"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1856, incomes of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds were chargeable with a tax of elevenpence halfpenny in the pound: persons who enjoyed a revenue of a hundred and fifty or more had the honour of paying one and fourpence. Abatements there were none, and families supporting life on two pounds a week might in some cases, perchance, be reconciled to the mulct by considering how ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... sciences are to be made use of, one may venture to affirm our poet can not impertinently offend in this point. The learning which will be more particularly necessary to him is the ancient geography of towns, mountains, and rivers; for this let him take Culverius, value fourpence. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... similar. We see lines of vast powder magazines, enormous barracks of recent construction, preparations for defence, on a scale altogether inconceivable and indescribable. Little wonder that meat is a shilling a pound, instead of fourpence as before the annexation, that bread has doubled in price, taxation also, and, to make matters worse, that trade has remained ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy a table on an expenditure of fourpence. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... gathered that she meant that there could be no question about the 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, and I shook my teaspoon defiantly at them. "You've ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... on to Bourg d'Oisans, a place some six or seven and thirty miles farther on, and by thirty minutes past three we find ourselves reclining easily within it, and digesting dinner with the assistance of a little packet, for which we paid one-and-fourpence at the well-known shop of Mr. Bacon, Market- square, Cambridge. It is very charming. The air is sweet, warm, and sunny, there has been bad weather for some days here, but it is clearing up; the clouds are lifting themselves hour by hour, we are evidently going to have a pleasant ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... me. An arbitrator of disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never shall appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but positively harmful, as I told you. For me the district institutions simply mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny for every three acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and self-interest ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... less as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane. There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... tragedy on John Huss; or he is a 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 ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... gave me a little bit of bacon. I'm going to make a stew. [She prepares for cooking.] There's fourteen shillings owing for rent, James, and of course I 've only got two and fourpence. They'll ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... employment, and create the need of another class of labourers altogether; but if it has taken labour from ten persons, it has provided labour for a thousand. How does it work? A yard of calico made by hand costs two shillings, made by machinery it may cost fourpence. At two shillings a yard few buy it; at fourpence a yard, multitudes are glad to avail themselves of it. Cheapness promotes consumption; the article which hitherto was used by the higher classes only is now to be seen in the hand of the labouring classes as well. As the demand increases, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... referred to, for I wish to know if that statement be correct. In the meantime arrangements have been made, and the Society will have to pay for each volume of the Testament the comparatively small sum of forty-five copecks, or fourpence halfpenny, whereas the usual price here for the most paltry covering of the most paltry pamphlet is fivepence. Should it be demanded how I have been able to effect this, my reply is that I have had little hand in the matter. A nobleman, who honours me with particular friendship, and who is one ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... 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; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... streets are very wide, and I think when filled with houses it will be a fine place; but what spoils the appearance now is, the number of wooden buildings they are throwing up, as they cannot get workmen for others. When we were there, butter was from two shillings and fourpence to three shillings per pound, bread fourpence, milk eightpence per pint, vegetables enormous, butcher's meat and sugar, as at home. Fruit very dear; a shilling would not purchase as much as a penny in England. Beer and porter, ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... 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 gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... no sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost. I had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny. All evening I sat by the fire considering my situation. I could not pay the bill; my landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either baggage or money, how was I to find another lodging? For three months, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... 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
... Belgium, Guernsey, and Jersey. It appears from official statements mentioned in McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," that the number imported from France alone amounts to about 60,000,000 a year; and supposing them on an average to cost fourpence a dozen, it follows that we pay our continental neighbours above L83,000 a year ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... 