"Wages" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Peter's father ran away and left them when Peter was only three years old. He has never come back, and they don't know whether he is alive or dead. Isn't that a nice way to behave to your family? Peter has worked for his board ever since he was six. Uncle Roger sends him to school, and pays him wages in summer. We all like ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... captains in preventing their men from being 'got at') these mutinous ongoings were a matter of great wonderment; but, later, we learned that freights were low, and we were likely to be many months in 'Frisco; that crews' wages and victualling, when the ship is earning no money, reflect on the professional character of an old-time shipmaster, and that to baulk the 'crimps' on arrival means an expensive delay in making up a crew when the ship is again ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... by yourself and still work for wages?" I asked. His reply was eminently characteristic. "I work for my children." These children he told me were two grown up sons, one of them being like himself a gardener, both having work. Thus in order to hoard up a little ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the school, and the intelligence and advancement of the boys. I decided that I would enter school immediately, and did so, though my money was scarce and a few weeks before I had agreed to continue work in the restaurant at twelve dollars per month, board and bed furnished. That was good wages for a boy of my age, but I know now that giving it up and going to school was a thousand times higher wages for me. I felt my imperfections so keenly then I was ashamed to talk to the boys in the college. The stimulation for an education, which I received ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... lest they should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen; and smothered the cicadas, which used to sing all summer in the lime-trees. They worked their servants without any wages, till they could not work any more, and then quarrelled with them and turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have been very odd, if, with such a farm, and such a system of farming, they hadn't got very rich; and very rich ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... and venality which are more strongly exhibited, during every month of his residence among them. He is at once surrounded by persons, called compradors, who offer their assistance in supplying him with provisions of every description; they serve him without wages, although they are obliged to pay the Mandarins for the privilege of affording their generous aid to strangers; the consequence is, they take especial care to remunerate themselves handsomely at the expense of those to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... you who you is, an' what you bin up to, an' whar you're a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... you need is a blanket. Reckon I can rustle you that. You can pay for it out of your wages or turn it in at the end of the trip. Fust I'd better make you acquainted to the wagon ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... regard their fixed pay as but a retaining fee, and look for their real wages in perquisites. They show considerable ingenuity and brightness of idea in reasons for purchasing this, that, and the other thing, not really required, but affording opportunities for 'pickings.' A new head-servant, ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... Celina, Kromitzki, and myself. I interrupted my diary for some time, not because I had lost the zest for it, nor because I did not feel the necessity for writing, but simply because I was in a state of mind which words cannot express. As long as a man tries to resist his fate, and wages war against the forces that crush him, he has neither brains nor time for anything else. I was like the prisoner in Sansson's memoirs, who when they tore his flesh and poured molten lead into the wounds shouted in nervous ecstasy, "Encore! encore!" until he fainted. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... situation as an assistant in the Institution for the Blind in the city of New York, where his brother William was then engaged as a teacher. Here he remained nearly two years, faithfully discharging the duties assigned him, and promptly forwarding to his mother such portion of his moderate wages as remained after providing for his own personal necessities. The situation, however, grew irksome. As the young man's capabilities developed his ambition was aroused. There was no way of advancement open before him here, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... quay. Intoxicated by the air of travel that you breathe in those parts, it occurred to us to go and seek a living in some sunny country, as the foggy countries were so cruel to us. But where should we go? We did what sailors sometimes do to decide what den they shall squander their wages in. They stick a bit of paper on the rim of a hat. Then they twirl the hat on a cane, and when it stops, they go in the direction in which the paper points. For us the paper needle pointed to Tunis. A week later I landed ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... The last servant they had in this house was the son of a colonel in the English Army, who was described as "a nice boy but very lazy"; but this man-servant hasn't even the recommendation of being nice. He was out at the farm working for his board and lodging, and no wages for some months, but A—— could not stand ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... Edward VI the gilds were crippled by the loss of part of their property, which was confiscated under the pretext of religious reform. Elizabeth's reign was notable for laws regulating apprenticeship, prescribing the terms of employment of laborers, providing that wages should be fixed by justices of the peace, and ordering vagabonds to be set to work. In the case of commerce, the royal power was exerted encouragingly, as when Henry VII negotiated the Intercursus Magnus with the duke of Burgundy to gain ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... are small, open new careers to them." As simple as this did the problem of women's wages once appear; but when new avenues of employment were rendered accessible to women, it was found, in some instances, that the wages of men were lowered. A consequence which can be seen in different industrial centres is that a man and a wife working together secure no greater wages than ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... His own dreadful position never prevented him from sympathy with the smaller troubles of others. A servant in the Temple named Marchand, the father of a family, was robbed of two hundred francs,—his wages for two months. The King observed his distress, asked its cause, and gave Clery the amount to be handed to Marchand, with a caution not to speak of it to any one, and, above all, not to thank the King, lest it should injure ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... bourgeoisie of the towns, the attorneys and syndics of the country villages, the laborers and artisans, the officers and the soldiers. These alone enable us to contemplate and appreciate in detail the various conditions of their existence, the interior of a parsonage, of a convent, of a town-council, the wages of a workman, the produce of a farm, the taxes levied on a peasant, the duties of a tax-collector, the expenditure of a noble or prelate, the budget, retinue and ceremonial of a court. Thanks to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... suppose," I replied; "and what will astonish you is, that though they are impressed, they seldom, if ever, desert; and yet they are retained on much lower wages than those they were taken from, or could obtain; but they have a high sense of moral and religious feeling, which keeps ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... adversity; the cost of living has advanced; the taxes are very heavy, and the burdens are unequally adjusted; many speculators have been ruined, and much honestly invested money has been lost. But wages have increased with the prices and rents and taxes, and in a country where every ounce of coal that drives a wheel of production or transportation has to be brought a thousand miles manufactures ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... impossible for the objects of his care to borrow at all, or places them at the mercy of the worst class of usurers. A lawgiver who, from tenderness for laboring men, fixes the hours of their work and the amount of their wages, is certain to make them far more wretched than he found them. And so a government which, not content with repressing scandalous excesses, demands from its subjects fervent and austere piety, will soon discover that, while attempting to render an impossible ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... successive disappointments, but the continual affluence of new disciples. The man had the tenacity of a Bruce or a Columbus, with a pliability that was all his own. He did not fight for what the world would call success; but for "the wages of going on." Check him off in a dozen directions, he would find another outlet and break forth. He missed one vessel after another, and the main work still halted; but so long as he had a single Japanese to enlighten and prepare for the better future, he could still feel that he was working for ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Jonathan remembered when a load of wheat fetched 55l.—a load being five quarters or ten sacks—or 11l. a quarter. The present average of wheat was about 2l. 6s. per quarter. At the same time bread was at 3s. a gallon; it is now about 1s. 6d. The wages of an agricultural labourer were 6s. a week. It was gambling, positive gambling, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... as man's intelligence increases is his labor more valuable. A small compensation is the reward of mere physical power, while skill, combined with a moderate amount of strength, commands high wages. The labor of an ignorant man is scarcely more valuable than the same amount of brute force; but the services of an intelligent, skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and illustrate, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... diplomacy of Europe, he might with perfect justice have been regarded as a fit subject for one of that city's excellent asylums. But a few years did witness this change, and saw him powerful and the possessor of millions; unfortunately for the Abbe's reputation, much of the latter being the wages of corruption.[C] ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ages, time was of no account. Skilled labour, such as was needed for carving, illuminations, and embroideries, was freely given as the duty of a life, for one particular object, the good of a man's soul. The cloistered men and women worked for no wages; neither to benefit themselves nor their descendants; hardly for fame,—that was given to the convent which had the credit of patronizing and producing art,[547] while the very name of the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... "the Santals are the most truthful men I ever met with." As a remarkable instance of this quality the following fact is given. A number of prisoners, taken during the Santal insurrection, were allowed to go free on parole, to work at a certain spot for wages. After some time cholera attacked them and they were obliged to leave, but every man of them returned and gave up his earnings to the guard. Two hundred savages with money in their girdles, walked thirty miles back to prison rather than break their word! ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... it. He'd take him back, and put him to hoeing and digging, and "see if he'd step about so smart." Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded George's wages, and announced his ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... against his enemy, he kept him there; for he knew all the dangers which might beset him in most of the places where he might be able to find a temporary home. From that time, for the next few months, all things were ordered there with reference to Morely. It was a poor place enough, for Muir's wages were not large; but it was neat and comfortable. His mother was his housekeeper,—a querulous old body, with feeble health, one who little needed any additional burden of household care. But when she knew that in a poor home, far away, a mother of little children was waiting, ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... large towns, for laboring men, who had to rise to their work at an early hour, to pay a small sum weekly to the policeman in whose 'beat' they resided, for knocking loudly at their doors in the morning to awaken them. It is usual for policemen to add several shillings to their weekly wages by this practice, and it is so far recognized by the regulations of the force, that men who have slightly misconducted themselves are punished by being removed from a 'beat' where there is a great deal of 'knocking-up' to be performed, and transferred to a more respectable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... e cochy shall{e} all{e} yng breue, Of men of court, bothe lothe and leue, Of achatis and dispenses en wrytes he, And wages for gromes and [gh]eme{n} fre; 556 At dresso{ur} also he shalle stonde, And fett forthe mete dresset w{i}t{h} honde; e spicery and store w{i}t{h} hym shall{e} dwelle, And mony thynges als, as I no[gh]t telle, 560 For clethyng of officers ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... property," as the sine qua non of married life. In Tartary, a young man must purchase his bride, and if too poor to give money, he must serve her father four or five years. If a richer rival presents himself before the term of service expires, the first suitor is dismissed; he can claim only wages for his work. How many parents in this civilized and Christian land, thus sell their daughters. Give the transaction whatever smooth name you please, it is, after all, a bargain ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... countries—he could see too deep for that. The colonials might or might not be good customers; he knew how many decanters he sold in the United States, in spite of the tariff. He saw that the tax on food-stuffs was being commended to the working-man with the argument of higher wages. Higher wages, with the competition of foreign labour, spelt only one word to English manufacturers, and that was ruin. The bugbear of higher wages, immediate, threatening, near, the terror of the last thirty years, closed the prospect for Charles Chafe; ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... advances over here. A proposition is now discussed to compel the young men who are earning large wages ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... offered in generall to the King to take no wages at all of him, if he will giue them leaue to discouer this citie, and the rich mountaines, and the passage to a sea or mighty Lake which they heare to be within foure and twenty dayes trauel from Saint Helena, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... stupefied; Margaret, a very incarnation of fury, raged up and down the room, venting every and any insult a naturally caustic wit suggested. "And," she wound up, "I want you to clear out at once. I'll send you your month's wages. I can't give you a character— except for honesty. I'll admit, you are too stupid to steal. Clear out, and never let ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... ready to give him a place in my store," proceeded Ebenezer. "I always keep a boy, and thinks I to myself, the wages I give will help along the widder Carr. You see, I like to combine business with consideration ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the farm, subject, of course, to some provision for Prue, have to put up with a trifling allowance doled out to me every month; it's really monstrous. Who ever heard of a fellow living on one hundred dollars a month! That's what I'm getting. Why, I owe more than five months' wages at the Northern Union Hotel in Winnipeg. It can't be done; that's all ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... the aid of a crutch. She said that if he would, under Derrick's direction, take care of Harry Mule, and see that all his wants were promptly supplied until he got well, she would pay him the same wages that he could earn by ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... wouldn't seem as bad to her. I wasn't foolish enough to threaten her. Besides, I told her that the mill should have been rightfully mine, that the old man had lied to me and gotten me to work for him for years at starvation wages, on promises that it would be mine some time, and that he had neither taken me in partnership, nor left it to me in the will. She got her cousin to help her in the transfer of the papers; it was a lease and stumpage contract. He affixed a notary seal to ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... as a proof of the incompetent remuneration of literary property. He undertook and he performed an Herculean labour, which employed him so many years that the price he obtained was exhausted before the work was concluded—the wages did not even last as long as the labour! Where, then, is the author to look forward, when such works are undertaken, for a provision for his family, or for his future existence? It would naturally arise from the work itself, were authors not the most ill-treated and oppressed class ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... at once, please, madam, and tell her to get ready to move down to the ranch within a day or two. We will give her good wages and, besides, allow her to make money out of the cowboys by doing their ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... 