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA) continues to abduct and forcibly conscript small numbers of children in Southern Sudan for use as cooks, porters, and combatants in its ongoing war against Uganda; some of these children are then trafficked across borders into Uganda or possibly the Democratic ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... of course, and does he love it. That'll keep him out of mischief. Dolf Kellton's secretary; he has an office force at the Academy and can conscript students to help. He's organizing a research team from his seniors and post-grad students to work in the Planetary Library at Storisende. There are a lot of old Third Force records there; he may find something useful. Of course, ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... war for exercise or play. I speak of it primarily in this light, because, through all past history, manly war has been more an exercise than anything else, among the classes who cause, and proclaim it. It is not a game to the conscript, or the pressed sailor; but neither of these are the causers of it. To the governor who determines that war shall be, and to the youths who voluntarily adopt it as their profession, it has always been a grand pastime; and chiefly pursued because they had nothing ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... chorus; some raffling for nuts and biscuits at smartly-decked fair-booths, or playing at Chinese billiards for painted mugs or huge cakes of gilt gingerbread; some listening to the stump orations of an extempore fortuneteller, who promised the baton of the field-marshal to any conscript who would give him a penny; and some buying by yards the patriotic, soul-stirring songs of Beranger, and reciting them in every tone, in every key and to every tune. One of these songsters was a young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... past a bully of that stripe. He was capable of committing any kind of an atrocity. And his sort undoubtedly did. But what else can one expect from a conscript army, which, as it puts every man on its roster, must necessarily contain the worst as well as the best? Draft 1,000 men out of any community in any country and along with the decent citizens there will ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... last, that Cupid, as a step-husband, had no legitimate connection with any of the glistening, thick-lipped, chubby set. But, even closer family ties than those which bound my slaves to me, are broken by the pressure of human institutions. The conscript fathers of New York had long before determined that domestic slavery should not continue within their borders; and, one by one, these younger dependants dropped off, to seek their fortunes in town, or ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... claim it at the sword's point, and when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at the last of mercenaries. No dynasty lasted long in Assyria, where popular generals, even while serving on distant campaigns, were often elevated to the throne—in anticipation of the ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... one of his lictors suddenly fell down and died. Because of these events many men in the course of those days took one side or the other in their speeches and advice, and among the deliverances was the following, of Cicero:—[-18-] "You have heard recently, Conscript Fathers, when I made a statement to you about the matter, why I made preparations for my departure as if I were going to be absent from the city a very long time and then returned rapidly with the idea that I could benefit you greatly. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... "Madame Therese" with stories celebrating the victories of Napoleon and thus appealing to their compatriots' love of glory and military illusions, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian take up next the tragic and far more significant story of 1812-13. With "The Conscript" begins their long, sustained, and eloquent sermon against war and war-wagers—the exordium, so to say, of their arraignment of Napoleon for wanton and insatiate love of conquest. "The Conscript" is certainly one of the ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... frequently went to Freiburg, in the Black Forest, to get a practical insight into smelting. When I was about nineteen, however, a message arrived from my father, directing me to return to France and report myself as a conscript; but against this my mother resolutely set her face. I fancy my father wanted me to take up the army as a career, but in deference to my mother's wishes I remained with her in Switzerland for some time longer. She and I had many talks about my ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... 500 men in the different actions prior to Cedar Creek after its return of September 10th. To offset this no account is made of the "Valley Reserves" (men over and boys under conscript age) and "detailed men" (those subject to conscription who were permitted to remain at home to do necessary work), who joined the army after its defeat at Fisher's Hill. General Lee wrote General Early 27th September: "All the reserves ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... day—imagine these fellows, each with a large pendulous ear to the earth, listening for the approach of some Pegasus to carry him to Congress—teaching the aesthetics of civilization to the divine philosophers of Greece and the god-like senators of Rome! Think of Perry J. Lewis pulling the Conscript Fathers over the coals—of Senator Bowser pointing out civic duties to Socrates; of Attorney-General Crane giving Julius Caesar a piece of his mind; of Charley Culberson turning up his little two-for-a-nickel ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... been her desertion from the cause, a conscript in which, she had so ill-understood. The falling back into luxury, the acceptance of those things which in her tentative, unrevolutionary way she had always imagined to come into her right of possession, had been very easy—very gentle—the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... great conscription, a New Model would, indeed, be initiated, as far superior to the conscript armies as Cromwell's Ironsides were to the mercenaries of their time. The whole nation from prince to beggar would by this means be transformed, labour would cease to be despised or riches to be worshipped, the reproach of effeminacy would be removed, the horrors of peace mitigated, and the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... McClellan, would now take Richmond, for we have not men enough at present to offer successful resistance; but he will fortify each step of his way, and lay grand plans, and thus delay until we can raise men enough by the conscript law to defeat him." I did not then think that his prediction would be verified, and hoped that McClellan would show that he was not delaying for nothing; but when I heard of the precipitate retreat to Harrison's Landing, I was ready to confess that the Confederate officer had been more penetrating ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... Regulus, standing up, said, as one repeating a task, 'Conscript fathers, being a slave to the Carthaginians, I come on the part of my masters to treat with you concerning peace, and an exchange of prisoners.' He then turned to go away with the ambassadors, as a stranger might not be present at the deliberations of the Senate. His old friends pressed ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Gentlemen, I have written of Tullies love, a worke attempted to win your favours, but to discover mine owne ignorance in that coveting to counterfeit Tullies phrase, I have lost myself in unproper words." In this tale Cicero is represented standing at the tribune and haranguing the senate: "Conscript fathers and grave senators of ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the hill at the time, but did not throw down his load until he brought it to the gun, loudly proclaiming, that he hoped these shells would pay them back for his wound. But that was the end of his service in our army. He was over conscript age, but came as a substitute for some one who could pay for a man to take ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... took effect in the breast of the great-coat he wore, but failed to penetrate it. Mr. Grimes, upon this, fired his pistol, loaded with ball and buck-shot, at Mons. La Branche, wounding him slightly in the hand, and leaving one or two of the conscript fathers, standing near, in doubt whether they were shot or no, so disgustingly close was the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... well-known story told of Napoleon the First's time. In one of the conscriptions, during one of his many wars, a man was balloted as a conscript who did not want to go, but he had a friend who offered to go in his place. His friend joined the regiment in his name, and was sent off to the war. By and by a battle came on, in which he was killed, and they buried him on the battle-field. Some time after the Emperor ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody |
