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Ill-gotten   /ɪl-gˈɑtən/   Listen
Ill-gotten

adjective
1.
Obtained illegally or by improper means.  Synonym: dirty.  "Ill-gotten gains"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ill-gotten" Quotes from Famous Books



... he put the keys Into his charge? Surely he ask'd no more But, Follow me! Nor Peter nor the rest Or gold or silver of Matthias took, When lots were cast upon the forfeit place Of the condemned soul. Abide thou then; Thy punishment of right is merited: And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin, Which against Charles thy hardihood inspir'd. If reverence of the keys restrain'd me not, Which thou in happier time didst hold, I yet Severer speech might use. Your avarice O'ercasts the world with mourning, under foot ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... he would finally make with laurels round his brow! Even here in the forest he would be no common freebooter. He would show himself merciful to the poor and oppressed; he would only take toll of the sleek and the fat, whose wealth was doubtless as ill-gotten as that of those whose lives he had watched ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... beloved sin, as dear to thee as thy dear wife and children, hast thou left for God's sake, since thou tookest this oath? I read, That the people took an oath to make restitution, which was a costly duty, and yet they performed it. But alas! where is the man that hath made restitution of his ill-gotten goods since he took this covenant? I read, that king Asa deposed his mother Maachah, her even, from being queen, after he had entered into covenant: and that the people, after they had sworn a covenant, brake in pieces all the altars of Baal thoroughly. But where is this thorough reformation. We ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... Death begins his threats, And his conscience struggles To call to mind his former cheats, Then at Heaven he turns and juggles: And out of all's ill-gotten store He gives a dribbling to the poor; An hospital or school-house; And the suborn'd priest for his hire Quite frees him from th' infernal fire, And places him in th' angel's quire: Thus ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... that is stolen from the rich man's coffers has some claim to respectability, over these ill-gotten coins that are so many mouthfuls of bread snatched from the jaws ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... dig a little hole here, and put the purse into it," continued Tim, as he scooped out a hole in the sand, and dropped the ill-gotten treasure into it. ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... out against the nugget. Howitt adds, "He is a hopelessly ruined man." But he is a type of the class. They are all fast men. Hear some of the names of the places where they dig:—"Jackass Flat,"—"Sheep's-Head Gully,"—"Murderer's Bar," etc. Is there no satire in these names? Let them carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking it will still be "Jackass Flat," if not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... from his career of robbery, content to enjoy the wealth which he had so cruelly and treacherously obtained. He settled in Jamaica, where he was permitted to enjoy in security his ill-gotten wealth. In fact, the British government showed its real sentiment concerning his career by promoting him to high offices and giving him the honor of knighthood. As a result this faithless and cruel pirate bore during ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... continued, whilst suddenly the young girl seemed to see the whole thing as in a vision, "they did not forget a single detail—follow them with me, point by point. Two cunning scoundrels—geniuses they should be called—well provided with some ill-gotten funds—but determined on a grand coup. They play at respectability, for six months, say. One is the master, the other the servant; they take a house in the same street as their intended victim, make friends with him, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... want to sell your pictures, why don't you consult your friends instead of going to a thieving dealer? I found the Witch in the hands of such an one, and rescued her, for I won't say how little. As I could not possibly keep my ill-gotten gains on any other terms, please accept the enclosed, which with what you probably received will make up something like her real value. I need not tell you how delighted I am to possess so exquisite a ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... could detect hesitation in Virginia's reply. If Carver still chose to keep the ill-gotten role of protector, it was not up to her to take it ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... attorneys and managers, may possibly succeed in driving the negroes from the estates by exorbitant rent and low wages. They may succeed in their effort to buy in property at half its value. But when they have effected that, they will be totally dependent for the profits of their ill-gotten gains upon the free laboring people. They may produce what they call idleness now, and a great deal of vexation and suffering. But land is plenty, and the laborers, if thrust from the estates, will ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... from Saint-Omer but Boulogne. He recognizes in Count Baudouin his liege lord, leaves his ship and decides to remain with the crusaders. "Moult estait riche de ce mauvais gaeng." The whilom pirate contributes his ill-gotten gains to ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... once the famous haunt of the buccaneers. It seems made by nature as a lurking-place for smugglers and pirates, and that is the purpose to which it was long devoted. The passages inland served admirably for the disposal of ill-gotten goods. For years the pirates of Barataria Bay defied the authorities, making the Gulf the scene of their exploits and finding a secret and ready market for ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... or (as Solomon Riches so gotten, and added says of ill-gotten riches) to his great estate, would like gravel in his teeth. prove like ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton

... and smoked, and pretty soon, the occasion and the conditions and the time being ripe, Marr outlined to his new friend Hartridge, on pledge of secrecy, a wonderfully safe and wonderfully simple plan for taking its ill-gotten money away from a Tenderloin pool room. Swiftly he sketched in the details; the opportunity, he divulged in strict confidence, had just come to him. He confessed to having taken a great liking to Hartridge during their ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... other Bonapartes have made as great and as rapid fortunes as Lucien, and yet, instead of being generous, contented, or even philosophers, they are still profiting by every occasion to increase their ill-gotten treasures, and no distress was ever relieved, no talents encouraged, or virtues recompensed by them. The mind of their garrets lodges with them in their palaces, while Lucien seems to ascend as near as possible ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... division, during the hours of deepest slumber, the treacherous chief, with a few of his confidants, set sail for Jamaica, in a vessel deeply laden with spoils. On waking and learning this act of base treachery, the infuriated pirates pursued him, but in vain; he safely reached Jamaica with his ill-gotten wealth. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... children following in the rear; hulking men with lurcher dogs at their heels, sauntering along in idleness, spotting out their prey; donkeys loaded with sacks, mules with tents and sticks, and their vans and waggons carrying ill-gotten gain and plunder; and the question arises in the mind of those who take an interest in this singularly unfortunate race of beings: From whence came they? How have they travelled? By what routes did they travel? What is their condition, past and present? How are they to be dealt with in any efforts ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... once repudiated his father's policy, executed the ministers who had directed it, and was hailed as a liberator by his delighted people. They quite overlooked the fact that he neglected to restore the ill-gotten funds, and soon used them in establishing a far more vigorous tyranny than his father would have dared. Much is forgiven a youthful king if he be but brave and jovial and hearty in his manner. His blunders, his excesses of fury, are put down to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... are insolent and vain: Presumptuous man! the gods take care of Cato. Would Caesar show the greatness of his soul, Bid him employ his care for these my friends, And make good use of his ill-gotten pow'r, By sheltering men much better ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... the old stage-coach days, but to a robbery which occurred long before the coming of man—the theft of the waters of Yellowstone Lake; for this splendid river, these noble falls, this incomparable canyon, are the ill-gotten products of the ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... "Ill-gotten goods seldom prosper," said Theresa, without looking up. "Things may go along all right for ten years, and that seems like a long time, but the vengeance of Heaven comes in the eleventh, as it has already come in the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... which could afford to put that lumber at the given point cheaper then any other. The nearest other camp was either a hundred miles away, on the western side, or so far removed over the range in the matter of altitude that the freight rates would be prohibitive to a cheaper bid. Thayer, with his ill-gotten flume, with his lake, with his right to denude Barry Houston's forests at an insignificant cost, could out-bid the others. He would ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... for sale in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and ready purchasers are found for them, the risk of being brought up as a receiver not being so great as might be supposed. The regular cattle-stealer has stations in the bush, where he collects his ill-gotten herds, defaces and alters their brands, and keeps them till the new brand has healed and assumed the usual appearance; he then boldly starts for market in open day, and, though he may be met by the former owners of the beasts he is driving, he fears ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... the sunny hills. No amount of worldly riches could give me the deep satisfaction I now possess. As for the false friend who robbed me, I leave him in the hands of the all-wise Disposer of events. He will not find, in ill-gotten gain, a blessing. It will not make his bed soft; nor his food sweet to the taste. A just and righteous God will trouble his peace, and make another's possessions the burden ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... was part owner, to the coast of France. He was looked upon as a hardy and expert seaman, as well as a good fisherman. Had he, indeed, kept to the latter calling, with the boats he owned he would have become an independent, if not a wealthy man. But ill-gotten gains go fast, and in his smuggling enterprises, though he was often successful, yet he lost in the ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston

... from. Ah, Mr. Lathrop, it's sad to lose a fortune, and that's what we done when we let all them heathen islands go without a good Christian expedition to destroy the idols and relieve them of their ill-gotten gains." ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... tradesmen, fewer foolish demagogues, less impudence in infamous and brutal men; and we should not have had among us the abomination of men calling themselves religious while living in splendor on ill-gotten gains. I say it is not possible for any society in which there is a very large body of wise and virtuous men to be as vicious as our society is—to have as low a standard of right and wrong, to have so much belief in falsehood, or to have so degrading, barbarous a notion of what pleasure is, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... never come. Ill-gotten money is a curse." Then she taxed him with scuttling the Proserpine, and asked him whether that money had not been the bribe. But Joe was obdurate. "I never split on a friend," said he. "And you have ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... the door opened, and Jack Sheppard presented himself. He was wrapped in a laced roquelaure, which he threw off on his entrance into the room. It has been already intimated that Jack had an excessive passion for finery; and it might have been added, that the chief part of his ill-gotten gains was devoted to the embellishment of his person. On the present occasion, he appeared to have bestowed more than ordinary attention on his toilette. His apparel was sumptuous in the extreme, and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... either the person robbed would employ me to ferret out the mystery and recover the diamonds, or the robber himself, actuated by motives of self-preservation, would endeavor to direct my energies into other channels until he should have the time to dispose of his ill-gotten booty. A mental discussion of the probabilities inclined me to believe that the latter would be the case. I reasoned in this fashion: The person robbed is of exalted rank. She cannot move rapidly because she is so. Great bodies move slowly. It is probable that ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... openly ask, and the free-traders regarded me with enmity, if not with scorn. It was near six months before we even knew for certain that the man survived; and it was years before I learned from one of Crail's men, turned publican on his ill-gotten gain, some particulars which smack to me of truth. It seems the traders found the Master struggled on one elbow, and now staring round him, and now gazing at the candle, or at his hand, which was all bloodied, like a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... nearest and dearest. Mr. Litterny has had a small loss, which he won't feel in a year from now. The thief, the rascal, the scoundrel, as you call him so fluently, has escaped for now, perhaps, with his ill-gotten gains, but he is a hunted thing, living with a black terror of being found out—a terror which clutches him when he prays and when he dances. It's the thief I'm sorry for—I'm sorry for him—I'm sorry for him." Her voice ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... interposed De Guise with a bitter laugh, "you are inexorable! Let the man live, and do not seek to emulate his bloodthirstiness. His exile will content me, provided that it be accompanied by the confiscation of his ill-gotten wealth." "So, so; you are indulgent, Monsieur le Duc," ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... Concord grapes, and Astrachan apples in the neighborhood that was infested by "Plupy" and his associates; who frequently tracked, chased, and caught them red-handed, but who was too kind-hearted even then to deprive them of their ill-gotten gains. ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute

... mineral taking fire? It began to give off sulphurous fumes. And drifting away with them were all Birt's golden visions and Nate's ill-gotten ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... the cruel criticism which they had been leveling at him in private. The pale man, with the blond eyelashes and the faded blue eyes, who had been dexterously stacking the cards all through the game, decided at that moment that he would not only stop cheating, but he would even lose some of his ill-gotten gains back into the game; only a sudden rush of unbelievable luck kept him from executing his ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... uncertain. It was directed against Quintus Servilius Cpio, who, when the barbarians were threatening Italy, commanded in Gaul, and enriched himself by the wealth of Tolosa, which he took (B.C. 106), thus giving rise to the proverb, "He has gold of Toulouse"—ill-gotten gains (aurum Tolosanum habet). He was also held responsible for a terrible defeat at Arausio (Orange), where eighty thousand Romans and forty thousand camp-followers perished, October 6, B.C. 105. The day became another black one in the Roman calendar.] At the same time the right ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... were two who bore a clearer title to the name! He knew them both—Jake Kisnieff, better known as Old Attic in the underworld, as crooked as his own bent and twisted form, a miserly, cunning "fence," crafty enough, if report were true, to have garnered a huge, ill-gotten harvest under the nose of the police; and the other, one self-styled Henry Thorold, alias whatever occasion might require, smooth, polished, educated, the most dangerous of all types of crook, was the brains of a ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Ciccu do? Life was sweet, and he was in the power of the king; so he gave up silently his ill-gotten goods, and was as poor as when ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... assert their superiority over the councils. The Synod of Basle [Sidenote: Basle 1431-43] reiterated all the claims of Constance, and passed a number of laws intended to diminish the papal authority and to deprive the pontiff of much of his ill-gotten revenues—annates, fees for investiture, and some other taxes. It was successful for a time because protected by the governments of France and Germany, for, though dissolved by Pope Eugene IV in 1433, it refused to listen to his command ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... maintenance of their subordinates, and the latter often received only instalments of what was due to them. The culprits often escaped from their difficulties by either laying hold of half a dozen of their brawling victims, or by yielding to them a proportion of their ill-gotten gains, before a rumour of the outbreak could reach head-quarters. It happened from time to time, however, when the complaints against them were either too serious or too frequent, that they were deprived of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the greed of Kiaking. But the amount of his peculations amply justified his punishment, and Kiaking in signing his death warrant could not be accused of harshness or injustice. The execution of Hokwan restored some of his ill-gotten wealth to the state, and served as a warning to other officials; but as none could hope to enjoy his opportunities, it did not act as a serious deterrent upon the mass of the Chinese civil service. If arraigned, they might have justified their conduct by the example of their sovereign, who, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... their bank-books in their stockings, which, in their peculiar mode of life, they find to be the safest place, as they are very suspicious of each other, and much afraid of being robbed. The majority of them, however, are not so provident. They live in and for the moment, and spend their ill-gotten gains as fast as they ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... indifferent lecturers, defray the cost of printing reams of pamphlets and hand-bills which hail the laborer flatteringly as the salt of the earth, write and edit a little socialist journal, and do what lies in my power generally. I had rather spend my ill-gotten wealth in this way than upon an expensive house and a retinue of servants. And I prefer my corduroys and my two-roomed chalet here to our pretty little house, and your pretty little ways, and my pretty little neglect of the work that ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... obtained, is best secured by an equality of Rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavour to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... so entangled that he knew not which way to turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for L900. He had hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and, fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on him to ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... represented in company with his accomplice, and others of the same stamp, having just committed a most horrid act of barbarity, (that of killing a passer-by, and conveying him into a place under ground, contrived for this purpose,) dividing among them the ill-gotten booty, which consists of two watches, a snuff-box, and some other trinkets. In the midst of this wickedness, he is betrayed by his strumpet (a proof of the treachery of such wretches) into the hands of the high constable and his attendants, who had, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... to see something of them if I have time. Lowes wants me to stay with them, and I suppose I will. He would feel hurt if I didn't. He has a most absurd idea of what I did for him on the ranche when he had the fever that time, and ever since he went back to enjoy his ill-gotten gains and his title and all that, he has kept writing to me to come out. Yes, I suppose I will stay with them. ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... declaration of independence, and Stanwell, with his evasive laugh, asked her if, meanwhile, she should object to his investing a part of his ill-gotten gains in theatre tickets for the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... anything which was not valuable and worth buying. Sometimes her treasures were presents from admirers, sometimes they were the proceeds of highway robberies. The latter yielded the most profit. The would-be sellers dared not haggle. They were only too anxious to get rid of their ill-gotten gains. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... Napoleon he really seems to have believed that the enterprise would immediately end in disaster, and he pressed on the outlawing of the man who had overwhelmed him with riches, and who had, at the worst, left him when in disgrace in quiet possession of all his ill-gotten wealth. But, as the power of Napoleon became more and more displayed, as perhaps Talleyrand found that the Austrians were not quite so firm as they wished to be considered, and as he foresaw the possible chances of the Orleans family, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... from me. But I do most earnestly hope Roswell will have nothing to do with any such ill-gotten wealth. He is too noble-hearted and generous to get rich in ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... mourning for his dead brother. But his grief was short-lived, for when we tried to waken him next watch he was cold and stiff. We buried him with the ceremonies, and began to think—all of us. We wondered whether men may rake up ill-gotten treasure from a dead past without coming under influences of that dead past. We thought of the conquered and enslaved natives, laboring in the mines for the aggrandizement and enrichment of Spain, and giving up their lives in the work, unrecognized and forgotten, while their exploiters, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... his ill-gotten gains,' she said, resignedly. 'Now that he has obtained what he wanted, perhaps he'll leave me alone; ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... feeling that you are a being vastly superior to your fellows, because forsooth you can string fourteen lines together in decent Petrarcan form, and they cannot. And to return for a moment to Clarinda: it seems to me that your publisher, with all his ill-gotten gains, compares favourably with you in your treatment of your partner in the production of that sonnet What about the woman's half-profits in the matter? For, remember, if the publisher depends on the brains of the poet, the poet is no less dependent on the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... may be surprised that under the circumstances I should have consented to serve him. But I felt that I might be of assistance to the boy, and that my refusal would occasion him embarrassment. Your letter is satisfactory, as showing that the fortune of your ward is not made up of ill-gotten gains. Were it otherwise, he would hardly be allowed to keep it. Does Frank know his father's character ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... are about it, if you feel any curiosity to trace Jervy's ill-gotten money, there's a chance (from what I have heard) of finding the man with the squint. The people at our place think it's likely he may have been concerned in the robbery, if he hasn't committed ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... the meeting-place I found that a feast had been spread. I don't know where the money came from; maybe it was Bolshevik gold, as the enemy charged, or maybe it was the ill-gotten gains of a "million dollar movie vamp." Anyhow, there was a table spread with a couple of cloths that were clean, if ragged, and on them flowers and fruit. Carpenter was seated at the head of the table, ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... said, emphatically. "One of the chief punishments of you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent you find that you have lost the power to make reparation or restitution. I admire your good intentions, Dan, but you can't do anything. Those people were robbed of their precious pennies. It's too late to remedy the ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... oppressors of the people, has never brought any thing but shame, ignominy, and maledictions to their descendants. We have seen issue from that stem of iniquity the shameless shoots which have been the disgrace of their name and of their age. The Lord has breathed upon the heaps of their ill-gotten riches; he has dispersed them as the dust: if he yet leaves on the earth the remnants of their race, it is that they may remain an eternal monument of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... my vaunts and boastings Etienne Cordel enjoyed his ill-gotten gains for several years, and then it was not to me, but to a higher judge he ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... befooled. "Really, I am surprised at myself for persecuting you so relentlessly. Not satisfied with depriving you of your timepiece for two whole months, I actually am unable to surrender my—my ill-gotten booty without giving you an uncomfortable feeling that I want to task your beneficence further yet. Well, I've not a word to say for myself. I had no grudge to pay. I'm sure your conduct to me has always been—most unexceptionably polite! The most charitable explanation ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... he could with his [12] ill-gotten pelf, And something, it might be, reserved for himself: [13] Then (what is too true) without hinting a word, Turned his back on the country—and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... Lydia," the old father would say, "to urge him never to seize the ill-gotten timber or destroy their whisky, unless he has other Indian wardens with him. They'll kill him if they can, those white men. They have ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... paralyzed by this appalling news; and I swear that, even in that incredible temperature, it was a cold perspiration in which I sweltered from head to heel. Crawshay, of course! Crawshay once more upon the track of Raffles and his ill-gotten gains! And once more I blamed Raffles himself: his warning had come too late: he should have wired to me at once not to take the box to the bank at all. He was a madman ever to have invested in so obvious and obtrusive ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... "May the ill-gotten treasure that you have seized to-night be your bane, and the bane of all to whom it may come, whether by fair means or by foul! And the ring which you have torn from my hand, may it entail upon the one who wears it sorrow and untold ills, the loss of friends, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... the ruin of thousands of his fellow countrymen? To what depths might not the most ancient family sink! For any poverty, she said to herself, she was prepared—but how was she to endure disgrace! Alas for the clan, whose history was about to cease—smothered in the defiling garment of ill-gotten wealth! Miserable, humiliating close to ancient story! She had no doubt as to her son's intention, although he had said nothing; she KNEW that his refusal of dower would be his plea in justification; but would that deliver them from the degrading approval ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... were themselves considerable sufferers by the aforesaid broker. I could not understand the justice of this measure, for I had always paid my losses to the moment; so I walked to Temple-Bar, pulled off my hat most gracefully to that venerable arch, and vowed never again to pass it in the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth. I had always a perfect horror of gambling, and little imagined I was pursuing it in a wholesale manner. To satisfy my inordinate curiosity, for sight-seeing, I have twice or thrice in my life passed the threshhold of a ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... and the ill-gotten wealth he has acquired, Colonel Gil Uraga is anything but a happy man. Only at such times as he is engaged in some stirring affair of duty or devilry, or when under the influence of drink, is he otherwise than wretched. To drinking he has taken habitually, almost continually. It is not to drown ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... forward to the return of the adventurers with disdainful interest. To Edward Tredgold she referred with pride to the captain's steadfast determination not to touch a penny of their ill-gotten gains, and with a few subtle strokes drew a comparison between her uncle and his father which he felt to be somewhat highly coloured. In extenuation he urged the rival claims of ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... the thing starts into a serpent with erected crest and sparkling eye, and plunges its quick barb into the hand that holds it, and sends poison through all the veins. Do not touch it, my brother! Every sin buys pleasure at the price of peace. Elijah is always waiting at the gate of the ill-gotten possession. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... said shotguns suited me exactly, and I told him to bring two of them loaded with giant powder and barbed wire. I would not live alway. I asked not to stay. When he got behind the corn-crib I climbed the fence and fled with my ill-gotten gains. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... rice to eat and pure water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow, I am content and happy. But ill-gotten riches and honour are to me ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... of the field, for they, at least, are but brutes and have no reason to guide them: time was, but time shall be no more. God spoke to you by so many voices, but you would not hear. You would not crush out that pride and anger in your heart, you would not restore those ill-gotten goods, you would not obey the precepts of your holy church nor attend to your religious duties, you would not abandon those wicked companions, you would not avoid those dangerous temptations. Such is the language of those fiendish tormentors, words of taunting and of reproach, of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... from which, there was but one escape, and that lay through a rugged way, called REPENTANCE. But repentance, to her vision, was like a shoreless ocean, or a fierce deity to whose exacting nature she must sacrifice all that she held dear on earth, or perish. But her husband's love and esteem—her ill-gotten riches—her position—her luxuries! Could she live without them? If she could repent without making restitution, she would. But she well knew that such repentance would be fruitless. And thus, while, to the world, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... alone in the roadway. "I should have risked using the mother's influence sooner to procure the righteous restitution. All hope of compassing it now rests on the life of the child. Infant as she is, her father's ill-gotten wealth may yet be gathered back to ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... parapet of the old stone bridge into the river beneath by order of Charles VII.; and here, too, Madame de la Motte, of Diamond Necklace notoriety, was married, and in after years made a parade of the ill-gotten wealth she had acquired by successfully fooling that infatuated libertine the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, until her ostentatious display was cut short by her arrest. This Vin d'Arbanne is produced from pineaux and white gamay ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... it might originally have been effectually hidden from view by a plantation of trees over it. What could this have been built for, asked my romantic friend? Was it intended to secure some of the Intendant's plate or other portion of his ill-gotten treasure? Or else as the Abbe Ferland suggests: [324] "Was it to store the fruity old Port and sparkling Moselle of the club of the Barons, who held their jovial meetings there about the beginning of this century?" Was it his mistresses' secret boudoir when the Intendant's lady visited the chateau, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... these ladies came in a body, and nobly and courageously demanded that the 'bastard' should be expelled. It was impossible, outrageous, monstrous, they declared, that their daughters should be compelled to associate with a girl like me—a nameless girl, who humiliated the other girls with her ill-gotten wealth. The superior tried to take my part; but these ladies declared they would take their daughters from the convent if I were not sent away. There was no help for it: I was sacrificed. Summoned by telegraph, M. de Chalusse hastened to Lyons, and two days later I left Sainte-Marthe ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... enemy's dominions. He had the plea that Palestine and Syria, and even Western Mesopotamia, belonged of right to Egypt, which had conquered them by a long series of victories, and had never lost them by any defeat or disaster. His invasion was a challenge to Saplal either to fight for his ill-gotten gains, or to give them up. The Hittite king accepted the challenge, and a short struggle followed with an indecisive result. At its close peace was made, and a formal treaty of alliance drawn out. Its terms are unknown; but it was probably engraved on a silver plate in the languages ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... they intended to overtake Mr. Whippleton as soon as possible; the arrangement suited me. The junior partner of our firm was my "objective" just now, and I did not intend to lose sight of him until he had disgorged his ill-gotten gains. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... noble and good languishes and dies! The form of Government is absolutely immoral. It is a scandal that rates, and taxes, and public improvements should be paid for out of the private purse of the Director. He could not afford it had he not made a fortune out of his ill-gotten gains! Anyone who has watched at the tables knows that the chances are absolutely unfair—that the Direction must win. Not that this matters much. It is the general immorality of the place that is so alarming. The place ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish; the Eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had better go to bed, and I will do the same. I suppose it would be impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor. I should have Plutus at the ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... and multiply, while the peasants jeopardise their immortal interests by cursing them every time they see a spike of ripening maize pulled down and half stripped of its corn. In the daytime these animals sleep comfortably, digesting their ill-gotten meal in the holes of the rocks, which are so honeycombed that dogs cannot easily get at the hermits. Moreover, it is not every dog that likes the prospect of being bitten nearly in half, the badger being much better known than ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... Sarah,' he said one day. 'I knew we were done for when I read that article in the paper about ill-gotten gains, and there ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... not, but your conscience demands it. Honour forbids you to expose Netta, but the affair was so discreditable that I want your part at least to be set straight. That sovereign was ill-gotten ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... "Regulars" call a "disease," but "Irregulars" know to be only a symptom. It is very amusing to observe how they fill pages in their text-books, guessing, wondering and paying their respects to the imaginary quack doctors, "who are reaping a harvest of ill-gotten gain." The usual medical writer is a compound of ignorance, egoism and garrulity, and this may account for the great crop of reasons for "diseases." However, the writers in question are not so much to blame after all, even though they do belong to county medical societies; ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... of honest, legitimate brokerage, but the system of endeavoring by false statements and by exciting the fears of the multitude to depress and destroy values in order that its votaries may reap their ill-gotten gains? ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... the 'Death of Ananias,' carping objectors were ready to suggest that Raphael had committed an error in time by introducing Sapphira in the background counting her ill-gotten gains, at the moment when her no less guilty husband has fallen down in the agonies of death. It was hours afterwards that Sapphira entered into the presence of the apostles. But we must know that time and space do not exist for painters, who have to tell their story at ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found again. The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been ill-gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his wealth; being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... and Averardo III. Salvestro di Averardo II. bore another Christian name—Chiarissimo—the old-world cognomen of his family. Possibly his father thought it wise to stand well with the world and parade his honesty; for whatever ill-gotten gains other bankers acquired, he, at least, was an upright man, and his ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... and a great heap of five-franc pieces before him, you may conceive with what wrath the proud, hasty, passionate man drove out, cane in hand, the obscene associates, flinging after them the son's ill-gotten gains; and with what resentful humiliation the son was compelled to follow the father home. Then Roland took the boy to England, but not to the old Tower; that hearth of his ancestors was still too sacred for the footsteps ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... he answered, "My parents, who were excellent people, left me no ill-gotten goods, and what I have added to my inheritance has been amassed by my own frugality and honest work, God preserve me from the sin of appropriating what belongs to my neighbour! No, my conscience does not reproach me ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... fashion, felt in her own writhing and bleeding flesh the stings of that inhuman vengeance. Terrible blunder, for which she had only herself to thank! Robbery of her neighbor's house—the dishonest "borrowing," not of these ill-gotten goods only, but also of her neighbor's name—had brought her, by what we call fatality, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... felt by the pirates on making this discovery, was all the benefit that was ever derived from these ill-gotten gains by any one of those who had a hand in that dastardly deed. Long before they had an opportunity of removing the goods thus acquired, the career of the Avenger had terminated. But we must not anticipate ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... which disturbed the natural habits of our race. The first impetus was given by the plunder of Bengal, which, after the victories of Clive, flowed into the country in a broad stream for about thirty years. This ill-gotten wealth played the same part in stimulating English industries as the 'five milliards,' extorted from France, did for Germany after 1870. The half-century which followed was marked by a series of inventions, which made England the workshop of the world. But the basis of our industrial supremacy ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... Paynim dogs, now in Frisian quagmires against Albigenses, Stedingers, and other heretics—plunging about in blood and fire, repenting, at idle times, and paying their passage through, purgatory with large slices of ill-gotten gains placed in the ever-extended dead-hand of the Church; acting, on the whole, according to their kind, and so getting themselves civilized or exterminated, it matters little which. Thus they play their part, those energetic men-at-arms; and thus one great force, the force of iron, spins ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... make it double, was near losing all he had, and his life also." The novel proceeds to relate how this member of a wealthy and respected family turned corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid who, whilst ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... France should furnish men and money to drive Philip V out of Spain, where he felt quite safe and refused every summons. Lewis, in return, asked for Naples, and Naples only, without Sicily. The allies could have everything else, and could have compelled him to restore all the ill-gotten acquisitions of his reign. They were unwilling to be at the trouble of one more campaign in the Peninsula, where they had met with so much misfortune. They required that Lewis should undo his own offending ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... automobile? Was he not living far beyond his means? Had not the Wheelers for weeks past flaunted their ill-gotten wealth in the very eyes of the whole town? To be sure they had. The idea, indeed, of a twelve-hundred-dollar-a-year clerk trying to cut a dash like that! As if every one could not guess just where had gone that ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... peasant, his uncle, who succeeded him in 527, and ruled the greatest kingdom of the earth during thirty-eight years; to whom the bitter Vandal in Africa and the nobler Goth in Italy yielded up their equally ill-gotten prey; who became the great legislator of the Roman world, by the commission given to his chief lawyers to select and, after correction, tabulate the laws of the emperors his predecessors; to whom, in consequence, the actual nations of Europe owe what ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... unfortunate," Sir Timothy observed. "Mr. Ledsam is no longer the last hope of the enterprising criminal. He has turned over a new leaf. To secure the services of his silver tongue, you have to lay at his feet no longer the bags of gold from your ill-gotten gains but the white flower of the ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... rose to sum up his case. He was listened to with attention, and his speech was effective. The theme was the individual who, after forgery and embezzlement, had taken French leave, quitting a post of trust and credit for regions where he hoped to enjoy his ill-gotten gains in peace and quietness. The regions had proved inhospitable, and a sheriff had escorted the unlucky adventurer with that which was not his own back to the spot whence he had started. His transgression was now to be traced ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... be mad!" Mabel said, here, pressing her hand to her head. "There does not live the woman, however wicked and hypocritical, who could sit at ease in the midst of ill-gotten luxury, on an inclement night, and talk smilingly of other things, if she suspected that one she had known, much less loved, lay dying in wretchedness and solitude ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... to be made, opened its mouth and screamed in terror. This was just what the hawk wanted. The open bill revealed the fish in the pouch. Down he swooped, snatched it out, and then soared away with his ill-gotten gains in his talons. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... yourself to approve of another's sins. You can not keep clean and do it. Again, we may be partakers of other men's sins by partaking of the results of them. If a man cheats another in business, and then I share in his ill-gotten gain, I am partaking of his sin. It may be that I would not steal my neighbor's melons; but if another steals them, and I, knowing his theft, eat of them with him, do I not partake of his sins? And so it is with ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... emergency better than a bolder one. Added to this, was the keen desire of the Republicans to recover the offices which had been lost through the apostacy of Robert Williams; and although the Federalists struggled like drowning men to hold their ill-gotten gains, the strong anti-British sentiment, backed by a determination to approve the policy of Madison, swept the State, re-electing Governor Tompkins by six thousand majority[156] and putting both branches of the Legislature in control of the Republicans. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... De Launay had rounded a corner and disappeared with his ill-gotten habiliments, excited policemen and citizens came rushing to where Sucatash, with nothing on his mind but his hat, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... Pembroke, whose monument is in Westminster Abbey. Other property was pawned by the King to his creditors as security for payment of his debts; but constant litigation and disputes seem to have pursued the holders of the ill-gotten goods. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... resulted in the acquittal of the accused (1795); but it was proved that the chief business of those who went out to India was to wring fortunes from the natives, and then go back to England to live like "nabobs," and spend their ill-gotten money in a life of luxury. This fact, and the stupendous corruption that was shown to exist, eventually broke down the gigantic monopoly, and British India was thrown open to the trade ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a religious prophet. In his famous interview with the dying Lorenzo de Medici he made three demands as a condition for granting absolution. Of the man he demanded a living faith in God's mercy. Of the millionaire he demanded restitution of his ill-gotten wealth. Of the political usurper he demanded the restoration of the liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant that the dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to assent to the second, and impossible to concede ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... chuckled. "Well, I'm not a lawyer. Nevertheless, I must decline to act as a depository for your obviously ill-gotten gains." ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... them; and those that do, not respectfully. They view, us as the possessors of ill-gotten gains, who would be in a very different place ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... life, being filled with fear and remorse (as must always happen with evil livers at the last), he sent for Rector Kindersley of Dorchester to confess him, though a Protestant, and wished to make amends by leaving that treasure so ill-gotten from King Charles (which was all that he had to leave) for the repair and support of the almshouses. He made a last will, which I have seen, to this effect, but without describing the treasure further than to call it a diamond, nor saying where ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... free to confess that the ease with which Counsellor Gottlieb had deprived my friend Toby of the ill-gotten proceeds of his check —or, for his sake putting it more politely, had earned his fee— was the chief and inducing cause that led me to adopt the law as a career. I shall not pretend that I had any lofty aims or ambitions, felt any regard for its dignity or fascination ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... the paper," Gerald went on slowly, "'The miscreants must have received warning from a confederate, for the admirable preparations to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the police ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... admitted that his own share of the gold he had stolen amounted to not less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he claimed that he had hidden it in a place known only to himself. For the last forty years people have been trying in vain to find out where Melville hid his ill-gotten gold. He was in the habit of riding to the top of Mount Boran, whence, by the aid of a powerful field-glass, he was able to see the returning gold miners on the road. Consequently, it is believed that Melville's treasure must ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... calling. As they hated wire fences so they hated notoriety-seeking sheriffs and unlicensed jails. No doubt Jard Hardman, who backed the Yellow Mine, was also behind the jail. At least Matthews pocketed the ill-gotten gains from offenders of the peace ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... drives him on to the perpetration of wholesale murder, while uttering a prayer to the Deity, prompts the same individual who, as an assassin or a highwayman, cuts your throat, and picks your pocket, and at the next moment bestows his ill-gotten gains without reservation upon the starving beggar ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... assured I can now say with confidence, that he will not shrink a hair's breadth from the position he has taken, but will move another step in advance, and fall, if fall he must, manfully upholding the rights and defying the insolence of ill-gotten power. ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis



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