Definition of "night-watchman" []

• One who acts as a watchman during the night. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "If we took away antitrust laws (while keeping civil and criminal liability for fraud, theft, coercion, bribery, etc.), and if the government were reduced to a night-watchman state (with its focus on national defense and domestic law-enforcement), then I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which a corporation, however big, could force a monopoly on people without breaking the then-existing law."
• "They attacked with crude weapons the men members of the perp's extended family from Acapulco, (hence, newcomers and racially different; read of African slave heritage) as one of those brothers was the current night-watchman on the bridge project beside the casa."
• "The young man, whose bicycle had been thieved had returned with a gang of his amigos, to inflict bodily harm on the family of the night-watchman, who they thought were harbouring the perp of the bicycle theft."