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Perjury   Listen
noun
Perjury  n.  (pl. perjuries)  
1.
False swearing.
2.
(Law) At common law, a willfully false statement in a fact material to the issue, made by a witness under oath in a competent judicial proceeding. By statute the penalties of perjury are imposed on the making of willfully false affirmations. Note: If a man swear falsely in nonjudicial affidavits, it is made perjury by statute in some jurisdictions in the United States.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perjury" Quotes from Famous Books



... distinctly what it was. She could trace the workings of Diva's base mind with absolute accuracy, and if all the archangels in the hierarchy of heaven had assured her that Diva had originally intended the rosebuds for Janet, she would have scorned them for their clumsy perjury. Diva had designed and executed that dress for herself, and just because Miss Mapp's ingenuity (inspired by the two rosebuds that had fluttered out of the window) had forestalled her, she had taken this fiendish ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... almost instinctive rejection of all but the essential, to selection of what was legally vital out of the mass of confused tactical and human detail presented to his scrutiny; yet sometimes tedious and wearing. As for instance to-day, when he had suspected his client of perjury, and was almost convinced that he must throw up his brief. He had disliked the weak-looking, white-faced fellow from the first, and his nervous, shifty answers, his prominent startled eyes—a type too common in these days of canting tolerations ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... trial of Wright v. Cobbett, in the Court of King's Bench, some time since, for a libel; and if he swore that which was attributed to him, Mr. Cobbett neither did justice to himself nor to the public, by declining to prosecute him for perjury. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... dispense their anger after a just manner, and restrain their passion [Eph. iv. 26].... Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury; for they say, that he who cannot be believed without swearing by God, is already condemned [Matt. v. 34-37]." We insert these references into the account given by Josephus of the Essenes, in order to show the identity of teaching ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... producing witnesses to swear policeman broke same himself 10 0 To choice of situation of house in street where done, from roof of which policeman fell; fee to landlord' for number and affidavit 10 10 ——- Total for neck, acquittal, witnesses, and perjury L70 10 ——- For do. leg, ribs, arms, head, nose, or other unimportant member 15 0 For receipt written by wife of handsome provision 1 0 For writing and indorsing same 5 5 Extras for alibis, if necessary; hire of clothes for witnesses ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... indicted for the murder of one of his own subordinate officers, named Moore, whom he killed in a quarrel, by striking him over the head with a bucket. He was convicted upon both charges, but protested to the last that he was the victim of conspiracy and perjury. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... alone in the sight of God is impious and of man abominable? Surely it belongs to people altogether without resources, who are helplessly struggling in the toils of fate, and are villains to boot, to seek accomplishment of their desires by perjury to heaven and faithlessness to their fellows. We are not so unreasoning, ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... 1754, however, Fate so far prevailed against her that she herself, in turn, was tried for perjury. Thirty-eight witnesses swore that Squires had been in Dorsetshire; twenty-seven that she had been seen in Middlesex. After some hesitation, quite of a piece with the rest of the proceedings, the jury found ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... and with gigantic pride Defy impending vengeance. Heav'n shall wink; No more his arm shall roll the dreadful thunder, Nor send his lightnings forth: no more his justice Shall visit the presuming sons of men, But perjury, like thine, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... bruises, and contusions which he had sustained. From all accounts the boy was a good boy up to the time of his accident. In taking off his legs I have blamed myself for the whole of his subsequent downfall. I think I have been wrong. The man was once arrested for a crime, and freed on police perjury. During his incarceration, however, accurate measurements and a description of him were made. Only to-day a copy of this document has been shown to me, by a gentleman high in the secret service. And it seems that Blizzard is differentiated ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... in your Letter to Dr. Rogers: And one, who had, long before, in your Defence of the Constitution in Church and State; in answer to the Charge of the Nonjurors, accusing us of Heresy and Schism, Perjury and Treason, "valu'd [142] and commended the Integrity of the Nonjurors in declaring their Sentiments:" and who, tho you justly charge those of them you write against, "as attacking us with such uncommon Marks of Violence [143] as most plainly intimate, that ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... excluded the Chinamen from the United States, in defiance of the spirit and letter of the Burlingame treaty, Carleton spoke vigorously, at the meeting held in Tremont Temple, in Boston, to protest against the infamous Exclusion bill, which committed the nation to perjury. Carleton could never see the justice of stealing black men from Africa to enslave them, of murdering red men in order to steal their hunting-grounds, or of inviting yellow men across the sea to do our work, and then kicking them out when they were ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... deposition, took oath to its truth, and carried another copy to Whitehall. As we shall see, Oates probably adopted this course by advice of one of the King's ministers, Danby or another. Oates was now examined before the King, who detected him in perjury. But he accused Coleman, the secretary of the Duchess of York, of treasonable correspondence with La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV.: he also said that, on April 24, he himself was present at the Jesuit 'consult' in the ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... ambitious upstarts, for cloaking every act of scoundreldom with a veil of holiness. The indifferent find in them a palliative for their spiritual deadness; and whoso fears no God, has a visible God ready made for him, whom he may worship with merit to his soul. In fine, there is nor perjury, nor sacrilege, nor parricide, nor incest, nor rapine, nor fraud, nor treason, which cannot be masked as meritorious beneath the mantle of their dispensation' (ibid. p. 330). 'I apprehend the difficulty of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... with attention to the quiddities of the legally erudite Mr. Allewinde, as on behalf of his client he ingeniously attempts—nay, as he himself afterwards boasts to the jury, succeeds in making that disconcerted young gentleman in the witness chair commit perjury. ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... refuse them meant to put one's self outside the law. A great many of them were responded to, for this reason only, by men not wholly in sympathy with either side. Once the oath was administered, these new deputies were confronted by the choice between perjury and service. To be sure the issuance of these summonses forced many of the neutral minded into the ranks of the Vigilantes. The refusal to act placed them on the wrong side of the law; and they felt that joining a party ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... whosoever supports such as are inimical to the doctrines of the Church acts contrary to his vow. Every Lutheran ought to be certain, and able to prove by texts of Scripture, that his creed contains erroneous doctrine, before he adopts a contrary one, lest he incur the crime of perjury. The ministry of the North Carolina Synod are charged with denying the most important doctrine of the Lutheran Church, and have been requested to come to a reciprocal trial, which they have obstinately ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... policy of treachery which the present Church leaders, under Joseph F. Smith, have since consistently practiced, in defiance of the laws of the state and the "revelation of God," with lies and evasions, with perjury and its subornation, in violation of the most solemn pledges to the country, and through the agency of a political tyranny that makes serious prosecution impossible and ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... considering the strong re-action of language on thought, that many minds, dizzy with indigestion of recent science and philosophy, are fain to seek for the grounds of social duty; and without entertaining any private intention of committing a perjury which would ruin an innocent man, or seeking gain by supplying bad preserved meats to our navy, feel themselves speculatively obliged to inquire why they should not do so, and are inclined to measure their intellectual ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... let off. The innkeeper at South Poole swore that both men had been in his inn all the night of the storm playing the "ring-quoits" game with the other guests and as his oath was supported by half-a-dozen witnesses, the case for the King fell through; the night-riders never scrupled to commit perjury. Later on I learned a good deal about ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... which displayed to the public the most atrocious and deliberate plan of villainy which has occurred, perhaps, in the annals of Great Britain. I refer you for particulars to the papers, and shall only add, that the equivocations and perjury of the witnesses (most of them being accomplices in what they called the great plan) set the abilities of Mr. Anstruther, the King's counsel, in the most striking point of view. The patience and temper with ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... piece of stick made in the shape of a thing they name a cross, said to be blest and sanctified by the polluted words & hands of a wretched priest, a spawn of the whore of Babylon, who is a monster of nature & a servant to the Devil, who for a real will pretend to absolve his followers from perjury, incest, or parricide, and canonize them for cruelties committed upon we heretics, as they style us, and even rank them in the number of those cursed saints who by their barbarity have rendered their names immortal & odious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... a special scale for taxes on particular sins. Sodomy was charged twelve ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine; murder, seven or eight; witchcraft and polygamy, from two to six; taking the life of a parent, brother, sister, or an infant, ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... punishment for all thy sins," cried the princess, haughtily, "for thy broken vows and thy false promises—thy perjury to thy God, to thy father, to my father ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... Mr. B——, put into the box, and heard him swear in positive terms that he was present in the room, and saw me at play. My defence availed nothing. The wretched old woman, whom I produced, as the court and jury believed, to establish my defence by perjury, was immediately discredited, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. I was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. My feelings I will not attempt ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various

... the cruelest delusions in the world was rather in excess of my needs; I could have got on with less. I saw the pins which the witches were sworn to have thrust into the afflicted children, and I saw Gallows Hill, where the hapless victims of the perjury were hanged. But that death-warrant remained the most vivid color of my experience of the tragedy; I had no need to invite myself to a sense of it, and it is still like a stain ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... me it's no way to run a penal institution any way. There's Botts; he's in jail for perjury for nine years, and Murphy's actually turned that convict out so often and made him run 'round after his meals that Botts has lost heart, and has gone to canvassin' for a life insurance company—gone to perambulatin' all over the country tryin' to do a little somethin' ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... mean in some Particulars, and will, for their Interest, sacrifice the Honour of their Families. They look upon nothing infamous but Poverty, for which Reason, the most scandalous Methods of procuring Riches, such as Lying, Robbing the Publick, Cheating Orphans, Pimping, Perjury, & c. are not look'd upon with evil Eyes, provided they prove successful. This Maxim holds with 'em, both in publick and private Affairs. I knew One rais'd from a Fowl of Three Foot Six Inches, to be a Makeseulsibi, a Post which rais'd him to Eight Foot Six, and is one of the greatest in ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... Sir George Warrington's visit, and pray, Mr. Sampson, what do you do here?" says my lord. I think he had forgotten the existence of this book, or had never seen it; and when he offered to take his Bible oath of what he had heard from his father, had simply volunteered a perjury. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... against the times. [See ante, ii. 357.] He would not have written, 'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... dreamer. If you are banished to foreign lands, death will be your portion at an early date. To banish a child, means perjury of business allies. It is ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... the birds of the air to prey upon, and their heads were cut off and placed upon spikes, like that of Akirop, on the west and south pinnacles of the temple. Thus we see that although corruption, perjury and treason assisted our ancient Knights, their quarters were discovered by the unerring eye of justice, and they were doomed to suffer penalty tantamount ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... conceal this motive even from ourselves, because we wish to have the credit of serving the Deity exclusively. This is confirmed by the familiar instances of a conflict between public opinion and religious sanctions. Duelling, fornication, and perjury are forbidden by the divine law, but the prohibition is ineffectual whenever the real sentiment of mankind is opposed to it. The divine law is set aside as soon as it conflicts with the popular opinion. In exceptional cases, indeed, the credit attached to unreasonable ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... Wright, a bowyer, Richard Smyth, a carpenter, William Sympson, a fuller, Henry Stokton, a fishmonger, Thomas Yong, a saddler, and Robert Jakes, a shearman—all of whom had more than once been convicted of perjury, and on that account been struck off inquests—had contrived to get themselves replaced on the panel, and had been the chief movers in the recent actions against the late mayor and other officers of the city. ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... partizans. In 1833 he became a candidate for the representation of the city of Canterbury, and he succeeded so far as to poll nine hundred and fifty votes. Not long after, however, he was found to be implicated in a transaction which resulted in his conviction for perjury, and he was sentenced to six years' transportation. Decided symptoms of insanity having exhibited themselves, instead of being sent on board the hulks, in conformity with the act 9th George IV., he was removed from Maidstone gaol to the county lunatic ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... even the freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up? For how little will each day deduct from your capital, if you begin to pour better oil upon your greens and your head, filthy with scurf not combed out? If any thing be a sufficiency, wherefore are you guilty of perjury [wherefore] do you rob, and plunder from all quarters? Are you in your senses? If you were to begin to pelt the populace with stones, and the slaves, which you purchased with your money; all the: very boys and girls will cry out that you are a madman. When you dispatch your wife with ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... and plead only in case of murder, but they must give sureties that they will appear at the trial, if they should be charged with false witness. Such charges must be made pending the trial, and the accusations shall be sealed by both parties and kept by the magistrates until the trial for perjury comes off. If a man is twice convicted of perjury, he is not to be required, if three times, he is not to be allowed to bear witness, or, if he persists in bearing witness, is to be punished with death. When more than half ...
— Laws • Plato

... when he was dying, for saving the prince Chevalier from the hands of his would-be captors, is excusable in the estimation of many and even meritorious according to some. The world again is agreed that if an adulterer be called into the witness box, perjury would be a venal offence compared with the meanness of betraying the honour of a confiding woman. Hence, the exclusion of such a witness (according to almost every system of law) in trials for adultery. The Rishis wrote for men ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... again triumphantly, and found them all properly astonished, and apparently very contented, except Doctor Chocker, who was immovable. Nicholas expressed the most marked surprise, as became so hypocritical a prime-minister, causing Mr. Manlius to make a private note of some unrevealed perjury. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... balance is artificially redressed when the application of the laws has not the sympathy of those who are subject to them is a common symptom in every country and every age. When all felonies were capital offences in England, the wit of juries, by what Blackstone called "a kind of pious perjury," was engaged in devising means by which those who were legally guilty could escape from the penalty; and if it be true that an unpacked jury would possibly in many instances of political offences in Ireland ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... member of the British parliament, delivered an unfeeling speech relative to Ireland, in which he speaks of their untameable ferocity, and systematic guilt, supported by perjury, related this most affecting anecdote, which was to shew the feeling of abhorrence entertained against those who gave evidence against those who were tried for resisting a government they detested.—A man who was condemned to death was offered a pardon, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... this I cannot, but it is a fact. The same with Whist; I see spades where clubs are, and diamonds for hearts, and a cold world accuses me of revoking and of carelessness, but it is not carelessness. It is something gone askew in phenomena. Thus, when I am a witness as to facts in a trial, perjury is the softest word for my testimony, so the Court thinks, because the Court is blessed with the usual relations between objective facts, and subjective impressions. I admit that I am less fortunate, but when I try to go into this, I am interrupted. However, this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various

... the State of California will serve as an example. Acting under the authority of various measures passed by Congress— measures which have been described—land grabbers succeeded in obtaining possession of an immense area in that State. Perjury, fraudulent surveys and entries, collusion with Government officials— these were a few ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... law divorce was only obtainable if ocular evidence of adultery was forthcoming, and a great deal of perjury was usually ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy

... shall I be forsworn; To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn; To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn; And even that power, which gave me first my oath, Provokes me to this threefold perjury; 5 Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear. O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd, Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it! At first I did adore a twinkling star, But now I worship a celestial sun. 10 Unheedful vows may needfully be broken; And he ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... even the technicians who worked with him knew anything useful. Skinner didn't know anything at all." He told the lie with a perfectly straight face. He didn't like lying to Winstein, but there was no other way. He hoped he wouldn't have to lie to the Congressional Committee; perjury was not something he liked doing. The trouble was, if he told the truth, he'd be worse off than ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett

... between the king and the college, he really did wish that, with as little unpleasantness as might be, the college should submit to the king. And even if we accept as not proved the allegation that he directly tempted the Fellows to perjury, yet Mr. Forster must not ask us to believe that Penn would not have been a great deal better pleased if the Fellows had quietly dropped the consideration of their oaths, and surrendered their foundation to the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... back today, myself, to his own office, not to let him out of my sight, till it was all settled. There was a great deal more to it . . . two or three hours of fight. I bluffed some, about action by the bar-association, disbarment, a possible indictment for perjury, and seemed to hit a weak spot. And finally I saw him with my own eyes burn up that fake warranty-deed. And that's all there is to that. Just as soon as we can get this certified copy admitted and entered on our Town Records, 'Gene ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... usual parade in the cities of Dublin and Kilkenny; but at the same time a national synod at Waterford not only condemned it[b] as contrary to the oath of association, but on that ground excommunicated its authors, fautors, and abettors as guilty of perjury. The struggle between the advocates and opponents of the peace was soon terminated. The men of Ulster under Owen O'Neil, proud of their recent victory (they ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... had amounted to was this: they met on certain mornings before daybreak, and sang one after another a hymn to Christ as God, at the same time binding themselves by an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, or repudiation of trust; after this was done, the meeting broke up; they, however, came together again to eat their meal in common, being quite guiltless of any improper conduct. [5] But since my edict forbidding (as you ordered) all secret societies, they had given this practice up. However, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... hour, than see you married to such a one as that. You shall never marry him. Though I went into court myself and swore that I was that lord's mistress,—that I knew it when I went to him,—that you were born a brat beyond the law, that I had lived a life of perjury, I would prevent such greater disgrace as this. It shall never be. I will take you away where he shall never hear of you. As to the money, it shall go to the winds, so that he shall never touch it. Do you think that it is you that he cares for? He has heard ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... for the doom with which they threatened the people. It describes the Prophet's search through Jerusalem for an honest, God-fearing man and his failure to find one. Hence the fresh utterance of judgment. Perjury and whoredom are rife, with a callousness to chastisement already inflicted. Some have relegated Jeremiah's visit to the capital to a year after 621-20 when the deuteronomic reforms had begun and Josiah ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... that the act, without a penalty, would be only an act to encourage perjury, and would deliver the hard-mouthed knave that could swear what he pleased, and ruin and reject the modest conscientious tradesman, that was willing and ready to give up the utmost farthing to his creditors. On this account the clause was accepted, and the act passed, which otherwise ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... instincts, with a love of adventure and a fine contempt for danger, of an overwhelming pride; careful of his own honour, and careless of that of others. He looked upon every woman as lawful prey and hesitated at neither perjury nor violence to gain his ends; despair and tears left him indifferent. Love for him was purely carnal, with nothing of the timid flame of pastoral romance, nor of the chivalrous and metaphysic passion of Provence; it was a fierce, consuming fire which quickly burnt itself out. He ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... festivals, gymnastic societies, &c., played exactly the same part as in the first campaign. For three or four years the Tai Maharaj case, in which, as executor of one of his friends, Shri Baba Maharaj, a Sirdar of Poona, Tilak was attacked by the widow and indicted on charges of forgery, perjury, and corruption, absorbed a great deal of his time, but, after long and wearisome proceedings, the earlier stages of the case ended in a judgment in his favour which was greeted as another triumph ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... Who'll dare some novel venturesome conceit, Air, Zeus's chamber, or Time's foot, or this, 'Twas not my mind that swore: my tongue committed A little perjury ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... hearth was safe from intrusion. The negro could not testify in his own behalf. It was practically impossible to counteract the oath or affidavit of the pretended master, and a premium was practically put upon perjury. The pursuit of slaves became a regular business, and its operation was often indescribably horrible. These cruelties were emphasized chiefly in the presence of those who were known to be averse to slavery in any form, and they could not escape ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... laying claim to it in 1866 on the death of Sir Alfred Joseph Tichborne; the "Claimant" represented himself as an elder brother of the deceased baronet, supposed (and rightly) to have perished at sea; the imposture was exposed after a lengthy trial, and a subsequent trial for perjury resulted in a sentence of 14 years' penal servitude. Orton, after his release, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... am inclined to think, that children accustomed to use such expressions on every trifling occasion, will, when they grow to riper years, pay very little respect to the sanctity of an oath. It is, perhaps, one of the reasons why we hear of so much perjury in the present day. At all events, little children cannot avoid hearing such expressions, not only from those who are rather older than themselves, but, I am sorry to say, even from their parents. I ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... Numa hung lustrous in the air over this very city, till that pious prince took it down and hung it in the temple of Jupiter. Be just, swallow both stories or neither. The 'Bocca della Verita' passes for a statue of the Virgin, and convicted a woman of perjury the other day; it is in reality an image of the goddess Rhea, and the modern figment is one of its ancient traditions; ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... that he cherished no evil intentions, no thought of harm to the king; and those who know what criticisms on the state, as it was then, he had authorised, and what changes in it he was certainly meditating and preparing the way for, have charged him with falsehood and perjury on that account; but this is what he means. He thinks that wretched victim of that most irrational and monstrous state of things, on whose head the crown of an arbitrary rule is placed, with all its responsibilities, in his infinite unfitness for them, is, in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... Goodrich, assisted by Judge Cooper, the term lasting one week. There were thirty-five cases on the calendar. The grand jury returned thirty indictments, one for assault with intent to maim, one for perjury, four for selling liquor to Indians, and four for keeping gambling houses. Only one of these indictments was tried at this term, and the accused, Mr. William D. Phillips, being a prominent member of the bar, and there being a good deal of fun in it, I will give a brief history ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... to the advantage of the public. And he was so democratic in all circumstances alike that on his birthday he did not permit any unusual demonstrations, and he did not give people the right to swear by his Fortune nor did he prosecute any one who after swearing by it incurred the charge of perjury. In short, he would not (at first, at least) sanction in his own case the carrying out of the custom which has obtained as a matter of course on the first day of the year, down to the present, in honor of Augustus, of all rulers that came after him of whom ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... "without depreciating their worth." In administering oaths, a Brahman swears only by his veracity—"his honor as a gentleman." A Kshatriya swears by his weapons, a Vaisya by his cattle, while the poor Sudra has to swear by all the most frightful penalties of perjury. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... had done it then—then, at the last moment. They asked me whether I would love that man. I whispered inwardly to myself that I loathed him; but my tongue said 'Yes,' out loud. Can such a lie as that, told in God's holy temple, sworn before his own altar—can such perjury as that ever ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... marriages admit a party of the third part. There would be more of them if there were more women with enough serenity of mind to see the practical advantage of the arrangement. The trouble with such triangulations is not primarily that they involve perjury or that they offer any fundamental offence to the wife; if she avoids banal theatricals, in fact, they commonly have the effect of augmenting the husband's devotion to her and respect for her, if only as the fruit of comparison. The trouble with them is that very few men among us have ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... his style and the clearness of his ideas made all he wrote comprehensible to the commonest capacity. In his decisions he was merciless toward a suitor where he discovered fraud, or the more guilty crime of perjury. His wit was like the sword of Saladin: its brilliancy was eclipsed by the keenness of the edge. In debate he was brilliant and convincing; in argument, cogent and lucid; in declamation, fervid and impassioned, abounding in metaphor, and often elucidating ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... me like the word "Amen." Such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution all. However, none of those dead whom I saw, fell on the 15th of March. They were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of March. The anniversary of our Revolution has not the stain of a single drop of blood. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Wherein is largely discussed the question whether a Catholicke or any other person before a magistrate, being demanded upon his Oath whether a Prieste were in such a place, may (notwithstanding his perfect knowledge to the contrary) without Perjury, and securely in conscience, answer No; with this secret meaning reserved in his mynde. That he was not there so that any man is bounde to detect it. Edited from the Original Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, by DAVID JARDINE, of the Middle ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various

... in violating his oath and shooting down the people of Paris as he did, that he might gain a throne, he also proved himself to be a great villain. The mere fact that he was successful will not atone for perjury and murder with people of common morality. But aside from these atrocities, his shameful censorship of the press, and conduct toward some of the noblest men of France, he has acted for the best interests of the country. He has understood the ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... shrink from perjury. Cease, cease, and spare me irksome protestations, If your false virtue has ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... to help me a little in my work. While traveling through different countries at times I have been engaged in detective employment. The job now on hand staggers me. I am trailing two of the most adroit villains that ever committed crime. Embezzlement, perjury, conspiracy, attempts to kill and murder are some of the offenses these have committed. Perhaps you have heard their names? ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... the Doctor, like a trusty dog, had kept his watch, and done more, and with a better will than any paid doctor would have been likely to do. He was called away a good deal by the prosecution arising out of that unhappy affair with the other doctor, and afterwards with a prosecution for perjury, which he brought against the sawyer; but he was generally back at night, and was so kind, so attentive, and so skilful that Mary took it into her head, and always affirmed afterwards, that she owed ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... better account, Clotilde's English friend had sent him the lines addressed to her, in which the writer dwelt on her love of him with a whimper of the voice of love. That was previous to her perjury by little, by a day-eighteen hours. How lurid a satire was flung on events by the proximity of the dates! But the closeness of the time between this love-crooning and the denying of him pointed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... one glass of the soul-destroying beverage. This accursed viper and well-known hobgoblin, labors under a complication of maladies: at one time you might see him leaving the Court-house of with the awful crime of perjury depicted in capital letters on his forehead, and indelibly engraven in the recesses of his heart, considering that every tongueless object was eloquent of his woe, and at periods laboring under a semi-perspicuous, semi-opaque, gutta-serena, attended with an acute palpitation ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... Registers.—The bride and bridegroom must sign their names in the said Registers immediately after the ceremony, as well as the two witnesses and the officiating clergyman. If either party wilfully makes any false statement with regard to age, condition, etc., he or she is guilty of perjury. ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes

... suspicions, and determined, after some inquiries in Cowfold, that Miss Miriam should not be called. He told the story to his partner, who laughed, and said he did not see anything extraordinary in it. It was a common case of perjury. Mr. Mortimer was not sure that it was common perjury. Externally it might be so, and yet there seemed to be a difference. Moreover, he could not find out anything in Cowfold to make him believe that there was ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... forbearance into fear, and went his way at last, through treason and perjury, to the stake. In the meantime the Observants were left in possession of the royal chapel, the weak brother died in prison, and the king, when at Greenwich, continued to attend service, submitting to listen, as long as ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... managed to get a judgment against him for the fifty thousand dollars in such a manner that it was not necessary to let him know that the money had been recovered, or that White was working against him. He was of course the principal witness in his own behalf, and if wholesale perjury could have saved him he would have been acquitted beyond ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... reign. The forfeiture upon the penal statutes was reduced to the term of three years. Costs and damages were given against informers upon acquittal of the accused: more severe punishments were enacted against perjury: the false inquisitions procured by Empson and Dudley were declared null and invalid. Traverses were allowed; and the time of tendering them enlarged. 1 Henry VIII. c. 8, 10, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... support furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself[942].' BOSWELL. 'I should think, Sir, that a man who took the oaths contrary to his principles, was a determined wicked man, because he was sure he was committing perjury; whereas a Nonjuror might be insensibly led to do what was wrong, without being so directly conscious of it.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, a man who goes to bed to his patron's wife is pretty sure that he is committing wickedness.' BOSWELL. 'Did the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... He expands them by extending the prohibitions from one kind of oath to all kinds. The movement in the former case is downwards and inwards; in the latter it is outwards, the compass sweeping a wider circle. Perjury, a false oath, was all that had been forbidden. He forbids all. We may note that the forms of colloquial swearing, which our Lord specifies, are not to be taken as an exhaustive enumeration of what is forbidden. They are in the nature of a parenthesis, and the sentence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... party.(154) That this is what was really intended by the clauses is shown by the case of Belilitum, who as late as B.C. 555,(155)having brought a suit to recover a debt which she alleged was not paid, was convicted of perjury by the production of the receipt, and by the evidence of her own children, and not only lost her case, but was condemned to pay the sum for which she had sued to him from whom she sought to obtain it. This was of course ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... made shall be strictly kept," replied Harry, coldly. "Had you come to me before the trial, you would have had the same reward, without the crime of perjury." ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... "is it possible you can entertain such a thought? Have I given you such slender proofs of my love, that you should think me capable of so base an action? But suppose me so vile a wretch, could I do it without being guilty of perjury, after the oath I have taken to my late father never to sell you? I would sooner die than break it, and part with you, whom I love infinitely beyond myself; though, by the unreasonable proposal you have made me, you shew me that your love is by no ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... deny him for their Christ, If he be son to everliving Jove, And hath the power of his outstretched arm, If he be jealous of his name and honour As is our holy prophet Mahomet, Take here these papers as our sacrifice And witness of thy servant's [73] perjury! [He tears to pieces the articles of peace.] Open, thou shining veil of Cynthia, And make a passage from th' empyreal heaven, That he that sits on high and never sleeps, Nor in one place is circumscriptible, But every where fills every continent With strange ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... Cross, Said to be blest and Sanctyfyed by the poluted words and hands of a wretched priest, a Spawn of the whore of Babylon, who is a Monster of Nature and a Servant to the Devill, Who for a Riall will pretend to absolve them from perjury, Incest and parricide, and Cannonize them for Cruelties Committed to we Herreticks, as they stile us, and Even Rank them in the Number of those Cursed Saints who by their Barbarity have Rendered their Names Immortall and Odious ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... they forged in the same hand, the same manipulation, the signatures of three hundred foreigners, who did not know in the least what they were doing, to applications for naturalization papers—foreigners who had not been three months in Canada. If forgery did not matter, why should perjury? The perpetrators of this fraud happened to be provincial and of a stripe different politically from the federal government then in power at Ottawa. The other party had not been asleep while this little game was going on. The party heeler neither slumbers nor sleeps. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... if I am not beautiful, as methinks I be, you will bring on your own heads the penalty of perjury; for, without waiting to have the oath administered, you are always taking the gods to witness that you find me beautiful. And I must needs believe you, for are you not all honourable men? (20) If I then be so beautiful and affect you, even as I also am affected by him whose fair face ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, the calls upon Miss De Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately been frequent, perjury having declined in the Monterey market, through excessive and injudicious supply, until the line of demarcation between it and absolute verity was so finely drawn that Victor Garcia had remarked that "he might as well tell the truth at once and save his soul, since ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... which never go unpunished; and the Cupids may boast what they will, for the encouragement of their Trade of Love, that Heaven never takes cognisance of Lovers broken Vows and Oaths, and that 'tis the only Perjury that escapes the Anger of the Gods; But I verily believe, if it were search'd into, we should find these frequent Perjuries, that pass in the World for so many Gallantries only, to be the occasion of so many unhappy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... give all reasonable facilities to the prosecution; especially as it will save the time of the whole court. The latter object I shall once again pursue by passing over all those points of theory which are so dear to Dr. Pym. I know how they are made. Perjury is a variety of aphasia, leading a man to say one thing instead of another. Forgery is a kind of writer's cramp, forcing a man to write his uncle's name instead of his own. Piracy on the high seas is probably a form of sea-sickness. But it is unnecessary for us to inquire into the causes of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... It was perjury and sacrilege, and earthly shame, and eternal damnation. Nothing less. And the words had full and deadly meaning for her. It mattered little that he should think differently, being of another faith, or rather, of no faith ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... that he met with such misfortune, a noble man who fell into danger, coming from the dicastery, saying (25) that we had made a most unfortunate expedition, where many lost their lives and others who saved their shields were convicted of perjury by those who threw theirs away? Were it not better for him to have died there rather than to come home to such a fate? 26. So do not pity Theomnestus that he is ill-spoken of as he deserves, and do not give judgment in his favor ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... trying to put something on me; you know that. They've been trying to mix me up with that bridge-burning at Smoky Creek; Sugar Buttes, they had me there; Tower W—nothing would do but I was there, and they've got one of the men in jail down there now, Lance, trying to sweat enough perjury out of him to send me up. What show has a poor man got against all the money there is in the country? I wouldn't be afraid of a jury of my own neighbors—the men that know me, Lance—any time. What show would I have with a packed jury in Medicine Bend? I could explain anything I've done to ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... woman had entered. Now the messengers whom the kadi had sent to the house of the woman returned, and reported they had found her washing busily, and greatly astonished at their question, whether she had been at the tomb of David. The kadi accordingly decided that for his false statements and his perjury, the keeper must die the very death intended for the innocent woman, and so he was burnt. The people of Jerusalem suspected a miracle, but the woman did not divulge her secret until a few hours before her death. She told her story, and then bequeathed her possessions to the congregation, under ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... to a stranger, not an enemy: Nor is it prudence to prolong thy breath, When all my hopes depend upon thy death; Yet none shall tax me with base perjury: Something I'll do, both for myself and thee; With vowed revenge my soldiers search each tent, If thou art seen, none can thy death prevent; Follow my steps with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... political operations. No copyist, at half-a-crown an hour, had yet betrayed the English Foreign Office; and it had not dawned upon the clouded intellects of European statesmen that deliberate national perjury, accompanied by public meetings of sovereigns, and much blare of many trumpets, could be practised with such triumphant success as events have since shown. In the beginning of the year 1865 people ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... the realm. A series of judicial murders began with the trial and execution of Coleman which even now can only be remembered with horror. But the alarm must soon have worn out had it only been supported by perjury. What gave force to the false plot was the existence of a true one. Coleman's letters had won credit for the perjuries of Oates, and a fresh discovery now won credit for ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... might break in, through her own broken promise and ours, she would break in and not steal. In other words, we were offered at the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury in the present. Those interested in human origin may refer to an old Victorian writer of English, who, in the last and most restrained of his historical essays, wrote of Frederick the Great, the founder of this unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... with the incompetency of Skeffington, or the contempt of the English, which would not allow them to make haste into the presence of an enemy who never dared to encounter them in the field, but carried on war by perjury, and pillage, and midnight murder—whatever the cause was, they were at length on their way, and, through the devotion of Ormond, not too ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... the translation as being correct in all its parts. Notwithstanding Mr. Jefferson's knowledge that Wilkinson was a Spanish pensioner, which fact Mr. Derbigny had stated to Secretary Gallatin in a letter, and subsequently swore to its truth; and notwithstanding his perjury before the grand jury, yet did the president sustain and countenance the general as a fit instrument ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... bench, by each other's side. So may your life pass on, and run so even, That your firm zeal plant you a throne in heaven, Where smiling angels shall your guardians be From blemish'd traitors, stain'd with perjury. And, as the night's inferior to the day, So be all earthly regions to your sway! Be as the sun to day, the day to night, For from your beams Europe shall borrow light. Mirth drown your bosom, fair delight your mind, And may our pastime ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... belonged to the prisoner, but it was suggested in his behalf that the wife had purloined it some time before, and had suddenly produced it when she came to her husband's apartments in Surrey Street. If that could be proved, then the woman had been guilty of perjury, and her evidence would collapse altogether. Now there were some portions of her evidence which were most unsatisfactory. She had led a dissolute life, and was cursed with an ungovernable temper. ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... has power to pardon sins! This is an essential doctrine of the Church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot possibly give any security for their allegiance to any government. Oaths are no security at all; for the priest can pardon both perjury and high treason. Setting their religion aside, it is plain that, upon principles of reason, no government ought to tolerate men who cannot give any security to that government for their allegiance and peaceful behavior. But this, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... "Perjury is now rampant in all our Courts and there seems to be no way of preventing it," declares a well-known judge. Surely if they did away with the oath this grievance would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... de la Tourelle. One day I said to my father that I did not want to be married, that I would rather go back to the dear old mill; but he seemed to feel this speech of mine as a dereliction of duty as great as if I had committed perjury; as if, after the ceremony of betrothal, no one had any right over me but my future husband. And yet he asked me some solemn questions; but my answers were not such as to do me ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... corduroy trousers on that day, as stated. He was not there at all: he was in the village, and he could call witnesses to prove it. The Clerk reminded the audience that there was such a thing as imprisonment for perjury. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies



Words linked to "Perjury" :   misdemeanor, perjure, bearing false witness, lying under oath, subornation of perjury, infringement, violation, misdemeanour, infraction



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