safety-valves

The "road" is one of the safety-valves through which the waste of the social organism is given off.

THE TRAMP 2010

There had been some dumb idea from a bunch of liberal pointy-heads that it was a good thing to have such a committee -- they said it would diffuse tension, and they talked a lot of rot about safety-valves.

Archive 2009-01-01 2009

"In the context of the significant FOIA requests, increased complexity of the FOIA requests made, and reduced agency resources, and the absence in our FOIA statue of time frame safety-valves similar to the federal FOIA, is creating insurmountable challenges for the District," Nickles wrote.

Nickles wants reply time extension for FOIA requests 2010

Long-time application of specialized technology to military matters, however, makes them safety-valves in the event of the higher weapons eventually sure to come, only the timing uncertain.

Safe Ways To Play The Defense Sector 2010

Some of the papers likewise write against England in no very measured terms; but it must be borne in mind that declamatory speaking and writing are the safety-valves of a free community, and the papers from which our opinion of American feeling is generally taken do not represent even a respectable minority in the nation.

The Englishwoman in America 2007

They have been as real to me as free trade was to Mr. Cobden, or the dominion of a party to Mr. Disraeli; and as I have not been able to speak from the benches of the House of Commons, or to thunder from platforms, or to be efficacious as a lecturer, they have served me as safety-valves by which to deliver my soul.

An Autobiography 2004

Those two games were his safety-valves, and while there were no printed requirements relating to them the unwritten code of Stormfield provided that guests, of whatever age or previous faith, should engage in one or both of these diversions.

Mark Twain: A Biography 2003

The steam was escaping violently, not by the funnel, but from the safety-valves of the boiler; the alarm whistle sounded unnaturally loud, and the yacht made a frightful pitch, overturning

In Search of the Castaways 2003

McHenry on his shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and the weight of a military department loading down his social safety-valves, I thought it a great deal for an officer in his trying position to select so very obliging and affable an aid as the gentleman who relieved him of the burden of attending to strangers.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862 Various

During the stoppage in this case the windows of the mill were a sea of heads of men and women (the operatives), and considerable excitement was caused by the violent blowing off of steam from the safety-valves, due to the stoppage of the steam supply to the engine; and this excitement continued until the cause of the stoppage was understood.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 360, November 25, 1882 Various