2008. Tourism continues to dominate the economy, accounting for more than half of GDP. The dual-island nation's agricultural production is focused on the domestic market and constrained by a limited water supply and a labor shortage stemming from the lure of higher wages in tourism and construction. Manufacturing comprises enclave-type assembly for export with major products being bedding, handicrafts, and electronic components. Prospects for economic growth in the medium term will continue to depend on income growth in the industrialized ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence, and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... cook her wages, and do not mention the confession which I forced from her; a little sooner or later is of no consequence. Nothing but my extreme stupidity could have rendered me blind so long. Yet, whilst you assured me that you had no attachment, I thought we might ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... incurred, the governor, Audiencia, and the royal officials should assemble and discuss it, and what should have the majority of votes should be executed, giving me advice thereof—on this account many expenses, salaries, and wages have been incurred and increased without any necessity, for the private ends of each one. Consequently, I order you not to make these expenses, except in sudden cases of invasion by enemies; for by doing the contrary so much injury to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... cried the man joyfully. "Think of that now. Well, I was going to ask him to raise my wages, and now I won't. I say, Mr Jack, sir, ain't ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... scarce. They claimed higher wages. The lords tried to drag them back into serfdom; they tried to force them by law to take the old wage. On both sides of the Severn the labourers took arms, and waged war against their lords. The peasant war in England is ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... that sin is the straying from the one straight, progressive path, let us consider this expression: 'The wages of sin is death'. This leads us to the question: what is death? Do you remember what Drummond says? He first explains in a most interesting way what life is, using the scientist's phrasing. A human being, for instance, is in direct contact with all about him—earth, air, sun, other human ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... rarely materialized. Several weeks later his brother Orion returned to Hannibal, and in 1850 brought out a little paper called the 'Hannibal Journal.' He took Sam out of the Courier office and engaged him for the Journal at $3.50 a week—though he was never able to pay a cent of the wages. One of Mark's fellow-townsmen once confessed: "Yes, I knew him when he was a boy. He was a printer's devil—I think that's what they called him—and they didn't miss it." At a banquet some years ago, Mark Twain ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... history of Mr. Heathcoat. In 1809 we find him established as a lace-manufacturer at Loughborough, in Leicestershire. There he carried on a prosperous business for several years, giving employment to a large number of operatives, at wages varying from 5l. to 10l. a week. Notwithstanding the great increase in the number of hands employed in lace-making through the introduction of the new machines, it began to be whispered about among the workpeople ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... unladylike harshness fell on his trained ear with the disagreeable effect of a false note. "Yes. I am going away. And the best thing for all of you is to go away too, as soon as you like. You can go now, to-day, this moment. You had your wages paid you only last week. The longer you stay the greater your loss. But I have nothing to do with it now. You are the servants ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... coalminers lately received concessions in wages and hours that are going to cost the country twenty millions sterling in the present financial year. The first result of this boon (teste Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES) is that they are turning out less coal per man than ever, and that the unhappy consumer must look forward to a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... them some items of baggage. In a few hours the coast "wrecking-tugs" would be on hand to look out for the cargo. There was therefore no chance for the 'long-shore men to turn an honest penny without working hard for it. Work and wages enough there would be, to be sure, helping to unload, whenever the sea, now so heavy, should go down a little; but "work" and "wages" were not the precise things some of them were most ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... water-soaked boots—an office no American could accept, and which I gently declined, taking the will for the deed. A large number of Scotch navvies were at the inns of the town, making an obstreperous auroval in celebration of the monthly pay-day. They had received the day preceding a month's wages, and they were now drinking up their money with the most reckless hilarity; swallowing the pay of five long hours at the pick in a couple of gills of whiskey. How strange that men can work in rain, cold and heat at the shovel for a whole day, then drink up the whole ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... insanitary conditions of life engendered sickness, entailed poverty, and fostered crime, while improved dwellings insured improved health, and by affording a security for the more continuous earning of wages created the possibility of a comfortable home. Advanced sanitarians had long preached these doctrines, and he was happy to think that they were at last beginning to hear some results, and in those results he saw ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... give it me.' I had told them all whose 'twas. 'Nay,' said I, 'selling is my livelihood, not giving.' So he offered me this, he offered me that, but nought less would I take than his next quarter's wages. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and sent him home. They tried him as a chemist's assistant next, and he did well for ten months, until there was that awful trouble about the prescription. There had been nothing to do after that save to put him to work as a clerk and give him an allowance that with his wages would enable him to live in comfort and try to seem glad when he came home for ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... few years after this event, he was able to earn a scanty living, and when he failed to do that, he was dependent on the 'world's cold charity,' and died in a poorhouse. Isabella had herself and two children to provide for; her wages were trifling, for at that time the wages of females were at a small advance from nothing; and she doubtless had to learn the first elements of economy-for what slaves, that were never allowed to make any stipulations or calculations for themselves, ever possessed an adequate ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... which was sold in Smithfield market, at the beginning of the war, at three shillings per stone, constantly advanced in price, until the same quantity in 1814 could only be bought for six shillings. Malt, coal, wages—everything rose proportionately. Few questions have been the subject of more discussion than the cause of this remarkable rise of prices. Two diverse explanations have been given, each put forth by men whose habits of thought and opportunities for observation qualify them to speak ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... foremen. The men work harder on contract jobs, but work by the day is better done. Women are in better repute as laborers than the men and it is stated that more women support their husbands than formerly was the case. Wages range from $.35 to $.50 per day, varying somewhat according to the work done. They are paid in cash and the planters have given up the plantation store in many cases. All work must be constantly supervised and it is said to be harder and harder ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... quiet and firm voice, 'I'm getting six shillings a week wages, and we can live on very little. We haven't got any rent to pay, and only ourselves and grandfather to keep, and Martha is as good as a woman grown. We'll manage, father, and take care ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... expectin'?" he asked cautiously. "You must remember that you're only a boy, and can't expect men's wages." ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... desertion offered the only way of escape to the victim of the press gang. And the commander of a British frigate dreaded making port almost as much as an epidemic of typhus. The deserter always found American merchantmen ready to harbor him. Fair wages, relatively comfortable quarters, and decent treatment made him quite ready to take any measures to forswear his allegiance to Britannia. Naturalization papers were easily procured by a few months' residence ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... twelve, Jane is in a state of complete nervous exhaustion, and is only too thankful to take the nine-and-sixpence that Celia hands over to her, without asking any questions. Indeed, anything that the Government wished deducted from Jane's wages we could deduct with a minimum of friction—from income-tax to a dog-licence. A threepenny insurance ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... deeply. "I told her as my wage, though not big, was reg'lar, winter and summer, and that was better than a big wage in the summer and being out of work in the winter; and I don't drink—nor smoke—and them two things makes a hole in any fellow's wages; but there—talking ain't no good—argufying don't bring love. I suppose she don't care for me and that's all about it." He reached out his cup for more tea and gulped it down; it seemed to help him to gulp down ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... plantations all around us were thousands of slaves, all engaged in garnering the dollars that kept up the so-called aristocracy of the south, and many of the proud old families owe their standing and wealth to the toil and sweat of the black man's brow, where if they had to pay the regular rate of wages to hire laborers to cultivate their large estates, their wealth would not have amounted to a third of what it was. Wealth was created, commerce carried on, cities built, and the new world well started on the career that has led to its present greatness and standing in the world of nations. All this ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... Pennsylvania, from New York, from far western Iowa and Kansas, from Maime that borders on the Canadas, and from the Canadas themselves - some one or two were fleeing in quest of a better land and better wages. The talk in the