Robbery

“ The Golden Farmer being now at a place convenient for his purpose, “Very well, then, sir,” said he, [Pg 103] “should I find any money about you, and convert it to my use, it is only actionable, I find.” “That is a robbery,” said the barrister, “which requires no less a satisfaction than a man’s life.” “A robbery!” replied the Golden Farmer; “why, then, I must commit one in my time:” and presenting his pistol, he instantly demanded his money or his life. ”

“ Robbery stories may include anything from petty thievery to bank defaulting. Some of the possibilities are horse and automobile stealing, burglary, hold-ups, train and street-car robbery, embezzlement, fraud, kidnapping, safe-cracking, shop and bank robbery. It is well for the reporter who has to cover a story of this class to acquaint himself with the distinctions that characterize the various kinds of robbery and the various names applied to the people who commit this sort of crime: e.g., robber, thief, bandit, burglar, hold-up man, thug, embezzler, defaulter, safe-cracker, pick-pocket. ”

“ The reason therefor is that the robber usually engages in robbery with the determination to murder his victims if necessary to carry out his purpose.
“It is sad to behold a young man like yourself, who, by an upright and virtuous life, might have been an honorable and useful citizen, enjoying the blessings of the most refined and elevated society, banished, as it were, from all that renders life desirable. ”

“ For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt-offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Lev. XIX, 13. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
Prov. XXI, 7. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them; because they refuse to do judgment.
Ezek. XXII, 29. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. ”

“ I have to inform you, from the police, that a plan is formed to rob your house; the thief who has devised the means, and who probably intends perpetrating the robbery himself, lodges in your house; the female who lives with him comes sometimes behind your counter, sees your wife, and whilst conversing with her, has contrived to get the impression of the key which opens the door by which the proposed entry is to made. ”

“ EXECUTED FOR ROBBERY.
THIS offender was one of a class of the most mischievous and most daring robbers; and the case which we have to relate, is one of a most atrocious nature,—the extortion of money by means of threats to charge the person imposed upon with a detestable crime, an offence which, we regret to say, has been but too prevalent in later years. ”

“ And if any of these low people commits a robbery, concerning which a complaint has been made to the king or to the governor, they send to take the robber, and if they find the thing stolen in his hands, or if he confess that he did it, if he is a Gentile, they take him to a place where they carry out executions, and there they set some high posts with sharp points and a small stand, through which passes one of those points ”

“ In planning out a bank robbery, or, indeed, any kind of robbery, a great deal of time must be given over to study of the situation so that when the day of the robbery comes the burglars will know just what to do and be able to do it promptly. Oftentimes it is necessary to wear a disguise so as to more surely carry out the prearranged plans. ”

“ Now, it is an old superstition that by easing nature on the spot where a robbery is committed, the robbers secure themselves, for a certain time, against interruption.722 Hence when madder-diggers resort to this proceeding in presence of the stranger whom they have caught and buried in the field, we may infer that they consider themselves robbers and him as the person robbed. ”

“ A man robs his victim; a righteously indignant onlooker sees the transaction, and his honesty-loving nature rebels. He forthwith robs the robber and hands the proceeds of his robbery to the original victim. ”

“ We are all living in abject terror of these licensed robbers. We fear robbery night and day; we live behind bolts and bars (which should be reserved for the criminal) and we are in hourly peril of life and property in our homes and on the highways. ”

“ When the hue and cry is raised for a robbery in a hundred, and other hundreds have been negligent, faulty, or defective in pursuit of the robber, then they must pay half the damages to the person robbed, while the hundred in which the robbery occurred pays the other half. Robbers shall be pursued by horse and by foot.
The mother and reputed father of any bastard who has been left to be kept at the parish where born must pay weekly for the upkeep and relief of such child, so that the true aged and disabled of the parish get their relief and to punish the lewd life. ”

“ A thief, detected in the commission of a robbery, has been known by this sort of finesse, aided by a genteel appearance and polite manners, to persuade his accusers of his innocence, and not only to get off with a good grace, but induce them to apologize for their supposed mistake, and the affront put upon him. ”

“ One man’s list will show a string of pocket-picking cases, or attempts in that line, and it will be rare, indeed, to find in that record a case of robbery with violence, housebreaking, or any crime necessitating great daring or strength. ”

“ All thieves are gamblers—scarcely in all my acquaintances can I recall even one exception. Sometimes the entire proceeds of a robbery are lost in a gambling house within twenty-four hours after the crime.
And this is how it has come about that all over the world, in every big city, there are "backers" of thieves; men, and sometimes women, who take the stolen goods off their hands, find hiding places for criminals who are being pursued, advance money [Pg 187] to them when they are out of funds, and even pay the expenses of their families when the burglars get into prison. ”

“ For property is robbery, but then, we are all robbers or would-be robbers together, and have found it essential to organise our thieving, as we have found it necessary to organise our lust and our revenge. ”

“ To take something from a person and keep it for one self: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it Can be doubled without danger. ”

“ Another robber—My wicker car—Arrest of two galgalley-slaves—Fearful discovery—St Germain wishes to involve me in a robbery—I offer to serve the police—Horrid perplexities—They wish to take me whilst in bed—My concealment—A comic adventure—Disguises on disguises—Chevalier has denounced me—Annette at the Depôt of the Prefecture—I prepare to leave Paris—Two passers of false money—I am apprehended in my shirt—I am conducted to the Bicêtre.
I was a receiver of stolen goods! a criminal, in spite of myself! But yet I was one, for I had lent a hand to crime. ”

“ A fellow who bumps into you on the street, if he be accompanied by another, and grabs your cane, is guilty of robbery in the first degree,—"highway" robbery,—and may get twenty years for it, but the same man may publish a malicious libel about you, and by accusing you of the foulest practices rob you of your good name and be only guilty of a misdemeanor. ”

“ Difficulties, of course, arise from the words 'robbery' in section 291 and 'depredation upon' in section 940. Robbery, accurately defined, is 'the felonious and forcible taking from the person of another, goods or money to any value, by violence or putting him in fear.' Bouvier's Law Dictionary ”

“ A run on the black; impossible houses, worse than prisons. Well, I had to pay the employment-bureau three per cent. of seven years' wages,—that is, including the ten sous required for each fresh entrance of my name, more than ninety francs. And nothing had been accomplished, and all had to be begun over again. Is that just, I want to know? Is it not abominable robbery?
Robbery? In whatever direction one turns, one sees nothing but robbery anywhere. Of course it is always those who have nothing who are the most robbed, and robbed by those who have all. But what is one to do? ”

“ Of course he had committed forgery;—of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life. ”

“ Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. ”

“ On the night previous to your intended departure, a thief enters your house, takes possession of all you have, and makes off, and you never hear of it more. Or suppose you are already on your journey, and after many days of fatiguing travel, find yourself near the place of your destination; when you are met by the highwayman, who, with a pistol at your breast, robs you of your last farthing.—Now I suppose this would be a case, where theft and robbery would stand out in their worst features. ”

“ In the country generally, theft and robbery were esteemed as ‘only a hunting, and not a crime;’ revenge, in matters affecting a clan, even when carried the length of murder, was counted a gallantry; idleness was a piece of honour ”

“ Almost all the robberies that take place, are at dusk; or sometimes, in broad day; and, unless one has been seen to set out upon a journey towards evening, darkness may be considered a defence. But in this journey, there were other dangers than robbery, to be apprehended ”

“ So having attempted the robbery of any particular house or shop, and by miscarrying caused such an alarm as to render a second attempt dangerous or impolitic, they will say, that place is spoil’d, it is useless to try it on any more.
SPOKE TO, alluding to any person or place that has been already robbed, they say, that place, or person, has been spoke to before. A family man on discovering that he has been robbed, will exclaim, I have been spoke to; and perhaps will add, for such a thing, naming what he has lost. Spoke to upon the screw, crack, sneak, hoist, buz, &c. ”

“ Aggravated cases of robbery were doubtless punished with severity, but small offences like hog-stealing, especially when the person who suffered was the master, exposed the offender as a rule only to the pains of a public or private whipping. ”

“ This has been accepted as an accurate and authoritative definition of robbery from Blackstone, book IV, p. 243 (Cooley's Edition) to Bishop's New Criminal Law, vol. II, §§ 1177, 1178. Taking property from the presence of another feloniously and by putting him in fear is equivalent to taking it from his personal protection and is, in law, a taking from the person. ”

“ It strengthens our conviction that the money must have been taken by one of the inmates of the house, because it tends to show that the robbery, in this case, might have been committed by persons not possessed of the superior vigilance and cunning of the experienced thief. ”

“ Reply to Objection 3: Although more persons may be injured by theft than by robbery, yet more grievous injuries may be inflicted by robbery than by theft: for which reason also robbery is more odious. ”

“ In the old days it is said that they used to license robbery and govern it by law. The spoil was taken to the robber chief and the victim could go and claim his property and by paying a certain per cent of its value recover the property, after which the man who did the stealing could secure from the chief his portion of the proceeds. ”

“ Some of the recent fights in this city have been the most open cases of robbery ever recorded. Every square sport—and there are a few square men who call themselves sports—is disgusted with the rottenness of the affairs here. ”

“ Robbery is committed in a variety of ways, which have been very cleverly distinguished and classified by legislators according to their heinousness or merit, to the end that some robbers may be honored, while others are punished. ”

“ Oh, they will have, let us hope,” remarked Peace, with well-simulated sympathy.
“Hope told a flattering tale, my friend,” said the old getleman, who was of a cynical turn of mind. “The chances are that they will never find out the culprit or culprits—​they never do. The police are sure to go on the wrong scent.”
“Perhaps it was some one on the premises who committed the robbery?” suggested Peace. ”

“ And if the country will not answer for such manner of offenders, the pain shall be such, that every country, that is to wit, the people dwelling in the country, shall be answerable for the robberies done and also the damages: so that the whole hundred where the robbery shall be done, with the franchises being within the precinct of the same hundred, shall be answerable for the robberies done. ”

“ The whole adventure bears the impress of having been carefully planned and cleverly executed, and there is little doubt that the robbery was carried out by men who were experts in their nefarious calling. ”

“ The whole of the particulars of this most daring burglary were revealed at the trial of the offenders, whose names are above-mentioned, by one of the men who were concerned in it; and they exhibit, probably, more plainly than any case which ever came before the public, the system to which modern thieves have reduced their plans of depredation, while, at the same time, they show the success which but too frequently attends their enterprising attempts at robbery. ”

“ The cases of robbery complained of, have been effected without any violence or noise, and have principally been by concealment in stores, which, added to the great want of a single lamp, or other light, in any one street at night, must reasonably facilitate the design of the robber, and defy the detection of the most active and vigilant body of police. ”