"Civil List" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this power to bludgeon the Legislative Council and the Governor into compliance with its wishes. The Colonial Office made concessions, offering to resign all its taxing powers in return for a permanent civil list, that is, an assurance that the salaries of the chief officials would not be questioned annually. The offer was reasonable in itself but, as it would have hampered the full use of the revenue bludgeon, it was ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Poor Matthias. He had thought Mr Gladstone "hopelessly prejudiced against" him, and was proportionately surprised when in August 1883 he was offered by that Minister a pension of L250 for service to the poetry and literature of England. Few Civil List pensions have been so well deserved. But Mr Arnold, as most men of his quality would have been, was at once struck with the danger of evil constructions being put by the baser sort on the acceptance of an extra allowance from public funds by a man who already had a fair income from them, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... expel popery, and keep out the Pretender. And, lest the army should be at a loss for business, I think it would be very prudent to employ them in collecting the public taxes for paying themselves and the civil list. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... and a consequent lighter aggregate burden on the subjects. Doubtless, the "overhead charges" would not be reduced to their practicable minimum. Such a governmental establishment, with its bureaucratic personnel, its "civil list" and its privileged classes, would not be conducted on anything like a parsimonious footing. There is no reason to apprehend any touch of modesty in the exactions of such a dynastic establishment for itself or in behalf of its underlying hierarchy ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... is devolved by the Constitution or by the law, and the appointing officers are properly held to a high responsibility in its exercise. The growth of the country and the consequent increase of the civil list have magnified this function of the Executive disproportionally. It can not be denied, however, that the labor connected with this necessary work is increased, often to the point of actual distress, by the sudden and excessive demands that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... death of Alfonso XII., many of the purely Spanish customs of the Court have been modified or discontinued. Although the late King was credited with a desire to reduce the civil list, and to adopt more English customs, he was to some extent in the hands of the Conservatives, who had been the means of his restoration, and when he went forth to put an end to the Carlist insurrection and finish the civil war, which ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of Congress has become very burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge of any large number of the applicants is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those who volunteer ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... civil list for your wife and for the requirements of the house and to pay her money as if it were a contribution, in twelve equal portions month by month, has something in it that is a little mean and close, and cannot ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... from public duty. He subsequently contributed articles for different periodicals; but he chiefly devoted himself to the moral and religious improvement of his fellow-townsmen. A pension of L150 on the civil list was conferred upon him as an acknowledgment of his services in behalf of literature and of philanthropy; a well-merited public boon which for many years he was spared to enjoy. He died at his residence, The Mount, Sheffield, on the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... added the title of 'Receiver-General of Waif and Stray Jokes.' It is said that his hostility to Sheridan arose from the latter having lost him the office in the Works in 1782, when Burke's Bill for reducing the Civil List came into operation; but this is not at all probable, as his dislike was shown long before that period. Apropos of the Board of Works, Walpole gives another anecdote. On one occasion, in 1780, Lord George Gordon had been ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Shipwreck of the "Juno," which contains, almost word for word, the account of the "two fathers," in Don Juan. Meanwhile Mrs. Byron,—whose reduced income had been opportunely augmented by a grant of a 300l. annuity from the Civil List,—after revisiting Newstead followed her son to London, and took up her residence in a house in Sloane-terrace. She was in the habit of having him with her there from Saturday to Monday, kept him from school for weeks, introduced him to idle company, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... spent her first Christmas as a Queen at Windsor, right royally I doubt not, and I think it probable she received a few presents. A few days before, she had gone in state to Parliament, to give her assent to the New Civil List Act-not a hard duty for her to perform, it would seem, as that act settled on her for life an annual income of L385,000. Let Americans who begrudge our President his $50,000, and wail over our taxation, just put that sum into ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... is clear that, though Miss Burney was the only woman of her time who could have described the death of Harrel, thousands might have been found more expert in tying ribbons and filling snuff-boxes. To grant her a pension on the civil list would have been an act of judicious liberality, honorable to the court. If this was impracticable, the next best thing was to let her alone. That the King and Queen meant her nothing but kindness, we do not in the least doubt. But their kindness was the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spiggot, and have substituted a small peace one in its stead, which will cause an unknown saving to you." This is all very well; but the gouty Regent has also tapped the vat on the other side, and draws off the supplies in a copious stream into a receptacle labelled, "Deficiencies of the Civil List." His friends and boon companions are bringing up a fresh supply of empty vessels to be filled in their turn; one carries a barrel marked, "For household troops and standing army"; another is labelled, "Sinecures, places, and pensions"; a third, "For cottages and pavilions"; and a fourth, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt |
