"Threepence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was cheap, and where very little was expected by society. We must also take into account the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better sort for twelve to fourteen groschen—a groschen being about a penny. People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government inspection at two to three groschen per quart. Fish was ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... and for washing and marking it, sixpence. A new bell cost 5 pounds: 5: 10, and its "carridge" from London 11s. 10d. Whitewashing the church came to 1 pound: 1s., and work in the gallery to 10s. 4d. Besides, there was a continual payment for dozens of sprow heads, also for fox heads at threepence apiece, for a badger's head, a "poul cat," marten cats, and hedgehogs. These last, together with sparrows, continue to appear till 1832, when the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh, in the vestry, protested against such use of the ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... jury which brought a verdict of manslaughter against one who was charged with stealing breeches; both jokes of Andrew's. Borde's house, whither, it is said, Edward VI. once came on a visit to the jester, still stands. The oak room in which Andrew welcomed the youthful king is shown at a cost of threepence per head, and you may buy pictorial postcards and German wooden toys ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... so-called 'rotten 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 been the case, the poor and needy were now sent ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... a weedy loafer with a bottle nose and watery blue eyes, agreed to pull across for threepence; but no sooner were they embarked and on the tide-way, than he lay on his oars and jerked his thumb towards the moving ship. "Make it a crown, ma'am, and I'll overhaul her," ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... daunted, Johnstone went his way. He was passed in disguise from one house to another, well-fed at the lowest possible prices (he tells us of the landlady of a small inn who charged him threepence for 'an excellent young fowl' and his bed), till at last he found himself in the region of Cortachy, the country of the Ogilvies, who one and all were on the side of the Prince. At Cortachy he was quite ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the rest, he said, would serve ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... 543.), that it was published in London, towards the end of the year 1747, and that the very remarkable and very disgraceful transactions to which it refers were afterwards (in 1749) made the subject of a novel, called Dalinda, or The Double Marriage. Lond. 12mo. Price threepence. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... all common electroplated ware. They were weighed before and after gilding, and it was with difficulty that the increase of weight was detected, even though a fine bullion balance was employed. On calculating back to money, it appeared that the value of the gold deposited was about threepence. Assuming that an equal weight of silver had been accidentally dissolved by the free cyanide during the plating—which is unlikely—the total amount of gold deposited would ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... Why there should not be one uniform stoppage out of the pay of men in hospital no person of modern ideas could see; and the paymaster's toils would have been lessened by more than one-half, if he had had to reckon the deduction from the patients' pay at threepence or fourpence each, all round, instead of having to deal with thousands per day individually, under three kinds of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... issue, a pro forma report of progress. Do the Members of the House think they have all the forms to themselves? "What would be the present We should hardly believe all expression for four-pence? this to be uttered in earnest, Why, 0.166 (a laugh); for if we had not known {177} that threepence? .0125; for a several persons who have not penny? .004166, and so on ad Mr. Lowe's humor, nevertheless infinitum (a laugh); for a have his impressions on this half-penny? .002083 ad point. It must therefore ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Tis strange; a threepence bow'd would hire me Old as I am, to Queene it: but I pray you, What thinke you of a Dutchesse? Haue you limbs To beare that load of Title? An. No ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in his present condition: finally, he told him, "He had nine shillings and threepence halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome to use as ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... was glaring too viciously at Mr. Crowl to reply. He understood the message as if it were printed. It ran: "You have broken one of my best glasses. You have annihilated threepence, or a week's school fees for half the family." Peter wished she would turn the lightning upon Denzil, a conductor down whom it would run innocuously. He stooped down and picked up the pieces as carefully as if they were cuttings from the Koh-i-noor. Thus the lightning passed harmlessly over his head ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... father founded, in conjunction with David Bogue, a well-known publisher of the time, a journal called the Illustrated Times, which for several years competed successfully with the Illustrated London News. It was issued at threepence per copy, and an old memorandum of the printers now lying before me shows that in the paper's earlier years the average printings were 130,000 copies weekly—a notable figure for that period, and one which was considerably exceeded when any really important event ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... where you may walk through odorous groves of dried haddocks that are really whiting, and Yarmouth bloaters that never were at Yarmouth, and purchase whole Rambler roses, the latest Paris style, for threepence, and try on feather-boas at two-and-eleven-three, plucked from the defunct carcase of the domestic fowl. She paid for the drinks with a florin, and it was quite like old times when Slabberts calmly pocketed the sixpence of change. The ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the witch, opening the shop door. "But do step in. We met yesterday, you may remember. I'll ask the ferryman to get half-a-dozen halfpenny buns for tea, if you will be so kind as to lend me threepence. We don't bake ourselves." ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... ground, and that one had fled till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit and was about to fall into it the other warned him. Then the townsmen being moved with pity, made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him threepence yearly for each house in the High Street that had a gable, on condition that he should grant to them that the twenty-four jurors who were in Leicester from ancient times should from that time forward discuss and decide all pleas they might have ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... but there are people who have to consider the threepences; if Julia was one, she knew that Mr. Gillat was another, and she had allowed for this threepence, and he probably had not. He demurred, but she insisted. "Then I won't let you come with ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... climbs to a shabby garret he has, unless the landlady, weary of waiting for her rent, has taken the key away from him; or else he shrinks to some tavern on the outskirts of the town, where he waits for daybreak over a crust of bread and a mug of beer. When he has not threepence in his pocket, as sometimes happens, he has recourse either to a hackney-carriage belonging to a friend, or to a coachman of some man of quality, who gives him a bed on the straw beside the horses. In the morning he still has bits of the mattress in his hair. If the weather ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to Gerard and after a moment's pause, he asked the fair president for a couple of tickets for each of which he paid threepence; a sum however, according to the printed declaration of the voucher, convertible into potential liquid refreshments, no great compensation to a very strict member of the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the native states I have seen; villages larger and more numerous; trade in the transit of cotton, salt, sugar, and grain, much brisker. A great number of hares were here brought to us for sale at threepence apiece, a rate at which they sell at this season in almost all parts of Upper India, where they are very numerous, and very easily caught ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... she determined to give a tea-party and invite a number of persons of whom we know something already. She took a half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a country "merchant's clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration the list reduced itself to the following names: Mr. Richard Venner and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... coppersmiths hammer all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still would be! But ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... to mention a little thing like taste; but I do. I am not rich, but what I have I like to have ornamental, though not loud. Only the other day the question of glass-cloths for the kitchen turned up, and though those with the red border were threepence a dozen dearer than the plain, I ordered them without hesitation. Eliza changed them next day, contrary to my wishes, and we had a few words about it, but that is not the point. The real point is that if your taste comes out in a matter of ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... with thirteen halfpence in his pocket, for Richmond. And as he trudges through the streets of the town, after a hard day's walk, in his blue smock-frock, and with his red garters tied under his knees, staring about him, he sees in the window of a bookseller's shop the "Tale of a Tub," price threepence; it piques his curiosity, and, though his money is nearly all spent, he closes a bargain for the book, and, throwing himself down upon the shady side of a hay-rick, makes his first acquaintance with Dean Swift. He read till it was dark, without thought of supper or of bed,—then tumbled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... know we keep the right to tax," said the King. It was as if the King's followers had winked slyly at one another and said: "We shall see—we shall see! Those colonists must have their tea to drink, and a little matter of threepence a pound ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... along in the direction of the Strand, it occurred to him that perhaps Mr. Jorrocks might have no objection to accompany him. On entering that great thoroughfare of humanity, he turned to the east, and having examined the contents of all the caricature shops in the line, and paid threepence for a look at the York Herald, in the Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's Churchyard, about noon he reached the corner of St. Botolph Lane. Before Jorrocks & Co.'s warehouse, great bustle and symptoms of brisk trade were visible. With true city pride, the name on the door-post was in small dirty-white ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... preserved a note of another innovation. The Guardians of a certain union in Cambridgeshire had committed the offence of spending three shillings and threepence of public money on toys for sick pauper children in the workhouse infirmary. The case had occurred before, and the Board's legal advisers had held the expenditure to be unwarrantable, and had surcharged ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... with tobacco. Ursula, the pig-woman and refreshment-booth keeper in Bartholomew Fair, in Ben Jonson's play of that name, says to her assistant: "Threepence a pipe-full I will have made, of all my whole half-pound of tobacco and a quarter of a pound of coltsfoot mixt with it too to ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Hayley, had rung her up on the telephone from London. She had been very much surprised, for a telephone message from London to Witanbury costs one-and-threepence, and James was careful about such things. When he did telephone, which was very seldom, he always waited to do so till the evening, when the fee was halved. But to-day James had rung up just before luncheon, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... go with me to buy some things for my brothers, which I promised to carry back when I return. I have got some money to pay for them, for Charles gave me a sixpence, and three halfpence, and a farthing; and William gave me threepence; and I have got a silver penny and a twopence of my own, all screwed safely in a ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the pier at Blackwater said he had carried my trunk to the steamer that sailed on Thursday midnight, thinking I was a maid from the great house until I had given him half-a-crown (his proper fee being threepence); how two female passengers had declared that a person answering to my description had sailed with them to Liverpool; how these clues had been followed up and had led to nothing; and how, finally, the correspondents had concluded the whole incident of my disappearance could not be more ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... tea-tax, which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout America. 'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lower Canada, then invests those lands with a fictitious value, and sets them down as representing "a capital of L700,000!" whereas the rights to these lands are simply seignorial, and the annual revenue arising from them does not amount to threepence per acre. The Jesuits' estates, 891,845 acres—by far the largest item in the Bishop's paper—are in the hands of the Government, and not of the Roman Catholic Church ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the meadows, with their "winking Mary-buds," will be all cut up into building lots in the good times coming, and Philomel caught and put in a cage to sing to tourists at threepence a head. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Prigg's friend, of seven hundred and twenty-two pounds, six shillings and eightpence-half-penny, left a balance due to Honest Lawyer Prigg of three hundred and twenty-eight pounds, seven shillings and threepence,—subject, of course, to be reduced ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... charge. I told her that some ladies had a guinea a lesson; at which she laughed so heartily, that I had to wait until the first transports of her amusement were over before I could finish by saying, that for my part I should be glad to give an hour's lesson for threepence, only, if she pleased, I should prefer it in silver. But how was she to know, she asked, that I could teach her properly. I told her I would let her hear me play; whereupon she led me into the shop, through a back room in which her husband sat smoking a long pipe, with a tankard at his elbow. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an imposition of threepence. But no commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the colonies were formerly ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... be ringed for rooting. Next to these he affects lotteries naturally, and bequeaths the best prize in his will aforehand; when his hopes fall he's blank. They swarm in great tenements like flies; six households will live in a garret. He was wont, only to make us fools, to buy the fox skin for threepence, and sell the tail for a shilling. Now his new trade of brewing strong waters makes a number of madmen. He loves a Welshman extremely for his diet and orthography; that is, for plurality of consonants, and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... selling milk at threepence per quart. In trade circles it is supposed that he is doing it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... STARLING.—Threepence was placed on the head of this destructive bird last year in many parts of England. The old way was to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well! I'll give you fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence yourself, till ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... were very numerous, and Galen inveighs against them. Martial satirized them: "Now you are a gladiator who once were an ophthalmist; you did as a doctor what you do as a gladiator." "The blear-eyed Hylas would have paid you sixpence, O Quintus; one eye is gone, he will still pay threepence; make haste and take it, brief is your chance; when he is blind, he will pay you nothing." The oculists of Alexandria were very proficient, and some of their followers, at various times throughout the period of the Roman Empire, were remarkably skilful. Their literature has perished, but it is ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... himself, when some aspirations for higher things came across his heart; 'it is too late now to go back. Those who once cared for me have thrown me over.' And then he would again think of Waterloo Bridge, and the Monument, and of what might be done for threepence or fourpence ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the predominance of Eliphaz Green's stinginess ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... several covered tennis-courts in England, and some of our English monarchs were very devoted to the game. Henry VII. used to play tennis, and there is a record of his having lost twelvepence at tennis, and threepence for the loss of balls. Henry VIII. was also very fond of the game, and lost much money at wagers with certain Frenchmen; but, like a sensible man, "when he perceived their craft he eschewed their company, and ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... be had at twopence per pound; the fine four pound loaf for sixpence halfpenny; brown sugar, fourpence; white, sixpence; candles, sixpence per pound; tea, the finest, three shillings the pound; fresh butter, one shilling and threepence per pound. Wild fowl in abundance. Vegetables are cheaper than in any part of England. Wines of moderate price, but not of good quality. Spirits first-rate, and every kind cheaper than in England, except ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined he should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in his present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine shillings and threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... between the Local Governments of the several Colonies of British North America, be it enacted that the Provincial Postage on letters and packets not being newspapers, printed pamphlets, magazines or books, entitled to pass at a lower rate, shall not exceed Threepence currency per half-ounce, for any distance whatsoever within this Province, any fraction of a half-ounce being chargeable as a half-ounce; that no transit postage shall be charged on any letter or packet passing through this Province, ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... gentlemen of the committee appointed to carry on the above building; to whom security was to be given for the payment of one shilling per gallon on the purchase of spirits, sixpence per gallon on the purchase of wine, and threepence per gallon on the purchase of porter or strong beer; these sums, if the permits were granted, which depended on the character of the person applying, were to be paid into the hands of the committee, and appropriated to the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... matter to live. This very morrow was I asked a shilling for a calf's head of the butcher, and eightpence for a lemon of the costard-monger, whereat I promise you I fumed a bit; but when it came to threepence apiece for chickens,—Lancaster and Derby! It shall cost us here ever so much more ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... The boys who were being educated for the Church I employed in removing all the loose stones which choked the surface of the ground, and subsequently in sweeping and scraping the courtyard. I gave them sixpence a day if they worked from early morning, or threepence if they came at noon after their lessons. There was a shepherd's family, upon the hill about 250 feet above the monastery, of seven handsome children, two boys of nineteen and seventeen, and five girls. These were hard at work, even to a pretty ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... stopped till the two shillings were made up. Threepence a week each, and a month seemed long to look forward to. Gloomily they leaned over the gate in the evening. Patter, patter, nearer and nearer came little feet. "Lizababuff has opened her money-box, and here is sixpence for ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... of everything gets worse, I do believe! Even a glass of filtered water costs one shilling and threepence! I have just left an hotel for which my bill was L3 for one night, and I was sick nearly ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... professes to be very well pleased with waiting upon me, he dreads the approach of his release. Every person in the jail has the same allowance, and if they choose to work, the Governor enables them to earn from threepence up to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... hypocrite—the penniless villain;—the man who had everything to lose—the man who had nothing in the wide world but his own mischievous, rascally life, a gold watch, chain and seals, which he had stolen the day before, and thirteen shillings and threepence halfpenny ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for threepence. The lashed horse plunged forward. Hilda leaned back in the creaking and depraved vehicle, and sighed, "So this is ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... letter from Constance! The writing on the envelope was not Constance's; but even before examining it she had had a peculiar qualm. She received letters from England nearly every day asking about rooms and prices (and on many of them she had to pay threepence excess postage, because the writers carelessly or carefully forgot that a penny stamp was not sufficient); there was nothing to distinguish this envelope, and yet her first glance at it had startled her; and when, deciphering the smudged post-mark, she made out the word 'Bursley,' her heart ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... me something for the accommodation," he added. "I can't do it for nothing. You must pay me back next week and give me threepence. That's fair. I couldn't bear to see you turned out of your ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... three, four, five, six, seven, All good children go to heaven: A penny by the water, Tuppence by the sea, Threepence by the railway, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... other man would add also the desire that we have to benefit other countries and to impeach our own. And it is, so sure as God liveth, that every trifle which cometh from beyond the sea, though it be not worth threepence, is more esteemed than a continual commodity at home with us, which far exceedeth that value. In time past the use of this commodity consisteth (for the most part) in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic persecution, the same hath been employed ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... of speech, the words are well understood. From the boy who, by holding a horse, or running errands, earns threepence, and puts it into a pocket with a hole at the bottom, to the man or woman who puts the savings of years into a rotten speculation, all know the literal meaning of Haggai's text, 'He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... followeth. My lord, it is true that a good woman of my house carried eggs to the market to sell. Be covered, Kissbreech, said Pantagruel. Thanks to you, my lord, said the Lord Kissbreech; but to the purpose. There passed betwixt the two tropics the sum of threepence towards the zenith and a halfpenny, forasmuch as the Riphaean mountains had been that year oppressed with a great sterility of counterfeit gudgeons and shows without substance, by means of the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... from the British plantations, and only eighteenpence upon that imported from any foreign colony. Upon every pound of refined sugar from the former one penny, from the latter one halfpenny. Upon every gallon of French wine twopence; of Spanish wine threepence; of Portuguese ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... as extraordinary: you desire I would burn your letters: I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge threepence for a halfpenny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... round the fair-green, where there was a great concourse of horses, trotting and walking and galloping; most of them were of the cheaper class of animal, and were selling, apparently to the people's satisfaction, at prices that reminded one of the time when fresh meat was sold for threepence a pound. At the further end of the green there were one or two rough shooting galleries, and a number of women—not very rigid, one could see—selling, or appearing to sell, all kinds of trifles: a set that come in, I am told, from towns not far away. ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... person that do chiefly manage the business against them on the King's part; and I do find it the greatest cheat that I have yet found; they having eightpence per yard allowed them by pretence of a contract, where no such thing appears; and it is threepence more than was formerly paid, and than I now offer the board to have them done. To Lambeth; and there saw the little pleasure- boat in building by the King, my Lord Brunkard, [William, second Lord Brouncker, Viscount of castle Lyons; created ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... tell was, to Ancrum's thinking, a remarkable one. He had come into Manchester on an October evening with five shillings and threepence in his pocket. From a point on the south-western border of the city he took a 'bus for Deansgate and Victoria Street. As he was sitting on the top, feeding his eyes on the lights and the crowd of the streets, but wholly ignorant where to go and what first step ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... one. He went and started wot 'e called a Benevolent Club. Threepence a week each we paid agin sickness or accident, and Tom was secretary. Three weeks arter the club was started he caught a chill and was laid up for a month. He got back to work a week, and then 'e sprained something ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... Stanhope," etc. We were afraid of a dead cat, or our glasses broken, and so were always of their side. I dined again at Delaval's; and in the evening, at the Coffee-house, heard Sir Andrew Fountaine(28) was come to town. This has been but an insipid sort of day, and I have nothing to remark upon it worth threepence: I hope MD had a better, with the Dean, the Bishop, or Mrs. Walls.(29) Why, the reason you lost four and eightpence last night but one at Manley's was, because you played bad games: I took notice of six ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... correctly, supposed to be in imminent danger of defeat. The price originally proposed was twopence—the usual price of similar papers of the day—but it was altered to "the irresistibly comic charge of threepence!!" and the title was being given as "The Fun——," when the writer stopped short and erased it. It is generally believed that the intention was to call the paper "The Funny Dog—with Comic Tales," as appears in the final line of the prospectus; a title, moreover, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... rinding mouths enough to consume such a mass of mutton. As a matter of fact, there were, I suppose, four or five large dealers present, any one of whom would have bought every sheep, could he have seen a fair chance of a possible profit of threepence a head; to say nothing of innumerable smaller dealers and retail butchers, good for a score or two apiece. What I may call the parochial horizon is well illustrated, too, by the announcement of a domestic economist: "Farmer Jones lost two calves ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... frequently noted but never understood. They occur in many parts of the country. The tithingman of Combe Keynes, in Dorsetshire, is obliged to do suit at Winforth Court, and after repeating the following incoherent lines, pays threepence and goes away ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... even when they conducted me to confinement, it was in such a manner, that I verily believe I could have escaped, which I would rather be ruined than have done, notwithstanding the whole amount of my finances was but threepence halfpenny. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... like to get threepence?" asked he. "You shall have it, if you'll carry a message ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... will instantly desist from their efforts and hurry to another portion of the train. To carry out this little ruse successfully it may be sometimes necessary to wink at the ticket-collector and give him threepence, but this does not follow as a matter of course. The plan will be found to work excellently on comparatively short excursions to the sea-side, during which people sent in search of health are necessarily anxious to avoid anything approaching ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... to buy a sixpenny novel at the library; a third commissioned him to invest threepence in "mixed sweets, chiefly peppermint;" and a fourth to call at Grounding, the naturalist's, with a dead white mouse which the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... shillings and threepence three-farthings!" he recited. "It must be a mistake. It ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... the price of the different edibles displayed on the counter. A cold roast fowl, weighing, possibly, a fraction over a pound, was three shillings (sixty cents), delicious fresh rolls, sixpence (ten cents) a dozen, buttermilk on draught, threepence (five cents) a glass; English ale, half a dollar (fifty cents) a pint bottle; black pudding, a penny a pound; and as much cold roast pork and beans, or boiled ham, as I liked for a shilling. The man smiled at ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... till Saturday night. I gets thirteen shillings a week from Master H., and a shilling on Sundays, and I hev got five children and a wife to keep out of that—that's two shillings a week for each on us, that's just threepence halfpenny a day, look 'ee, sir. And what victuals be I to buy wi' that, let alone beer? and a man can't do no work wi'out a quart a day, and that's fourpence, and there's my share, look 'ee, gone at onst. Wur be I to get any victuals, and wur ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... point of indiscretion in monster-mongers and other retailers of strange sights to hang out a fair picture over the door, drawn after the life, with a most eloquent description underneath; this has saved me many a threepence.... Such is exactly the fate at this time of prefaces.... This expedient was admirable at first; our great Dryden has long carried it as far as it would go, and with incredible success. He has often said to me in confidence, 'that the world would never have suspected him to be so ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... drive a more thriving trade than in Melbourne, and they deserve it, for they are fast, clean, roomy, and well managed. The price of labour makes conductors too expensive a luxury, and passengers have to put their fare—in most cases threepence—into a little glass box close to the driver's seat. This unfortunate man, in addition to looking after the horses, and opening and shutting the door by means of a strap tied to his foot, which you pull when you want to get out, has to give change whenever a little bell is rung, and to see ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... & Co. have just brought out a one-and-threepenny edition ("the threepence be demmed!") of the Yellowplush Papers, with a dainty canary-coloured Jeames on the cover. At the same time the same firm produce, in the same form, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Last Days of Palmyra, and The Last of the Mohicans. Odd, that the first issue of this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... man's bag once from Liverpool Street Station to Blackfriar"s Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,—you needn't laugh; indeed it was,—and I wanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence; and he hadn't even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make, I shall never get that odd threepence ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... therefore, why my thoughts turned to Toole. But I could not find Toole. Instead, I found on the sands a page of a paper called Society. It is still running merrily at a penny, but at that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence. On this page was a great prize-competition scheme, as well as details of a regular weekly competition. The competitions in those days were always literary and intellectual, but then popular education had not made such strides ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... auctions. A good book is beyond price; and it is far easier to under than over sell it. The words of the modern minor poet are as rubies, and what if his sets bring a hundred guineas?—it is more as it should be, than that any sacrilegious hand should fumble them for threepence. It recalls that golden age of which Mr. Dobson ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... silent for a while; the cripple boy looked at me with tears in his eyes, and I knew what his tears expressed. I gave him a shilling, but he did not speak; to all the other children who had built grottos I gave threepence each, and there was joy in that corner ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... ordinary way. It was kept in a little old schoolhouse about twenty feet square, which stood on a knoll on the common. There was a great fireplace at one end of it; and the teacher sat in a great chair on a platform, with a table in front of him. We paid twopence a week for being taught reading, and threepence a week for "righting and siphering," as the town clerk ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... historian placed in a more commodious seat. It is painful to relate, that this powerful writer, and good man, who narrowly escaped the guillotine, expired in a garret, in extreme poverty, at the age of eighty-four; the only property he left being one assignat of fifty livres, worth not threepence in ready money. Perhaps one might have applied the following anecdote (told by Dr. Drake in his Literary Hours) to Abbe Raynal:—"A respectable character, having long figured in the gay world at Paris, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the umbrella over her with ostentatious solicitude. In the same manner he led the rest to the vehicles, in which they packed themselves with some difficulty. Agatha, who came last but one, gave him threepence. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... one walks, one everywhere, in the season, sees oranges to sell; and they are in general sold tolerably cheap, one and even sometimes two for a halfpenny; or, in our money, threepence. At the play-house, however, they charged me sixpence for one orange, and ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... charged in the bill, no wages are paid by the host to those servants—chambermaid, waiter, and boots—who come into immediate contact with travellers. The drivers of the cars, phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and claim threepence a mile with the same sense of right as their masters in charging for the vehicles and horses. When you come to understand this claim, not as an appeal to your generosity, but as an actual and necessary part of the cost of the journey, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... such a scale as the world has never before seen, the people have once more, and in terms too emphatic to be misunderstood, proclaimed their undying purpose. With a unanimity rarely equalled, a people that had fought eight years against a tax of threepence on the pound, and that was rapidly advancing to the front rank of nations through the victories of peace,—a people jealous of its liberties and proud of its prosperity, has reelected to the chief magistracy a man under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... England, twenty-seven English shillings, and brings back one moidore, of full weight, is a gainer of ninepence Irish; in a guinea, the advantage is threepence, and twopence in a pistole. The BANKERS, who are generally masters of all our gold, and silver, with this advantage, have sent over as much of the latter, as came into their hands. The value of one thousand ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... warriors, on emerging from a week's purgatory in a Belgian trench, found that his accommodation therein had been charged against him, under the head of "lodgings," at the rate of two shillings and threepence a night! ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... an investment of capital! In other words, he spent threepence in pen, ink, paper, and a candle, and spent one night in his lonely garret writing. It was a letter, addressed to a stranger, on a public question. In other words, it was an article to a London paper on, "Life in a Slum, by One who Lives There." It was a quiet, unsensational paper, with ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... gave me a little satisfaction by saying that if a man was ass enough to write about "exponents of the game," he was probably paid a penny a line for what he wrote, and had sacrificed me for the sake of threepence. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... as I am only beginning a collection. I have no Chinese or West India stamps, and would be glad to exchange for them any of the following, which are all the duplicates I have: One zwei groschen Nord-deutscher post: one eighty centime, Empire Francais; one sixpence; two threepence; two two-hundred mils. Correos de Esco. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... plumber who got work at Peterhead, and she had three little boys that their grandfather had never seen. He had a photograph of them on the mantleshelf with their mother, that she'd sent him one Christmas. Now one day, an idea came into his head, that if he put by threepence a week, after a good long time, he and his wife could go by a cheap excursion to see those little grandchildren and their mother, just once before they died. He prayed about it, and then week by week, ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... every Sunday, and had a regular good gossip on the way, and when they were coming home from church they always turned into the tavern which lay by the wayside and drank half a pint together. This was at the time when half a pint of brandy cost threepence, so that was just a penny from each ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... History." This I read, as usual, thoroughly and often, and wrote my name at the end, ending with a long snaky flourish. Years passed by, and I was at the University, when one evening, dropping in at an auction, I bought for six cents, or threepence, "a blind bundle" of six books tied up with a cord. It was a bargain, for I found in it in good condition the first American editions of De Quincey's "Opium-Eater," "The Rejected Addresses," and the Poems of Coleridge. But what startled me was a familiar-looking copy of Mrs. Trimmer's ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... supposed to have won the hearts of all householders. They had no fear of Mr. Coddem, the representative of the great BOTTOMLEY party. It was true that Mr. Coddem had taken over a local brewery and was supplying beer at threepence per pint. But the Labour stalwarts argued that, in the first place, this would lose him the women's and temperance vote, and, in the second place, the electors would drink the brewery dry in double-quick time. All those who failed to get cheap beer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... understood in London, although not public, that it is meant to tax our tea. Now we do not buy; we smuggle it from Holland; but if the India Company should get a drawback on tea, we shall be forced to take it for its cheapness, even with the duty on it of threepence ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... rescue myself from the difficulties which surrounded me. I presently sank into a sleep, which endured during the remainder of the day, and the whole of the succeeding night. I awoke about nine on the morrow, and spent my last threepence on a breakfast somewhat more luxurious than the immediately preceding ones, for one penny of the sum was expended on ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... called to the bar, and sworn touching the identity of Sir Launcelot Greaves and Captain Crowe, declared, that the said Crowe had stopped him on the king's highway, and put him in bodily fear; that he afterwards saw the said Crowe with a pole or weapon, value threepence, breaking the king's peace, by committing assault and battery against the heads and shoulders of his majesty's liege subjects, Geoffrey Prickle, Hodge Dolt, Richard Bumpkin, Mary Fang, Catherine Rubble, and Margery Litter; and that he saw Sir Launcelot Greaves, Baronet, aiding, assisting, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... former charge at five or six times the rate. The 'short stages,' of which there were a great many, ran to and from the suburbs: they were like the omnibuses, but not so frequent, and they cost a great deal more. Threepence a mile was the usual charge. There was a penny post in London, first set up by a private person. A letter sent from London cost twopence the first stage: threepence for two stages: above 150 miles, sixpence: Ireland and Scotland, sixpence: any foreign ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... and in the confusion of his thoughts, that he was followed at no great distance by a man muffled up in a great-coat and a woollen comforter. The stranger almost shouldered against him, as he stood reading his telegram, and conscientiously docking off a word here and there to save threepence, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... was threepence,' answered Vandeloup, quietly; 'however, that does not make any difference to me. Your commission at that rate will be twelve pounds ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... very rapidly, for she was anxious to get out of Mr. Dove's neighborhood, and she also thought it just possible that she might meet Primrose or Jasmine returning home. Besides the fifteen shillings which were to pay for her ticket she had threepence of her own in her pocket. When she had walked about half an hour, and thought that she had gone a long way, and felt quite sure that she could not be very far from the railway station which led to Rosebury, the Pink awoke, and twisting and turning in her narrow basket ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... forgive you.—If not, zounds! don't enter the same hemisphere with me! don't dare to breathe the same air, or use the same light with me; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own! I'll strip you of your commission; I'll lodge a five-and-threepence in the hands of trustees, and you shall live on the interest.—I'll disown you, I'll disinherit you, I'll unget you! and damn me! if ever I ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... pocket money of a penny a week was increased to threepence, he felt himself on the high road to wealth, and ere long he was the possessor of a Bible and a grammar, which he set himself to study whenever he ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... the "Queen's Arms" for his usual morning refreshment. Then she had occupied herself chiefly by collecting her various things at their respective shops, purchased by Frank's two-pound-ten, and putting them on. She had had a clear threepence to spare beyond the few shillings she had determined to put by out of the total, and had expended it by a visit to the cinematograph show in Victoria Street. There had been a very touching series of pictures of the "Old Home in the Country," and the milking of the cows, with a general ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... ships was reduced to two, well equipped with men and arms. Pursuant to these orders each ward was assessed for the purpose of levying 110 men armed with haketon, plates, bacinet with aventail, and gloves of plate; and sixty men armed with only haketon and bacinet. The pay of the men was to be threepence a day each for two months. The vessels were to be joined by ships from various other ports, and proceed to sea in charge of Sir William Trussel by the middle of March to intercept, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the enemy's intrenched camp of comfortable customs; I attack the expensive and unnecessary indulgences of ladies and gentlemen who do not smoke. I take cigar-smoking as an expense of, say, half-a-crown a-day, and pipe-smoking at threepence. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Meanwhile the threepence, base as it was, became the humble instrument of brighter fortunes to BRUSTLES; it showed a marvellous aptitude for turning up tails, which BEN no sooner perceived than he availed himself of a blessing that had, indeed, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... places like this, to which he is afraid to come himself." "You say the postage is ninepence," said I, "here's a shilling." "Well, I call that honourable," said the old woman, taking the shilling and putting it into her pocket—"here's your change, young man," said she, offering me threepence. "Pray keep that for yourself," said I; "you deserve it for your trouble." "Well, I call that genteel," said the old woman; "and as one good turn deserves another, since you look as if you couldn't read, I will read your letter for you. Let's see it; it's from some young woman or other, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... but it was beginning to rain a little, and Mr. George thought it would be better to wait and go in the cars. The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and the boys were quite curious to know what the price of the tickets would be, for such a short ride. They found that they were threepence apiece. ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... 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 gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant a penny or twopence ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... tears, admitted the claim and, upon my calling the other day personally to receive satisfaction, handed me the 14s. 3d. with a deferential bow. If you doubt the truth of this statement you have only to come round to my place, where you can see for yourself the threepence, which is still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... obviously of importance, can hardly as yet be considered as quite satisfactory. The payments for five weeks' rehearsals are 6s. on the L1, 1s. salaries, which include dancers, walkers-on, etc.: and 12s. 6d. a week on salaries of L3. In each case, of course, the threepence insurance has to be deducted, and it must be quite clear that no woman can live on 5s. 9d., much less make a good appearance, unless she has ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... it was very true: and I wondered how I could forbear when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver threepence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nutshell; and so I went on, describing the rest of his household stuff and provisions, after the same manner. For, although the queen had ordered a little equipage ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman unknown, was found in the Regent's canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for the circumstance of there being none but ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... southern counties give the boys in spring threepence a dozen for the heads of young birds killed in the nest. The heads are torn off, to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as evidence of extinction. This—apart from the cruelty of the practice—is, I think, a mistake, for, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... ignoble. But they are the very opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring, posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that nil admirari, self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... do from a store he had with him of that most convenient coin—the chosen expression of a congregation's gratitude—the common silver threepence, for the school occupied a prominent position in the church, and had acquired a great reputation amongst the churchwardens for the admirable uniformity with which one young gentleman after another "put into the plate"; and this reputation the Doctor ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... boy, with a white face and a big head, would unroll a filthy bit of newspaper, and show some cold herring, which smelt horrid. Or another would bring out a lump of greasy pudding, as heavy as lead. So it was arranged that if the mother could give a few pence, varying from three halfpence to threepence, according to her means, the children should have dinner at the school, and for these sums it is marvellous what a dinner they get. Beef and mutton, with vegetables, light puddings of milk and fruit, and sometimes rich people send game, and then these poor little gutter ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... and feathers black and white, spotted in such manner as our magpie, called in some places a Pie-Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjacent, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best may be bought for threepence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfy them by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... saucers of the thinnest ivory, the largest not bigger than a silver threepence, which contain in their centres a milk-white crust of stone, pierced, as you see under the magnifier, into a thousand cells, each with its living architect within. Here are two kinds: in one the tubular cells ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... men in Suifu, who undertook to take me to Chaotong, 290 miles, in thirteen days, special inducement being held out to them in the shape of a reward of one shilling each to do the journey in eleven days. Their pay was to be seven shillings and threepence each, apart from the bonus, and of course they had to find themselves. They brought me from the coolie-hong, where they were engaged, an agreement signed by the hong-master, which was to be returned to them in Chaotong, and remitted to their master ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... which of them shall he choose?" This question was started by the poet, and once every week the club were called to the consideration of matters connected with rural life and industry: their expenses were limited to threepence a week; and till the departure of Burns to the distant Mossgiel, the club continued to live and thrive; on his removal it lost the spirit which gave it birth, and was heard of no more; but its aims and its ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest height. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... of each one a handful: Flowers of Marigold, Borrage, Bugloss, Sage, each two handfuls. Boil all together very gently, till a third waste. To eight Gallons of this put two Gallons of pure honey, and boil them till the Liquor bear an Egge, the breadth of threepence or a Groat, together with such spices as you like (bruised, but not beaten) an ounce of ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... I suppose? One coffee, threepence," she jotted down. "Are you in a hospital? I wish I was nursing, instead ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... hour. Those who, like ourselves, land at Halifax for the interior, are anxious to obtain rooms at the hotel, and all who have nothing else to do hurry to the ice-shop, where the luxury of a tumbler of raspberry-cream ice can be obtained for threepence. Besides the hurried rush of those who with these varied objects in view leave the steamer, there are crowds of incomers in the shape of porters, visitors, and coalheavers, and passengers for the States, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... for the purpose of affording relief to these that the Lines Trust has been formed. It is proposed that all orders for lines shall be supplied out of our vast stock. Our charges are moderate, and vary between threepence and sixpence per hundred lines. The higher charge is made for Greek impositions, which, for obvious reasons, entail a greater degree of labour on our large ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... At one time he is almost fixed on the 'Red Horse,' but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of the landlady of the 'Dun Cow' shake him, and his soul labours! Heavy is the ploughed land, dark, dreary, and wet the day. His purpose is at last fixed for beer! Threepence is put down for the vigour of the ale, and one penny for the stupefaction of tobacco, and these are the joys and holidays of millions, the greatest pleasure and relaxation which it is in the power of fortune ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the gangway. It was now my turn, and although some of the men received from sixty to eighty, and one a hundred pounds, mine was the modest sum of three shillings and sixpence, despite the fact that I had been receiving eightpence a day in addition to most of them—five pence as the organist, and threepence ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... inside track of this matter. You see, the coins are of actual face value, they are most beautifully made, and, indeed, would pass anywhere. Let me tell you that every sovereign contains a certain amount of alloy which reduces its actual value to about eighteen and threepence. Now you can see where the profit comes in. Supposing these men turn out a couple of thousand sovereigns a day—no very difficult matter with a plant like theirs; and, of course, the money can be disposed of with the greatest ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... bribe. East Indiamen were allowed to carry tea to American ports without paying toll in England. The Navigation Laws were suspended, that people in New England might drink cheap tea, without smuggling. The duty in England was a shilling a pound. The duty in America was threepence a pound. The shilling was remitted, so that the colonies had only a duty of threepence to pay instead of a duty of fifteen-pence. The tea-drinker at Boston got his tea cheaper than the tea-drinker at Bristol. The revenue made a sacrifice, it incurred a loss, in order to gratify the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... he was so anxious to avoid, was little more than sufficient to keep his hunger alive, Shargar being gifted with a great appetite, and Robert having no allowance of pocket-money from his grandmother. The threepence he had been able to spend on him were what remained of sixpence Mr. Innes had given him for an exercise which he wrote in blank verse instead of in prose—an achievement of which the school-master was proud, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Company, however, to export tea to America free from export duty, thus allowing the Americans to buy tea as cheaply as if no import duty had been levied. The British authorities assumed that Americans would be satisfied to sell the principle for which they were contending for threepence on a pound of tea. They learned the American character better when two ships laden with tea arrived in Boston. The citizens gathered in the old South Meeting-house, and in the evening about sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships and cast the tea into the harbor. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann |