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 he meant ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... those little books called When were you Born? There's one for each month. They tell you your character, your talents, your strong points, and your weak points at fourpence halfpenny a go. Bobbie's idea was to buy the whole twelve, and go through them till we found out which month hit off Mary's character. That would give us the month, and narrow ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... hours of the morning and wakening the workers, these blood-suckers (chiefly old men and cripples) receive at present the princely remuneration of threepence per head per week; and they have now the effrontery to ask for fourpence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... was a person who found fault with another, for not doing what he was unable to do himself. And he charged me fourpence three-farthings for the information, and as I only had fourpence halfpenny I have to pay him the odd farthing when I sell some of my poems. Can you tell me how I can set ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... however, did not succeed with the play-going public in London, and had to be withdrawn. Neither did the school succeed, and it had to be given up, Johnson, accompanied by David Garrick, setting off to London, where it was said that he lived in a garret on fourpence-halfpenny per day. Many years afterwards, when Johnson was dining with a fashionable company, a remark was made referring to an incident that occurred in a certain year, and Johnson exclaimed: "That was the year when I came ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... regulations expressly to be acted on; he appointed a master in priest's orders, under whose guidance a secular chaplain officiated; it was also observed that every pilgrim in health should have but one night's lodging to the cost of fourpence; that applicants weak and infirm were to be preferred to those of sounder constitutions, and that women "upwards of forty" should attend to the bedding, and administer medicines ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... 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, or eels, to make gooseberry fool, to dry beef after the Dutch fashion, to make sack posset two ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... waste paper. On making inquiry, he ascertained that there were two tons and a half to be disposed of, and that an equal quantity had already been sold, for the purpose of converting it into pasteboard. The vendor said he could get fourpence a pound for the whole, and that it made capital Bristol board. The fact was mentioned by a member of the Council of the Royal Society, and they thought it necessary to ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... the thirteen sermons, at fourpence apiece, including the binding, is an excellent photogravure portrait of the Archbishop. The face is keen and scholarly, and not unpleasant. A noticeable nose, a large fluent mouth, shrewd eyes, and a high well-shaped head, make on the whole an agreeable ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... 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 ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... 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 ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as 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 ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a small key, and her aunt's return ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... and the memory of his father. Lord! I could have cried; and he up and blubbered fairly, a trick as he learned from ten Frenchmen he had killed. Ah! he have done his work well, and aimed a good conduck—fourpence-halfpenny a day, so long as ever he ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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
... 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
... therefore were unlikely to survive. You would have supposed that in a district that never ceases to grumble about bad trade and unemployment, thousands of boys would have been delighted to buy the Daily at fourpence a dozen and sell it at sixpence. But it ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... 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
... in consequence of the distressed state of the farmers, who gave up their leases, owing to the decreased prices of all sorts of agricultural productions. The average price of wheat, during the year, was sixty-four shillings and fourpence a quarter, about eight shillings a bushel; the quartern loaf was sevenpence. The supplies voted this year were EIGHTY-NINE MILLIONS eight hundred and ninety-three thousand nine hundred pounds, for England, and NINE MILLIONS Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds for Ireland, making ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... plain that Maria had left it behind her in the tram. Maria, remembering how confused the gentleman with the greyish moustache had made her, coloured with shame and vexation and disappointment. At the thought of the failure of her little surprise and of the two and fourpence she had thrown away for ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... that was in all England; and provision made for it of 'fourpence halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant, invincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford; the rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor stalking about, in winter season, with his shoes worn out; how the charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... this day a list of objects of barter:—A looking-glass in a tin case, value, in Tripoli, thirty paras, purchases here two sahs of ghaseb. A common print handkerchief, value fourpence English money, only purchases three or four ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... company in London that carried letters from one part of that town to another for twopence apiece, and this was the cheapest post in England. A letter from London to Otterbourne cost eightpence, and one from Winchester either threepence or fourpence, one from Devonshire elevenpence, and this was paid not by the sender, but by the receiver. It was reckoned impolite to prepay a letter. Moreover, the letter had to be on a single sheet. The sheet might be of any size that could be had, but it must be only one. A small sheet enclosed within another, ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be touched by her Majesty Queen Anne for the "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. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... some further evils, which were 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 could get as much in four days ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... and a great feeling of pity came over me, not only at the name of Anthony —the name I had heard spoken in the bowling-green last night—but also to see that monstrous item of L17 odd spent on the dice. 'Twas such a boy, too, after all, that I was angry with, that had spent fourpence to see the rhinoceros at a fair, and rode on the ranter- go-round (with "Marjory," no doubt, as 'twas for her, no doubt, the silver buttons were bought). So that, with quick forgiveness, I hurried after him, and laid a ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... wealthy Rovers of the South Coast. The yacht costs about two thousand pounds to begin with, and one thousand pounds per year is paid to keep her up. Thus it seems that a Rover may have six sails at the rate of one hundred and sixty-six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence per sail! So long as the breed of Cowes Rovers exists we need have no fears concerning our naval supremacy. Indeed competent nautical men think that, if any band of enemies, no matter how ferocious they might be, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... again, quite out of breath. "Wishing you many happy returns of the day, my dear child!" he went on, addressing the smiling little girl, who had run to meet him. "Allow me to give you a birthday-present. It's a second-hand pincushion, my dear. And it only cost fourpence-halfpenny!" ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... time that Garrick had raised the profession of a player. He defended Garrick, too, against the common charge of avarice. Garrick, as he pointed out, had been brought up in a family whose study it was to make fourpence go as far as fourpence-halfpenny. Johnson remembered in early days drinking tea with Garrick when Peg Woffington made it, and made it, as Garrick grumbled, "as red as blood." But when Garrick became rich he became liberal. He had, so Johnson ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... buy them, too. I know of several lodging-houses where I could hire a baby from fourpence to a shilling a day. The prettier the child is the better; should it happen to be a cripple, or possessing particularly thin arms and face, it is always worth a shilling. Little girls always demand a higher price ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... memorable session. The 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
... indeed, our treasurer, an earnest young man, and a tireless foe of all that was conventional, departed for the East, leaving behind him a balance sheet, showing that the club owed forty-two pounds fifteen and fourpence, and that the subscriptions for the current year, amounting to a little over thirty-eight pounds, had been "carried forward," but as to where, the report afforded no indication. Whereupon our landlord, a man utterly without ideals, seized our furniture, offering to sell it back to ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... rascal, can't you be polite enough to say 'Miss Clara'? What do you want with her?" continued Sebastian roughly. "She owes me fourpence," explained the boy. ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... 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 ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 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, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... counted it in surprise. 'Why, there's seventeen and fourpence farthing here,' he said. 'Do you mean to say you two have been out for a week, and only spent two ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... no longer. "So you confess that you are a vile scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "You confess that you purchased an old promissory note of mine for fourpence, and then sent a man here to seize my goods! Ah! you'd like to trample the poor under foot, would you! Very well. I have you now, and I'll settle your account! Take that!" And so saying, he dealt his supposed creditor a terrible blow ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 the shilling two. Three more blanks made two shillings four. Three more made it eight, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... "I forgot fourpence on the counter," muttered the chemist, pulling the quilt over him. "Put it away in the ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Rome, 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 ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... was getting ready he went to the custom-house to look after his baggage. He found a red-hot countryman of his own there, roaring about four and fourpence, and fighting the battle of his trunks, in which he was ready to make affidavit there was not, nor never had been, any thing contraband; and when the custom-house officer replied by pulling out of one of them a piece of Irish poplin, the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Geoff to make up his sixpence for the hospital-cot collection at the children's service last Sunday. He had only fourpence halfpenny. I remember it all now. Oh, how stupid I've been, to be sure!' It was an intense relief to have chased successfully the truant halfpence. 'Now, Queenie,' went on Theo gleefully, 'in five minutes I shall be ready for you, and we are going to have a good time ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... Oh, NEBUCHADNEZZAR! how can they talk sech tommy-rot? Might as well say as Fiz and Four-Arf should be equally fourpence a pot. Nice hidea, but taint so, that's the wust on it. There's where these dreamers go wrong. Ought's nothink, and that as is, is; all the rest isn't wuth a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... 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 ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 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 ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... weather offers no impediment, the light-keepers are each six weeks at the rock and a fortnight ashore with their families. The salaries are from fifty to sixty guineas per annum, with a stated allowance for each man of bread, beef, butter, oatmeal, vegetables, and small-beer, with fourpence a day extra for tea, &c. They have also a suit of uniform clothes every third year. Mr. Stevenson says that the light-keepers were, upon the whole, pleased with their situation, and talked in a feeling manner of the hardships ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... the word to cast loose, and down we dumped poor Bill slap in the middle of the roadway. 'Now,' says I, 'we'll leave talking of wheels. What's your charge for 'en on the flat?' 'Eight bearers at a ha'penny makes fourpence,' he says. 'No, no, my son,' I says, 'there ain't a-going to be no bearers. He's happy enough if he stops here all night. You may charge 'en as a covered conveyance, as I see you've a right to; ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and bowing clumsily at the same time. His fur cap had been previously removed and thrown on the ground. This was indeed a grand salaam, a ceremonious acknowledgment of a gift of something less than fourpence! ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Though farms are exceedingly divided, yet few of the people raise oatmeal enough to feed themselves; all go to market for some. The weavers earn by coarse linens one shilling a day, by fine one shilling and fourpence, and it is the same with the spinners—the finer the yarn, the more they earn; but in common a woman earns about threepence. For coarse linens they do not reckon the flax hurt by standing for seed. Their own flax is much ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... only for fivepence, or three-fifths of a denarius. In the time of Polybius, the traveler was charged for victuals and lodgings at an inn only about two farthings a day, and a bushel of wheat sold for fourpence. At such prices there was very little market for the farmer. Sicily and Sardinia were the real granaries of Rome. Thus were all the best interests of the country sacrificed to the unproductive population of the city. Such was the golden age of the republic—a state of utter misery ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... 