(1) A few days earlier a ruffian had snatched a woman's chain.

(2) Vidocq served a lucrative apprenticeship with various ruffians , vagabonds and swindlers.

(3) Obviously, it was a case of collusion between the state and the lawbreaking ruffians .

(4) But Morgan makes enemies right away when he foils a mugging by a gang of local ruffians .

(5) I do apologise for my ruffianly appearance, ma'am.

(6) As the proportion of homicides committed with firearms surged, even the swaggering ruffians of local bars may have thought twice before challenging any and all onlookers.

(7) In early twentieth-century Chicago, where guns were readily available, local ruffians were less inclined to announce that they would abide no disrespect or take on all corners.

(8) Albert is a regular at this place, bringing along his gang of ruffians and louts to watch him eat sloppily and hurl insults at everyone that walks by.

(9) Such rowdy, ruffianly , and apparently motiveless violence has a much longer history than the term hooligan.

(10) Good heavens, you could have been killed going into a den of ruffians like that.

(11) He was, in fact, a leader of a gang of Essex ruffians , whose speciality was robbery with violence.

(12) They used to say soccer is a gentleman's game played by ruffians and rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen.

(13) Within a few hours even the toughest of the tough ruffians would break down and start confessing.

(14) These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians .

(15) He too, the boy thinks, has known hard times: the bully on the next block, the ruffians in his third grade class.

(16) The tactics of the violent ruffians failed in this year's election.

(17) Presently the man whistled and another ruffianly person sprang out from near the gate at the corner of the Grotto-field and joined his companion.

(18) Even the tsotsis, the unkempt street ruffians of the 1930s, began to embrace the quest for style in the 1950s.

(19) And he had traveled many places, heard rumors of all sorts, and been threatened by ruffians and rogues who would have stolen from him or killed him; he had felt fear then.

(20) And the state tolerated ruffianism so long as disorder was kept at a minimum, and its authority was not fundamentally challenged.