"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coming in through the door and through the chinks between the timbers. The Senate met in one of the rooms of the town tavern. The backwoods legislators lodged at this tavern or at some other, at the cost of fourpence a day, the board being a shilling for the man, and sixpence for his horse, if the horse only ate hay; a half pint of liquor or a gallon of oats cost sixpence. [Footnote: Ramsey, 334.] Life was very rude ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... "king's evil," as scrofula used to be called. Our honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,—a proof of the poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system and gathered upon the coin. I remember that at one time I used ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the papers which ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... cleanliness since these gentlemen were satisfied. So the bargain was struck, and I ordered tea to be ready in an hour, while I went back to the station to fetch up my luggage. A porter brought it up for eightpence (saving fourpence on a cab, my boy!) and so I found myself in the heart of Birchespool with a base of operations secured. I looked out of the little window of my lodgings at the reeking pots and grey sloping roofs, with a spire or two spurting up among them, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... the time that John Brown began first to take so deep an interest in the Hodgett family, he had regularly invested fourpence weekly in a copy of the Nottingham Herald. By this means he had the satisfaction of congratulating the dean upon the birth of a nephew, in the person of a son and heir of the Moggs: and though so carefully did that gentleman avoid all communication with his tormentor, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... send them with ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., because they ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away from books of which you are not the Involuntary Bailee, but the unhappy purchaser. The case becomes truly black, as we have said, when the uncalled-for tribute has to ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... roof, replacing all defective work with new where necessary; only in his haste to come to his impressive climax—"the work to be done to the satisfaction of yourself or your Surveyor for the sum of L99.8.4 (ninety-nine pounds eight shillings and fourpence),"—he spelt this last word nesseracy. He called on the landlord, the gentleman of independent means at Brixton, with this document in his pocket and a strong conviction of his own honesty in his face, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... very kind," replied Katy; and her nimble fingers had soon made a nice little parcel for the lady, who gave her a fourpence. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... pretty little sixpence, I love sixpence better than my life; I spent a penny of it, I spent another, And took fourpence home to ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... gates were thrown open. Richard with a few unarmed attendants rode forward; the best intentioned of the crowd followed him, and at Mile End he saw himself surrounded with sixty thousand petitioners. Their demands were reduced to four: the abolition of slavery; the reduction of the rent of land to fourpence the acre; the free liberty of buying and selling in all fairs and markets; and a general pardon for past offences. A charter to that effect was engrossed for each parish and township; during the night thirty clerks were employed in transcribing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... service were introduced into Great Britain, pay would become unnecessary for the private soldier; but he ought to be and would be given a daily allowance of pocket-money, which probably ought not to exceed fourpence. The mounted troops would be paid at the rate of 1s. a day ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... kept in readiness, and there must be an experienced person to superintend the work. This person must be paid a salary, and lodge and board in the house, representing therefore a considerable outlay. The cheese, when made and sent to market, fluctuates of course in price: it may be as low as fourpence a pound wholesale; it may go as high as sixpence. Fourpence a pound wholesale will not pay for the making; sixpence will leave a profit; but of late the price has gone rather to the lower than the higher figure. A few years since, when the iron industries flourished, this ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... held my tongue, and out she went, takin' no more notice of me than she did of Vi'let, nor half so much,—for I see her kind o' look towards the old woman, as if she was half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha'penny. Well, that was the last on't for a spell, until after New Year's. I was stayin' then at your Uncle James's, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt Eunice and me to come over and take tea. So we went over, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to a town, his lord could have him brought back to his old home. Any tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers came together with sticks, scythes, and flails; and Wat Tyler told them they would go to London, and tell the ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A rapid bargain was concluded, in which the sylvan booty of the wild men (not forgetting the prudent exaction of their weapons) was entirely made over to the custody of the explorers in exchange for a few Birmingham knives worth fourpence each. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... again; compound interest. His masters are very pleased with his progress in English. And he wants more pocket-money. He says that fourpence a week doesn't give ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... not run unawares into the hands of an enemy. I found everything much dearer than when I was here in 1780. Sheep cost four Spanish dollars each and were so small that it answered better to purchase the mutton for the ship's daily use at fourpence ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... thing that often comes with food and with rest) they had made me feel the fatigue of so long a night. I rose up, therefore, determined to find some place where I could sleep. I asked this friend of mine how much there was to pay, and he said 'fourpence'. Then we exchanged ritual salutations, and I took the road. I did not leave the town or village without noticing one extraordinary thing at the far end of it, which was that, whereas most places in France are proud of their town-hall ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... senses; I saw them all five in china in Mrs. Watkins's left hand corner-cupboard, china images she called them, and I thought them so pretty. Give me the fourpence half-penny for buns, Fern—one Bath, two plain, and a half-penny to the sweeper that takes me ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... two or three feet higher than the barge, and buy from the Arab women and children running along the banks selling eggs and fowls; as the demand has risen the prices have also advanced, and whereas at the opening of the campaign one could buy a dozen eggs for fourpence, by January 1917, I have seen officers pay twopence each or more. It is scarcely safe to jump ashore, as any moment the boat may launch out again into the middle of the stream, but when tied up by the bank waiting for another boat to pass brisk business ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... Ernst, by attending diligently to his studies, gained the approbation of his masters, and, greatly to his surprise, was in a short time promoted to the seat of honour at the head of the class. He observed that when Master Elliot entered he laid down fourpence, which he found was the fee for his admission into the school. This sum was given to a certain poor scholar, who was engaged to attend to the schoolrooms, swept them out, and also kept the seats and desks clean— John Tobin was his name. Ernst took a liking to the ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... said one of the men. "I got it from a woman that came to the door with a basket for fourpence. My mother stood on its back one day, and she getting out of bed. I split its tongue with a threepenny bit the way it would talk, but devil the word it ever said for me. It used to hop around letting on it had a lame leg, and then ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... librarian were unrequited by any pecuniary remuneration, but in the cathedral libraries a certain salary was sometimes allowed them. Thus we learn that the amanuensis of the conventual church of Ely received in the year 1372 forty-three shillings and fourpence for his annual duties;[35] and Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, in the tenth century, gave considerable landed possessions to a monk of that church as a recompense for his services as librarian.[36] In some monasteries, in the twelfth century, if ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... constructed a "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing a public meeting, she ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... enjoyed the display of it; and, to say the truth, he did, and that on a first-rate horse too. Having appointed Murtough Murphy his law-agent, he often rode over to the town to talk with him, and as Murtough could have some fun and thirteen and fourpence also per visit, he was always glad to see his "noble friend." The high road did not suit Andy's notion of things; he preferred the variety, shortness, and diversion of going across the country on these occasions; and in one of these excursions, in the most ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Title-Page, Preface, and copious Index to Vol XI., is now published. It extends beyond the usual quantity, the Memoir is of original interest, and the price is (in the present instance only) unavoidably advanced to Fourpence. ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... nothing. It's too ridiculous. I had just scraped up four shillings for this little outing; and it cost me one-and-fourpence to get here. Well, Dubedat asked me to lend him half-a-crown to tip the chambermaid of the room his wife left her wraps in, and for the cloakroom. He said he only wanted it for five minutes, as she had his purse. So of course I lent it to him. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... is to buy the things which are the most nourishing and which yield the most energy. Quite a good diet can be obtained for fourpence a day, yet the average working ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... much oftener a poor countryman, who has wandered to London in search of employment, and, finding nothing else, has spent his last fourpence in the purchase of a besom, with which he hopes to earn a crust. Here his want of experience in town is very much against him. You may know him instantly from the old habitue of the streets: he plants himself ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... after this conversation with Alaric, Charley left his lodgings with a heavy heart, and wended his way towards Mecklenburg Square. At the corner of Davies Street he got an omnibus, which for fourpence took him to one of the little alleys near Gray's Inn, and there he got down, and threading the well- known locality, through Bedford Place and across Theobald's Road, soon found himself at the door ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... tobacco (which cost him about twopence a day), walking about and enjoying colour effects and the oddities of the streets (which cost him nearly nought), and reading: there were three shops of Putney where all that is greatest in literature could be bought for fourpence-halfpenny a volume. Do what he could, he could not read away more than ninepence a week. He was positively accumulating money. You may say that he ought to have compelled Alice to accept money. The idea never occurred to him. In his scheme of things money had not been a matter ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... would not do for him, Hogg resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he designated "The Spy," acting as his own publisher. The first number of this publication—a quarto weekly sheet, price fourpence—was issued on the first of September 1810. With varied popularity, this paper existed during the space of a year; and owing to the perseverance of the conductor might have subsisted a longer period, but for a certain ruggedness which occasionally ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... after her). Don't thank me, ma'am; thank the act of parleyment! Rum, fourpence; two penny pieces and a Willi'm-and-Mary tizzy makes a shilling; and a spade half-guinea is eleven and six (re-enter MRS. DRAKE with supper, pipe, etc.); and a blessed majesty George the First crown-piece makes sixteen and six; and two shilling bits is eighteen and six; and a new ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy, we beg to inform you that, under the administration of a paternal aunt who died intestate, your client is entitled to two thousand five hundred pounds eight shillings and sixpence, Three per Cents.; one thousand five hundred pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence, Three per Cents., Reduced; one thousand pounds, Long Annuities; five hundred pounds, Bank Stock; three thousand five hundred pounds, India Stock, besides other securities, making up about ten thousand pounds, which we are ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... which this is accomplished are very simple. Each member contributes to a common fund at the rate of from fourpence to sixpence a week, and out of this fund the stipulated allowance is paid. Most benefit societies have also a Widows' and Orphans' Fund, raised in like manner, out of which a sum is paid to the survivors of members at their death. It will be obvious that such organizations, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... on a Thursday, 'Bias called upon Mrs Bosenna with his rent and with the pleasing announcement that in a week or so he proposed to pay her a further sum of seven pounds eight shillings and fourpence; this being the ascertained half-year's dividend earned by the hundred pounds she had entrusted ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the weekly books, and asked no questions, until the winding up of the executor's business; and the quarterly settlement of accounts made startling revelations that the balance at her bankers was just eleven shillings and fourpence halfpenny, and what was nearly as bad, the discovery was made in the presence of her fellow executor, who could not help giving a low whistle. She turned pale, and gasped for breath, in absolute amazement, for she was quite sure they were ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "And that's fourpence!" said the strange voice, speaking again, and this time it seemed to come from out ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... by what light is it lighted? Oh! Is it fourpence, or piebald, or gray? Is it a mayor that a mother has knighted Or is it a horse of the sun and the day? Is it a pony? If so, who will change it? O golfer, be quiet, and mark where it scuds, And think of its paces—of owners and races— ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... said with lots of scorn, "Fourpence!!"—just like that. Then he said the money was to go to buy things for the Indian troops, and what would they think of fourpence? Old Jones minimus said sixpence when he got his pocket-money on Saturday; then the Head came out to see ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... half threw into the waiter's face, telling him that was his "allowance: and now," said he, "what's to pay?" The waiter, who looked very angry, but appeared too much afraid of the sailor to say anything, answered fourpence; and the sailor pulled out a handful of banknotes, mixed up with gold, silver, and coppers, and was picking out the money to pay for his beer, when the coachman, who was impatient, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good day— You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back pay; An' fourpence a day for baccy—an' bloomin' gen'rous, too; An' now you can make your fortune—the same as your ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... by his Will dated 22nd August, 1579, founded this Charity for Six Poor Travellers, who, not being Rogues or Proctors, May receive gratis for one Night Lodging, Entertainment, and Fourpence each. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... conjuror, Dick Spot, was on his way to Llanrwst, and he turned into a public house at Henllan for refreshments. He called for a glass of beer and bread and cheese, and was charged tenpence for the same, fourpence for the beer, and sixpence for the bread and cheese. This charge he considered outrageous, but he paid the demand, and before departing he took a scrap of paper and wrote on it a spell, and hid it under the table, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden. But if ye'll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug 'em up, and spent 'em at the Three Mariners. 'Faith,' he said, 'why should death rob life o' fourpence? Death's not of such good report that we should respect 'en ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... comfort of her—that she asks questions so fast you can scarce slide in an answer. She was free enough with her information as well— told me her name, and how many children she had, and that she paid three-and-fourpence the yard for ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... at less expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... induced him to surrender the privileges that belonged to his physical strength. He justly thought no character so disagreeable as that of a valetudinarian, and was determined not to be one {112} himself. He had known what it was to live on fourpence halfpenny a day and scorned the life of sofa cushions and beef-tea into which well-attended old gentlemen so easily slip. Once, when Mrs. Thrale asked him how he was, his reply was "Ready to become a scoundrel, Madam" (his word for a self-indulgent invalid); "with a little more spoiling you will ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... 'mebos'—delicious! Also pickled peaches, 'chistnee', and quince jelly. I have a notion of some Cherupiga wine for ourselves. I will inquire the cost of bottling, packing, &c.; it is about one shilling and fourpence a bottle here, sweet red wine, unlike any other I ever drank, and I think very good. It is very tempting to bring a few things so unknown in England. I have a glorious 'Velcombers' for you, a blanket of nine Damara sheepskins, sewn by the Damaras, and dressed ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... had tossed in the air like a child, to see it glitter. Sixteen hundred dollars from a lucky whaling cruise; seven hundred dollars, his share for salvaging the derelict steamer Shore Ditch; sixty-six pounds eight and fourpence that the passengers had raised for him when he saved the girl at Durban—that, and a gold medal, and a fancy certificate with the British and American flags intertwined. That medal! It had gone ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... at the door, surveying the court, then walked up to a party of boys, and laid his hand on the shoulder of one, holding a silver fourpence to him. "Anderson Junior," said he, "there's your money. I am not going to let Stoneborough School be turned into a gin palace. I give you notice, it is not to be. Now you are not to bully May junior for telling me. He did ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... aunty, threepence. Trumpet for myself, twopence; that's fivepence. Gingernuts for Tony, twopence, and a mug with a Grenadier on for the Postman, fourpence; that's elevenpence. Shooting-gallery a penny; that's a shilling. Giddy-go-round, a penny; that's one and a penny. Treating Tony, one and twopence. Flying Boats (Tony paid for himself), a penny, one and threepence. Shooting-gallery again, one and fourpence; ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... steamer—then by house-boat towed by coolies through wonderful gorges and one dangerous rapid to Chunking and Chengtu. In those parts the travellers always took the three principal rooms of the inn they patronised, the cost 150 cash, something less than fourpence—oranges 20 a penny—the coolies with 100 lb. loads would cover 30 to 40 miles a day—salt is got in bores sunk with bamboos to nearly a mile in depth; it takes two or three generations to sink a bore. The lecturer described the Chinese frontier town Quanchin, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Daily Mail and Evening News last week, whose amazing editorial organisations were so freely and disinterestedly engaged in overcoming colossal obstacles in order to give information about the approaching revolution, were worth anything from fourpence to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... were the largest of any in the Mediterranean: this probably arose from the encouragement given to this trade by Tiberius, and afterwards increased by Claudius. The former emperor gave a bounty of about fourpence on every peck of corn imported: and Claudius, during the time of the famine, made the bounty so great as, at all events, and in every instance, to secure the importers a certain rate of profit. He also used all his efforts to persuade the merchants to import it even in winter, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... except his exaggerated and one-sided condemnation of the Irish national character, Carlyle is perfectly right. These Irishmen who migrate for fourpence to England, on the deck of a steamship on which they are often packed like cattle, insinuate themselves everywhere. The worst dwellings are good enough for them; their clothing causes them little trouble, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... misfortunes of Ireland have attended even her coinage, and her troubles in that direction commenced as early as the reign of Henry VII. He coined sixpences for Ireland worth only fourpence in England. Mary issued base shillings and groats for Ireland, and Elizabeth issued still baser ones, while she purified the coinage of England. James I. struck copper farthings of two sizes, that if they failed in England, they might be used in Ireland for pence and halfpence. Charles I. established ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he and the baby lived there. He left the child at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which included a limited supply of milk. How he managed to keep himself and more than half keep the child on the remaining two shillings I cannot say. I only know that he did it, and that not a soul ever helped him or knew that there was help ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... one of my schoolmates told me, when a boy, of a seventh son of a seventh son, somewhere in Essex County, who touched for the scrofula, and who used to hang a silver fourpence halfpenny about the neck of those who came to him, which fourpence halfpenny it was solemnly affirmed became of a remarkably black color after having been some time worn, and that his own brother had been subjected to this extraordinary treatment; but I must add that my schoolmate drew a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for fourpence halfpenny ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... meeting-place in the public-house; although it is only fair to say that the custom of 'shouting,' as it is called, is going—if it has not gone—out of fashion amongst the better classes in the capital cities. Beer, or more frequently spirits, form the favourite 'nobbler,' the price of which varies from fourpence to eightpence in Sydney and Adelaide according to the drink. In Melbourne all drinks are sixpence. There is a current story—which I know to be true—of two well-known colonials, who, on landing from the P. and 0. steamer at Southampton, immediately entered the first public-house, and ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... that fearful and wonderful society known only to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these creatures discussing a menu card but I feel a mad desire to drag him off to the bar of some common east-end public-house and cram a sixpenny dinner down his throat—beefsteak pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection of it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) might induce him to turn up his nose a little less frequently in the future at everything that is put before him. Then there ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... want anything—look Fay! wouldn't Mary like a pair of those?" Her eyes were riveted on a boxful of cotton gloves, bright yellow, black, and white, marked fourpence three-farthings. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... was to have for his supper a penny roll, a small cup of mild cider, two or three pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room, and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to attend choir and school the next ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... careful about money as a pattern boy should be. He did not say to himself, "Now I have got a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore I may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each week"—and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week accordingly. He ran through his money at about the same rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few days after he had got back to school. When he had no more money, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... 125. "They are moraly responsible for their individual conduct."—Cardell's El. Gram., p. 21. "An engine of sixty horse power, is deemed of equal force with a team of sixty horses."—Red Book, p. 113. "This, at fourpence per ounce, is two shillings and fourpence a week, or six pounds, one shining and four pence a year."—Ib., p. 122. "The tru meening of parliament iz a meeting of barons or peers."—Webster's Essays, p. 276. "Several authorities seem at leest to favor ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the seaside, the coarser animal-oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease may be procured for fourpence, and about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes, and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling; so that a pound of rushes medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... Paleolithic, Neolithic, and other unpronounceable ages, has, in this 19th century, produced a distinct paling of the stars, with an opaline tint in the east. And, as a penny for the first nail, twopence for the second, fourpence for the third, and so on, amounts to something like a million sterling for the set of horse-shoes, so the faint suggestion of dawn observable in our day cannot do otherwise than multiply itself into sunshine ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... ould Miles there, without, what does he be doing with all the powther and shot, wouldn't he tell you he's shooting the rooks, and the magpies, and some other varmint? But myself knows he sells it to Widow Casey, at two-and-fourpence a pound; so belikes, Father Roach may be shooting away at the poor souls in purgathory, that all this time are enjoying the hoith of fine living ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr. Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... surgeons, he enrolled his name as a student of divinity, and was frequently in Edinburgh attending the lectures at Divinity Hall. Wonderfully cheap was the living in those days, when, at the Edinburgh ordinaries, a good dinner could be had for fourpence, small beer included. John Witherspoon, years after a member of the American Congress, then a frank, generous young fellow, was a companion of Carlyle at this period, and they often went fishing together in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... sunk a little distance from the centre by a man named Jones, whose venture yielded the poorest results. Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of 'hydraulicking' this hill-side; and from three pounds of its yellow clay, gathered at random, we washed about fourpence worth of gold-dust, upwards of 8l. a ton. Other specimens assayed 1 oz. 13 dwts. and 13 grains. The quartz at a little lower than a fathom had yielded poorly, [Footnote: Messieurs Johnson and Matthey found only 0.650 oz. gold and 0.225 silver.] but better results ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... have the Bill, Mr. Brooke, per electioneering contest, and a seat outside Parliament as delivered, five thousand pounds, seven shillings, and fourpence." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Stroud, as "a thank-offering to God for partial recovery from sickness."—Also from Bath 5l.—A gentleman gave anonymously to the governess of the Infant Orphans 2l.—I also received the following letter today: "Dear Sir, When my dear brother John died, he had one shilling and fourpence halfpenny owing to him which he intended for the Orphans. As I received it today, I now send it to you. He said 'Jesus will never forsake the Orphans.' M. W." The paper contained 1s. 7 3/4 d. and a quarter of a gilder. This legacy came from ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... and her Sunday bonnet she was as pleasant-looking a woman as one was likely to meet between Littlebourne and London. "Going to town" was rather an event in her life, and one that called for the best gown and bonnet as well as for three-and-fourpence to pay the fare. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... three farthings per pound which had been paid at its first importation, and then exported without further trouble; that the portion destined for home consumption should, in presence of the warehouse-keeper, be delivered to the purchaser, upon his paying the inland duty of fourpence per pound weight, to the proper officer appointed to receive it; by which means the merchant would be eased of the inconvenience of paying the duty upon importation, or of granting bonds and finding sureties for the payment, before he had found a market for the commodity; that all penalties ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... year previously, and undressed, and laid in it, and affectionately tucked up by her aunt, who marvelled at the fineness of her clothes, as she removed them piece by piece; and when she saw that in Mrs. Catherine's pocket there was only the sum of three and fourpence, said, archly, "There was no need of money, for the ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a further lump Of sugar in my cocoa—yes, And cocoa too is on the slump, Its "second grade" now costs me less; And green peas (marrowfat) Are down to fourpence. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... Messina coast; after which, as the fish cease to be seen, it is presumed here that they have sailed to the African coast. The flesh of the spada fish is generally double in market price to that of the thunny, selling during the greater part of June at about fourpence a-pound. Every thunny is weighed upon landing, and a high tax paid upon it to the king, who, in consideration thereof, charges his Sicilian subjects no duty for gunpowder or salt. The fixed fisheries for thunny, round the Sicilian coast, are upwards of a dozen, the most famous being that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... visit to London was paid in 1749. He walked up from Nottingham, spent three days in London, and then walked back to Nottingham. The jaunt, if such an expression is applicable, cost him eleven shillings less fourpence. Yet he paid his way. The only money he spent to gain admission to public places was ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... settler at the Field of Mars, made a different and a better use of the produce of his farm. Having a mill, he ground and dressed his wheat, and sold it to a baker at Sydney at fourpence per pound, procuring forty-four pounds of good flour from a bushel of wheat, which was taken at fifty-nine pounds. This person also killed a wether sheep (the produce of what had been given to him by Governor Phillip) at Christmas, and sold it at two ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... henceforth go as far as eight, so that no alteration of the Corn Laws shall be necessary. He furthermore promises to plant Blackheath and Government waste grounds with sugar-cane, and to raise the penny post stamp to fourpence, in so delicate a manner that nobody shall feel the extra expense. As for the opposition, what will a man care for even the speeches of a Sibthorp—who can catch any number of bullets, any weight of lead, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... replied, "is a savoury and nourishing dish, the 'poor man's steak' I believe it is commonly called. When I was younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could secure a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions. In the halcyon days of youth, when one's lexicon contained not the word failure (it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the word it was found was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much comfort and support to me, a very present ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... because it's going to ruin Lancashire. And at this very minute thousands of looms are shut down in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton produced by an American combine—and worse coming, sevenpence a pound I hear they're going to have it, against the fourpence ha'penny they've got it up to already. That's the sort of thing they're afraid to discourage ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was a workman named John Bakes, who was paid the magnificent sum of twelve pence a day, while in an entry in another document he is said to have received only fourpence daily. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... of such vessels in Whittington's time can be found, and also that the trade in coal did not begin in Europe for some time afterward. And there really seems nothing improbable in the story that at a time when a kitten big enough to kill mice brought fourpence in England, such an animal, taken to a rat-infested, catless country, might not be sold for a sum large enough to start an enterprising youth in trade. Surely, the beginnings of some of our own railroad kings and financiers may as well ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... day had been fine, the ground was still wet, far too wet to sleep out of doors with comfort. I had economised as much as possible, but walking is hungry work, and now I found myself with only one and fourpence by way of capital. The consequence was that a free lodging of some kind must be discovered, and I looked about vainly ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... fruit-sellers—her husband most likely and doing nothing just as likely, like most of his colour, for the household of which he was the head, save to collect the money his better half in every respect earned—seemed very much aggrieved at some damage Mick did to a bunch of ripe bananas, claiming a 'bit' or fourpence as compensation. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... tram to Greenwich Station, and then we took a cab home (and well worth the money, which was all we now had got, except fourpence-halfpenny), for we ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... always suffer from hunger and thirst, for we shall never be able to earn enough to procure for ourselves any better food. Our bread supply is very scarce—a little in the morning and less at night, for none of us can gain by her handiwork more than fourpence a day for her daily bread. And with this we cannot provide ourselves with sufficient food and clothes. For though there is not one of us who does not earn as much as twenty sous [327] a week, yet we cannot live without hardship. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Dick,' says 'ee, 'which comes exactly to four shillins and fourpence a year,' says 'ee. 'An' they ain't paupers; Dick! If they wos paupers, it wouldn't be a big sum for 'em to give out o' any pocket-money they might chance to git from their pauper friends, but they're well-dressed people, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... Assembly, at this epoch, was unusually well-informed, and, having passed many other wise and wholesome enactments, it crowned all with the Cat-Act. In its original form, this law offered a premium for cat-heads (fourpence a-piece), but the Senate succeeded in amending the main clause, so as to substitute the word "tails" for "heads." This amendment was so obviously proper, that the House concurred ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... from the country of Hector," the boy said. "Would you have currants, lady? These once bloomed in the island gardens of the blue Aegean. They are uncommon fine ones, and the figure is low; they're fourpence-halfpenny a pound. Would ye mayhap make trial of our teas? We do not advertise, as some folks do: but sell as low as ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Wagon, for which we had another good hour to wait, came lumbering up to the Pillars of Hercules; and after the Wagoner had fought with a Grenadier, who wanted to go to Brentford for fourpence, and would have stabbed the man with his bayonet had not his hand been stayed, the Groom took me up, and put me on the straw inside. He paid the Wagoner some money for me, and also gave into his keeping ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Street. When they reached the North Gate, they had to wait to go out, for it was just then blocked by a drove of cattle, each of which had to pay the municipal tax of a halfpenny, and they were followed by a cart of sea-fish, which paid fourpence. The gate being clear, they passed through it, Flemild casting rather longing looks down Horsemonger Street (the modern Broad Street), where a bevy of young girls were dancing, while their elders sat at their doors and looked on; but she did not attempt to join them. A ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... todi a hoffcer past hi that it wos the workhus hoffcer. bill ses he told im to cum hif hi cant pi by septmbr but hi am trustin God der polly e asn't forgot us. hi 'm glad the poppies grew. ere's a disy hi am sendin yu hi can mike the butonoles yet. hi do sum hevry di mrs purdy gave me fourpence one di for sum i mide for her hi ad a cup of tee that di. hi am appy ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... "Fourpence-halfpenny!" he repeated, and fell into profound meditation, from which he broke with a sudden return of anger. "What a double-dyed villain and robber that infernal woman has been! She told me that prices had risen to such a height that ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a stool, he bade me eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline, but his language became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed. So soon as I was finished—it cost him two and fourpence, I remember—we walked down to the docks together, and he told me stories of the sea and land that made my blood run cold. Altogether, in the course of three weeks or a month, we met about half a dozen times, when much the same programme was gone through. I think ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad for his approaching birthday,—H. M. S. Majestic, now lying uselessly careened in the toyshop ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... never before been produced in any part of the world at a price so low as a shilling a volume.' Far be it from us to make any heartless allusion to the fact that Shakespeare's Sonnets were brought out at fivepence, or that for fourpence-halfpenny one could have bought a Martial in ancient Rome. Every man, a cynical American tells us, has the right to beat a drum before his booth. Still, we must acknowledge that Mr. Walter Scott would have been much better employed in correcting some of the more obvious errors that appear ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... mint of money, would have been in favor of being a little magnificent,—of taking a carriage and going up-town in state. Bobby had not the least desire to "swell;" so he settled the matter by bargaining with a little ragged fellow to help him carry the trunk to Mr. Bayard's store for fourpence. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... house began, and it continued till one, when the last straggler knocked for admittance. The house lived on its beds. The best rooms were sometimes let for eight shillings a night, and there were four beds which were let at fourpence a night in the cellar under the area where Esther stood by the great copper washing sheets, blankets, and counterpanes, when she was not cleaning the rooms upstairs. There was a double-bedded room underneath the kitchen, and over the landings, wherever a space could be found, the ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now quite at her ease] You see, it's ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... saltee, a penny Uno soldo. Dooey saltee, twopence Dui soldi. Tray saltee, threepence Tre soldi. Quarterer saltee, fourpence Quattro soldi. Chinker saltee, fivepence Cinque soldi. Say saltee, sixpence Sei soldi. Say oney saltee, or setter Sette soldi. saltee, sevenpence Say dooee saltee, or otter Otto soldi. saltee, eightpence Say tray saltee, or nobba saltee, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... a week means twenty-six pounds a year; and I very well remember that on the first anniversary of my entering Mr. Perkins's employ, my Government Savings Bank book showed a balance to my credit of twenty-two pounds three and fourpence. This sum, I decided, might fairly rank as Capital; it really merited the august name, I felt, being actually above the sum of twenty pounds. Eighteen pounds was a respectable nest-egg. Yes, but twenty-three ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... hand into hers; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convulsively in my grasp; and I ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... left an heir at the age of ten years—heir to all the fortune of his dead aunt, which consisted of two shillings and fourpence, a flower-basket, a pebble with a hole drilled through it, and a dying woman's blessing. "Truly," you will ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... generated by prodigality, the hereditary vice of the Irish gentry, and manifested itself in exorbitant rack-rents wrung from their tenantry, and in the low wages paid for their labor. Since the days of King William, the price of the necessaries of life had trebled, and the day's hire- -fourpence— had continued stationary. The oppression of tithes was little inferior to the tyranny of rack-rents; while the great landholder was nearly exempt from this pressure, a tenth of the produce of the cottier's ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... parliament to export corn when it was at low prices; wheat at six shillings and eightpence a quarter, money of that age; barley at three shillings and fourpence.[****] It appears from these prices, that corn still remained at near half its present value; though other commodities were much cheaper. The inland commerce of corn was also opened in the eighteenth of the king, by allowing any collector of the customs to grant a license of carrying ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... third, two nicked surfaces two-thirds, three nicked surfaces the whole. Somebody cleared the whole, and the game started afresh. Paul threw down a halfpenny and joined in. As last comer he was last to play. The first throw cleared the pool. It was renewed, and the next throw took fourpence. Twopence remained. Three blanks doubled it—fourpence. Three blanks doubled it again—eightpence. Again three blanks doubled it—sixteenpence. A throw of one by common consent took sixpence. Three blanks made ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in silence. Nor did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shillings out of my pocket. The ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Admiral's players. On 15th November 1586 they are recorded at Coventry as having been paid twenty shillings, and immediately following, under the same date of entry, the Lord Chamberlain's men are recorded as being paid three shillings and fourpence, and on 15th November 1587 they are again recorded at Coventry as receiving twenty shillings; and again, under the same date, is an entry recording the payment of five shillings "to the Lord Chamberlain's Musicians that came with the ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... himself into the fire or a well, or in the path of a tiger, is he without blame?'" Such apathy seems almost unaccountable to English minds; but it may find a parallel in Lady Chatterton's story of the Irish parents, [7] who, after refusing to spend fourpence in nourishment for a dying child, came in deep grief after its death to their employer, to solicit an advance of thirty shillings to wake the corpse! Perhaps some ingenious systematists might hence deduce a fresh argument in favour of the alleged oriental origin ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500 pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400 pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco, stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are indifferent ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... said Jones. He offered cigarettes, and presently the communicative one departed, having borrowed fourpence on the strength of ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... friends and wiser brethren, instead of seeming to regard them only as strange dogs to be repelled or as sheep to be sheared. But the first practical point to be struggled for is that of steady employment and just reward for labor. So long as men's wages (without board) range from fourpence to one and six-pence per day, and women's from a penny to six-pence (which, so far as I can learn, are the current rates at present, and nothing to do for half the year at any price), no radical improvement can be hoped for. A family with nothing to do, very ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... difficulty; when suddenly ——- recollected that not far from thence was an old rancho, a deserted farmhouse at present occupied by robbers; and having ordered the coachman to drive to within a few hundred yards of this house, he sent a servant on horse- back with a medio (fourpence) to bring some water, which was treating the robbers like honourable men. The man galloped off, and shortly returned with a can full of water, which he carried back ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... you what you do, Bill. You go to a hotel, and I'll beat it down to a lodging-house on Duke Street.... Juke Street!... Remember how I ran onto Pete on the street? He told me you could get a cot down there for fourpence." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... house, they went every day regularly to work; Maud spun nine cuts a day, besides doing all that was to be done in the house; Edmund got fourpence a day by his work; and Peggy and Annie earned twopence apiece at the paper-mills near Navan, where they were employed to sort rags, and to ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... municipal affairs; he grew irregular in his attendance at the council meetings, and signs were soon apparent that his luck had turned. In 1578 he was unable to pay, with his colleagues, either the sum of fourpence for the relief of the poor or his contribution 'towards the furniture of three pikemen, two bellmen, and one archer' who were sent by the corporation to attend a muster of the trained bands ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... brute, and I don't care if he finds this and sees what I say. But he won't, for the milkman is taking it. He always does if you can pay him. But I've put most of my money into the bank. Three of the top boys have a bank, and we all have to deposit, only I kept fourpence in one of my boots. They give us bank-notes for a penny and a halfpenny; they make them themselves. The sweet-shop takes them. They only give you eleven penny notes for a shilling in the bank, or else it would burst. At dinner we have a lot of pudding to begin with, and it's very heavy. You ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... perform long journeys on horseback. If the traveller wished to move expeditiously he rode post. Fresh saddle horses and guides were to be procured at convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The charge was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a stage for the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it was possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by any conveyance known in England, till vehicles were propelled by steam. There were as yet no post chaises; nor could those who rode in their own ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers (blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. Silver chain in pocket, with Freemason's token: a half-crown, a florin, and fourpence— ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... demands of the Stamp Office. The newspaper stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation; then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. When at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money has been offered him, he never took more than two shillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once distributed it to the poor, as token that he needed no money, for God would provide for him, as he rued the sins ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... borough.' Scotland returned forty-five members and Cornwall forty-four members to Parliament! The reformers also demanded the abolition of the 'taxes on knowledge,' by which was meant the stamp duty of fourpence on every copy of a newspaper, a duty of threepence on every pound of paper, and a heavy tax upon advertisements. The new Poor Laws aroused bitter discontent. Instead of receiving payment of money for relief of poverty, as had formerly ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... two and fourpence," said McTurk, with a glance of cold scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study there was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, as their share in the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange - 'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own term - One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir? - What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was Go shop or sight-see—bar a spit o' rain!) In February, eighteen sixty ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... to ring you would come here, You must ring well with hand and ear; But if you ring in spur or hat, Fourpence always is due for that; But if a bell you overthrow, Sixpence is due before you go; But if you either swear or curse, Twelvepence is due; pull out your purse. Our laws are old, they are not new; Therefore the clerk must have his due. If to our laws you do consent, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... despotic government, and was treated as such in England. Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraining tax was increased from time to time, until in 1815 it reached the maximum of fourpence." At this figure the tax seems to have continued many years, for under the year 1836 Mackenzie refers to it as such, and remarks, "that this rendered the newspaper a very occasional luxury to the working man; that the annual circulation of newspapers in the United Kingdom ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... a Guild had been allotted its scene it appointed a manager to carry the matter through. The individual expense was not great, somewhere between a penny and fourpence for each member. Out of the sum thus raised had to be paid the cost of dresses and stage-scenery, and the actors' remunerations (which included food during the period of rehearsals as well as on the actual playing days). No such crude simplicity ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... are, in a glass dish, but a great improvement can be made in their appearance at a very small cost and with a very little extra trouble if we always have in the house a little preserved angelica and a few dried cherries. As these cost about a shilling or one and fourpence per pound, and even a quarter of a pound is sufficient to ornament two or three dozen dishes, the ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... would pay a hundred pounds down. (At this point Henry ceased to insure the parcel.) Another sent it back minus the last leaf, the matter of which Henry had to reinvent and Aunt Annie to recopy. Another returned it insufficiently stamped, and there was fourpence to pay. Another kept it four months, and disgorged it only under threat of a writ; the threat was launched forth on Powells' formidable notepaper. At length there arrived a day when even Henry's pertinacity was fatigued, ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... cherished a smoldering grudge, which, however, he never allowed any one but himself to fan into flame. His pique was natural. Garrick had been his pupil at Edial, near Lichfield; they had come up to town together with an easy united fortune of fourpence—"current coin o' the realm." Garrick soon had the world at his feet and garnered golden grain. Johnson became famous too, but remained poor and dingy. Garrick surrounded himself with what only ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in golden sovereigns walked away with in broad daylight, and never so much as the flick of a coat-tail seen. Those are the sort of men I'm thinking of, not the bricklayer out of work, who smashes a window and gets ten years for breaking open a cheesemonger's till with nine and fourpence ha'penny in it.' ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... turnips after this wise. Some of the ingredients proposed for sauces seem to our ears rather prodigious. In one place a contemporary peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought for fourpence, the condiments recommended for it were not to be had for less than nine shillings. The book teaches us to make Scotch collops, to pickle lemons and quinces, to make French bread, to collar beef, pork, ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... in the mornings at an hour when most other children of his age were asleep in their beds. He was also employed to hoe turnips, and do similar farm-work, for which he was paid the advanced wage of fourpence a day. But his highest ambition was to be taken on at the colliery where his father worked; and he shortly joined his elder brother James there as a "corf-bitter," or "picker," to clear the coal of stones, bats, and dross. His ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... work of removal, that she readily gave her consent. As usual the devil had the best of the bargain, for he, knowing her powers of arithmetic to be but scanty, handed her a number of pieces of money, whose value was fourpence halfpenny, and twopence three-farthings. The dame had barely managed to add the first two coins together, when the devil called upon her to stop, and looking round she saw the stones were all removed, and had been tied with a withe band into a neat bundle which was slung upon his ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... of skivvies. About ten pound three and fourpence between the pair of them. That was all he got." Pa's interest visibly faded. He gurgled at his pipe and turned his face towards the mantelpiece. "And ... a ... let's see, what else is there?" Alf racked his brains, puffing a little ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the dukedom. In those days the postage of a letter was twopence for short distances, and threepence for any distance beyond eighty miles.[251] But those charges had been gradually increased; about the middle of the century the lowest charge was fixed at fourpence, rising in proportion to the distance, till the conveyance of a single letter from one extremity of the kingdom to the other cost eighteen-pence. Such a rate could not fail to be very profitable; and by the beginning of the present reign the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge |