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 man ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... us better and 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 is only to leave you a prey to nightmare. Then, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this charity are each supplied with a supper, consisting of half a pound of meat, one pound of bread, and half a pint of porter at seven o'clock in the evening, and fourpence on leaving the house in the morning. The additional comfort of a good fire is given during the winter months, from October 18th till March 10th, for the purpose of drying their clothes and supplying hot water for their use. They go ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... to his desk and ran his fingers through a bundle of papers. "Here it is," he remarked. "At the present moment your father is worth the respectable sum of forty-seven thousand two hundred and nineteen pounds eighteen shillings and fourpence; so he certainly hasn't run away from ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... keep my word. Two little carpings, however. Surely it is wrong to speak of "catch half-penny" journalism in the time of WELLINGTON. My impression is that the journalists of those days caught at least fourpence by their wares. And I confess to an emotion of disappointment when the heroine bounced up at the court-martial and said that the hero couldn't have committed the murder because he was "in her arms" at the time. Of course he hadn't been; and I very much doubt whether any Court would have believed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... 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 ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... touches children with the mace to cure them of ringworm for fourpence apiece. [She goes into the ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... the natural enemy of 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 ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... of friendship. 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
... 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 little to eat and only a hog-pen ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... 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 Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... got just as much over at Day's. So you see the Trust is a jolly big show. Here are your two pages. That looks just like your scrawl, doesn't it? These would be fourpence in the ordinary way, but you can have ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... with property no longer in existence. Kite's income was to be paid by one of the deceased's relatives, who, instead of benefiting largely, found that he came in for a mere pittance; and the proportion of that pittance due to the illegitimate son was exactly forty-five pounds, four shillings, and fourpence per annum. It was paid; it kept Kite alive; also, no doubt, it kept him from doing what he might have done, in art or anything else. On quarterly pay-day the dreamer always spent two or three pounds on gifts to those of his friends who were least able to make practical return. To Olga, of course, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... England, which was of value to our own day. When Governor Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts, he promptly wrote over to his wife to bring candles with her from England when she came. And in 1634 he sent over for a large quantity of wicks and tallow. Candles cost fourpence apiece, which made them costly ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... though it annoyed my wife a little to see them laugh at what she could not understand, was to hear me and her talk French together. At ten o'clock the party broke up and I called for my bill, which was fourpence for a glass of gin for myself and eightpence for the boiling water for our tea, which was much to my surprise, as we had found our own food, tea, and sugar. I asked the landlady if it was not a mistake, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... into Bedford Lane, now the northern part of New Inn Hall 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 little ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... a cold trifle and some excellent coffee that Robina brewed over a lamp on the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away. It was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever eaten; and, if Robina's figures are to be trusted, cost exactly six- and-fourpence for the five of us. There being no servants about, we talked freely and enjoyed ourselves. I began once at a dinner to tell a good story about a Scotchman, when my host silenced me with a look. He is a kindly man, and had heard the story before. He explained to me afterwards, ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... favor. The crisis came about the middle of 1830 when Charles Wentworth Dilke became "supreme editor," enlisted Lamb, George Darley, Barry Cornwall and others on his staff, and reduced the price of the Athenaeum from eightpence to fourpence. The apparent folly of reducing the price and increasing the expenses did not lead to the generally prophesied collapse; this first experiment in modern methods resulted in the rapid growth of the Athenaeum's circulation, to the serious detriment of the Literary Gazette. Jerdan tried ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... one's 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 he ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days, when the cries of an animal in ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... 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 ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... devised for the great commodity of the realm (as it was thought), hath proved far otherwise: for at that time fat oxen were sold for six and twenty shillings and eightpence the piece; fat wethers for three shillings and fourpence the piece; fat calves at a like price; and fat lambs for twelvepence. The butchers of London sold penny pieces of beef for the relief of the poor—every piece two pound and a half, sometimes three pound for ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... that it was a bad habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... niver touch meat. I shall buy a bag o' oatmeal like Grandfeyther Grieve lived on, boil it for mysel, wi a sup o' milk, perhaps, an soom salt or treacle to gi it a taste. An I'll buy apples an pears an oranges cheap soomwhere, an store 'em. Yo mun ha a deal o' fruit when yo doan't ha meat. Fourpence!' cried Davy, his enthusiasm rising, 'I'll live on thruppence a day, as sure as yo're sittin theer! Seven thruppences is one an nine; lodgin, two shillin—three an nine. Two an three left over, for cloos, firin, an pocket money. Why, I'll be ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Oxford. At Oxford I was obliged to pay for my supper, bed, and breakfast at least three shillings, and one to the waiter. I here paid for my supper, bed, and breakfast only one shilling, and to the daughter, whom I was to consider as chambermaid, fourpence; for which she very civilly thanked me, and gave me a written recommendation to an inn at Lichfield, where I should be well lodged, as the people in Lichfield were, in general, she said, very proud. This written recommendation was a masterpiece of orthography, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... Stamped Edition, with which Gentlemen may be supplied regularly by giving their Orders direct to the Publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street (accompanied by a Post Office Order), is One pound and Fourpence for a twelve-month, or Ten shillings and Two ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... then being harnessed, was to take Mr Daly, the attorney, to Tuam, [20] and that probably that gentleman would not object to join him, Martin, in the conveyance. Martin, thinking it preferable to pay fourpence rather than sixpence a mile for his jaunt, acquiesced in this arrangement, and, as he had a sort of speaking acquaintance with Mr Daly, whom he rightly imagined would not despise the economy which actuated himself, he had his carpet-bag put into the well of the car, and, placing himself on ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... I don't believe in, said the night watchman. The only dream I ever 'ad that come anything like true was once when I dreamt I came in for a fortune, and next morning I found half a crown in the street, which I sold to a man for fourpence. And once, two days arter my missis 'ad dreamt she 'ad spilt a cup of tea down the front of 'er Sunday dress, she spoilt a pot o' paint of mine by sitting ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... days' holiday and prudently availed himself of the Meteorological Office forecast before going. Listen: 'Immediate prospect for London warm and settled. Further outlook cooler but fine.' Well, well; I did get a pound of tomatoes for my fourpence." ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... a time-table showed that the price of Pauline Roper's ticket would be two pounds nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... 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 during their second ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... and xiiij cases of wood, wt two Starrs and the image of the Trinite on the topp of the sayed orgayns." In 1570 the "payer of balowes" were sold, and in 1583 the pipes, "wayeng eleven score and thirteen pounds, went for fourpence half-farthing the pound." In 1632 a new one was obtained but its life was short, for in 1641 the Puritan party caused it to be ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... got up early. The woman of the house, who had taken a fancy to them, gave them a good breakfast for fourpence apiece, and Toby, who had always hitherto had share and share alike, was now treated to such a pan of bones, and all for nothing, that he could not touch the coffee the ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... fourpence, and dominoes threepence halfpenny; it seemed to her, therefore, that Tommy was defrauding her of ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... smashed,' he said at length. And then he added slowly, 'I'm glad I've got nothing to do with you women. I believe you'd roast any fellow alive, and then cut him into bits for fourpence-half-penny. It isn't more than three months since you were crying your eyes out about ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... sentimentally gazing at the star-jewelled skies. "Twice three pound is six, an' twice seventeen bob is one-fourteen. Seven pounds fourteen is wot that pore boy's crool end 'as dropped into my pocket, and I'd 'ad those best clothes ever since I got married; an' there was only eight an' fourpence in the piller o' the ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... probably worked at, the glorious task. Its local habitation was possibly that now called John of Gaunt's stables,{20} but anyhow it stood good for a thousand marks a year. A mark is thirteen and fourpence; and six hundred and sixty six pounds odd, in days when an ox cost three shillings and a sheep fourpence was a handsome sum. It could not have been far short ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... 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. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... 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 expected result ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... their two extremes—say Pure Mathematics with Acting. Science as a rule deals with things, Art with man's thought and emotion about things. In Pure Mathematics things are rarefied into ideas, numbers, concepts, but still farther and farther away from the individual man. Two and two make four, and fourpence is not ninepence (or at any rate four is not nine) whether Alcibiades or Cleon keep the tally. In Acting on the other hand almost everything depends on personal interpretation—on the gesture, the walk, the gaze, the tone of a Siddons, the ruse smile of a Coquelin, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the sixpence. Turning from the niggardly 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
... him go a little way, to nail him again by-and-bye: "You have cooked the books in time: and Cocker was a fool to you. 'Twill be all down in black and white. Great sacrifices: no reserve: creditors take everything; dividend fourpence in the pound, furniture of house and bank, Mrs. Hardie's portrait, and down to the coalscuttle. Bankrupt saves nothing but his honour, and—the six thousand pounds or so he has stitched into his old great-coat: hands ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... are three and fourpence, That is paid for certain fees; Fifty pence are four and twopence, That will buy five pounds ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... came."—Priestley's Grammar, p. 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 this opinion."—Ib., p. 277. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... been said before, it is so apt, I should quote Horace, and say, 'Omnibus hoc vitium est.' There is no 'bus unseized by the Napoleonic Lipton. Do not ascend one of them supposing for a moment that by paying fourpence and going to the very end of the route you will come to a neat tea station, where you will be served with the cheering cup. Never; nor with a draught of Cadbury's cocoa or Nestle's milk, although you have ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin |
