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Examples
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It was an ill smelling squad, attired in caps, seedy trousers, and threadbare overcoats; a flock of gallows-birds with bluish and greenish tints in their faces, neglected beards, and a strange mixture of savagery and subservience in their eyes.
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You saw gentlemen and celebrities cheek by jowl with gallows-birds.
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This Sampei and Jumatsu rightly are gallows-birds, doomed to the execution ground.
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Possible gallows-birds, -- they with wan faces late cleansed from the rookery's hideous grime,
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, July 5, 1890 Various
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He spends his days now hunting out the gallows-birds out of the dens in town here, and they're all to be transported into the country to start a new Arcadia.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861 Various
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Those gallows-birds, I'll mangle their flesh, and flay the skin from their bones! 'and he kept on mumbling to himself in this strain, until sleep fell upon his eyelids shaded by long eyebrows white as snow, and his head dropped into his hands resting upon the table.
The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) Nahum Slouschz 1919
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He dropped his head upon his arms and muttered "gallows-birds" again.
Clementina 1906
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South Africa had just been brought to the verge of rebellion by the arrival of a shipload of gallows-birds; armed colonists had forbidden them to land, and very rough messages had been sent home to Lord Grey.
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South Africa, her objection to Britain's gallows-birds, 109.
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They were six in number, shambling gallows-birds; but for once the proverb was right, cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed him and made off.
The Wrecker 1898
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