train, like the talk I heard on the steamer, ran upon hard times, short commons, and hope that moves ever westward. I thought of my shipful from Great Britain with a feeling of despair. They had come 3000 miles, and yet not far enough. Hard times bowed them out ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He so destroyed the temper of the drills and other tools brought to him as to make them require sharpening much oftener than they would if he had done his work honestly. He was thus stealing much of the miners' hard-earned wages. Mr. Sterling found this out, procured Taskar's discharge from the works, and had an honest man put in his place. When the same gentleman found the same dishonest blacksmith working in this mine he warned him that if he caught him at any of his old tricks he would have him discharged from ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... to offer 'em, Jeff, besides wages and a prospect of not being assassinated? That's something, but by God! it isn't everything." She swore quite simply because out in the night even in the straight street of a New England town she felt like it and was carelessly willing to abide by ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... servant. He had behaved indifferently lately, but nevertheless, as he rendered us some service in the acquirement of the Haussa languages, and in other matters, I made him a present of four dollars for one extra time he had remained with us. He had been paid his wages at Mourzuk to go with us to Zinder, but then we expected to be only three months en route. In a moment, just as we were starting, he changed his mind, and would go to his home at once. This is his character,—levity and instability,—otherwise he is a good fellow enough. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... told," he answered. "I had bad luck—I was cleaned out, not a red cent in my pockets—and so I hired out to a farmer away in Pine Valley. We had words one day, and he refused to pay me my wages—so I took a horse out of his stables ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... You are a good boy to send me all your wages, for now I can pay the rent and buy some warm clothing for your little sister. I thank you for it, and pray that God will bless you. Be faithful to the king and ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... all workers whose wages are below a certain sum are compulsorily insured against sickness and the losses that follow it, is just going into effect. Its provisions are necessarily complicated, and its administration must at first be difficult. The Insurance-Law Resisters ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... pressing them earthwards. She had learned but not yet sufficiently learned that, until a man has begun to throw off the weights that hold him down, it is a wrong done him to attempt to lighten those weights. Why seek a better situation for the man whose increase of wages will only go into the pocket of the brewer or distiller? While the tree is evil, its fruit will ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... will be driven off. The money collected will be paid out in wages, in defraying funeral expenses and in relieving those whose bread providers ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... demand foreshadow? Was a strike brewing? The men had appeared perfectly satisfied with the working conditions at the tanneries. Wages were fairly high and the factories conformed to every requirement of ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... place, all who cannot comfortably support themselves by their labour at home; because let a man be ever so poor in this country, his wages as a labourer will more than support his family,—and if he be prudent and sober, he may in a short time save money enough to purchase for himself a farm,—and if he has a family, so much the better, as children are the best stock a farmer can possess, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... the stream, who with a heavy strain on their cables were riding to the South East gale, and a strong ebb tide. Newton had made up his mind to enter on board of one of these vessels about to, sail, provided they would advance him a part of his wages for his father's support; when, as a heavy squall cleared away, he perceived that a boat had broken adrift from the outermost vessel (a large brig), with only one man in it, who was carried away by the rapid current, assisted by the gale blowing down the river, so as to ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... thy scourge thine own sin! Thy ways and thy deeds have done to thee these things. Is it Me they provoke, saith the Lord, Is it not themselves to the confusion of their faces? Wherefore have these things come upon thee?—for the mass of thy wickedness.(779) As St. Paul says the wages of sin, not the judge's penalty on sin but the thing it naturally earns, is death. Now one of Jeremiah's most acute and convincing experiences as the Tester of his people,(780) is his observation of how all this worked out upon his own generation. Not only ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... Alb, he has had his fun for his wages. And there are many beautiful girls in Holland and other countries, who ask nothing better than to ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... you all. De gemman said he war 'cruiting for de army; dat Massa Linkum hab set us all free, an' dat he wanted some more sogers to put down dem Secesh; dat we should all hab our freedom, our wages, an' some kind ob money. I couldn't ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... that servant was a revelation to her. They despised her. The Prince's coachman would not condescend to drive a plebeian like her. She paid the wages of these servants to no purpose. Her plebeian origin and business habits were a vice. They submitted to her; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Aurelian; "if you do that, I shall unchain my legions upon you. Be better advised: keep those excellent dispositions of mind, and that admirable taste for plunder, until you come whither I will conduct you. Then discharge your fury, and welcome; besides which, I will pay you wages for your immediate abstinence; and on the other side the Euphrates you shall pay yourselves." Such was the outline of the contract; and the Alans had accordingly held themselves in readiness to accompany Aurelian from Europe to his meditated Persian ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... import a lot of monkeys to do the picking," rejoined the New Yorker. "Monkeys learn readily. They are thorough workers, and obviously they will save their employers a small fortune otherwise expended in wages." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... in their labor, for there is no St. Monday holiday, nor confused head and uncertain hand; the tenants are better able to pay their rents, and when their landlord and employer are the same person, he collects his rent out of the wages; the superior accommodations and more settled employment act strongly against labor strikes. It will be seen that the larger and better product of labor is a great factor in the profitableness of such enterprises, and that it arises from the improved character of the laborer, on the same principle ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... this indescribable satire lies in Chapter XII, "THE WAGES Of SIN IS DEATH," contributed by the TK. This chapter is a masterpiece of concept, treatment and beauty, setting forth the meaning and ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... himself or his merchandise from one part of the globe to the other. He learns that it is wisest and cheapest to have all the materials of the best, to employ the best workmen, and to pay them the best wages. It is the fashion, nowadays, to get everything at a price, to which is given the name of cheap—no matter at what cost or ruin to the consumer as well as the producer, for both are equally losers—the one from being badly said, the other from getting a ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... sooty servitors tending their furnaces. I saw them, also on Saturday night, after their work was done, going to receive its poor wages, looking pallid and dull, as if they had spent on tempering the steel that vital force that should have tempered themselves ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... father have been carried away by that brute Johnson, who commanded the party. Seymour has been wounded in defending Katharine. I have brought him here. This is the way," he went on fiercely, "his majesty the king wages war on ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Central Fund from the proceeds of confiscated Prebends,[120] and enriching the smaller livings with it, was chimerical. The whole income of the Church, equally divided among all its clergy, would only give each man the wages of a nobleman's butler. The true method in all professions was the method of Blanks and Prizes. But for the chance of those Prizes, men of good birth and education would not "go into the Church"; and an uneducated ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... fortune in itself. This belt had been in Paul's possession ever since the sad day when she had kissed him for the last time and had commended him to the care of Heaven. He had by no means yet exhausted its contents, for he had often won wages for himself by following one or another great noble in his private enterprises against some lawless retainer or ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... think of the swarms of poor folk in the old country who don't own a foot of land, have little to eat and only rags to cover them, I long to bring them out here and plant them down where God has spread His blessings so bountifully, where there is never lack of work, and where Nature pays high wages to those ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... heap" then she pretends to sweep the child with the broom into the winnowing fan and lifts it up and carries it into the house; and asks the people of the house whether they will rear it. They ask what wages she will give them and she promises to give them a heifer when the child is ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... her mistress soon after Martin's departure. She was penitent now, and willing to stay; but nothing would induce Martin himself to forgive her, and, in consequence, Mrs. Martin did not dare to do so. The woman was paid her wages in full, and dismissed. Then it occurred to Mrs. Martin that here was her opportunity to send a short note of warning to Maggie. Why she did not send it by post it is hard to ascertain; but she thought that it would ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... in the garden instead if she prefers it. Fifty crowns shall be your wages; and, to be brief, everything found! Beer and cheese for supper on week days; and on Sundays, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... make under the new. For the present master and mistress of Sandal were not people who cared for complaints. "If you can do the work, Ann, you may stay," said Sophia to the dissatisfied cook; "if not, the squire will pay you your due wages. He has a friend in London whose cook would like a situation in the country." After which explanation Ann behaved herself admirably, and never found her work hard, though dinner was two hours later, and the supper dishes were not ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the Senate of the United States dated January 5, 1883, requesting "that the Secretary of State be directed to transmit to the Senate copies of any letters on file in his Department from the consular service upon the subject of the shipment and discharge of seamen or payment of extra wages to seamen," I have to transmit a report of the Secretary of State ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... been lamenting the loss of an easy situation and possibly even a month's wages, hastened to spread more reassuring news in the lower regions. It was a practical joke of the governor's—very likely a ruse to get rid of guests who had certainly been behaving as though the Lodge was their permanent home. There was a chorus of thanksgiving. Groves, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a consummate teacher. During his college course he taught school every successive winter, as he had done for years preceding, and earned nearly enough to pay the expenses of his course, for he had high wages, and never wasted them on his clothes or pleasures. That discipline settled in his mind the elements of knowledge. The principles of all true knowledge were already laid; first, when he was born; and, secondly, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... meanest, doggonedest, low-down wharf-runner that ever robbed poor Jack of his wages. That's Kipping. Furthermore, he never signed a ship's articles unless he thought there was considerable money in it somewhere. I tell you, Captain Hamlin, he's an angry, disappointed man at this very minute. If you want to ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... on the subject of strikes and wages and hard times. Being from the Tyne, and a man who had gained and lost in his own pocket by these fluctuations, he had much to say, and held strong opinions on the subject. He spoke sharply of the masters, and, when I led him on, of the men ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1834 Borrow again changed his quarters, taking an unfurnished floor, {126b} at the same time hiring a Tartar servant named Mahmoud, {126c} "the best servant I ever had." {126d} The wages he paid this prince of body-servants was thirty shillings a month, out of which Mahmoud supplied himself "with food and everything." Borrow's reason for making this change in his lodgings was that he wanted more room than he had, and furnished apartments were very expensive. The actual ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... himself. Each of the others has some excuse. One was not liable to examination; another, perhaps, was not present; a third is related to Philocrates. But Aeschines has no such excuse. No! So completely has he sold himself, once for all—so plain is it that his wages are not for past services only, but that, if he escapes now, Philip can equally count upon his help against you in the future—that to avoid letting fall even a word that would be unfavourable to Philip, he does not accept his discharge[n] even when you offer to discharge him, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... domestic concerns, to be very much of bees. Not bees in the respect of being busy; but bees in the respect of being blind. You see this in all ranks of life. You see it in the artisan, earning good wages, yet with every prospect of being weeks out of work next summer or winter, who yet will not be persuaded to lay by a little in preparation for a rainy day. You see it in the country gentleman, who, having five thousand a year, spends ten thousand ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... knowledge. "He's ate enough for three," he admitted, "but he's worked enough for six—besides, most of his wages come in food. But work? I never seen anything like it! He handled more timbers than a dozen. When it come to spiking them in place he seen me swinging that twelve-pound sledge and near breaking my back. 'I think it's easier this way,' he says. 'Besides you can hit a lot faster if you use just one ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... that night thinking things over and 'ow to get Mrs. Pearce out of the house, and he woke up next morning with it still on 'is mind. Every time he got 'is uncle alone he spoke to 'im about it, and told 'im to pack Mrs. Pearce off with a month's wages, but George ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... of power. All this time his meagre keep and his shabby clothes were his only pay. But Jim had often talked things over with his friends and they pointed out that he was now doing man's work and getting less than boy's pay. The scene that followed his application for regular wages was a very unpleasant one; and John Downey made the curious mistake of trying to throw young Jimmy out. The boy never lost his temper for a moment but laughingly laid his two strong hands on the landlord's fat little shoulders ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and Dudon fight; then friendship make, And to each other fitting honour pay. Agramant's host the united champions break, And scatter it, like chaff, in disarray. Brandimart wages war, for Roland's sake, With Rodomont, and loses in the fray. This while, for good Baiardo, with more pain, Contend ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... she had a position in an insurance agent's office with wages upon which she could live with fair decency. As it had rained all day and her employer wanted her to begin the next morning, she had the best possible excuse for renting a room in Fallon and asking Bill to ride in horseback ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... "No, wages aren't the question," Mrs. Burgoyne reiterated. "Why, I knew a little Swedish woman once, who raised three children on three hundred ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... workers. The streets of Gloversville and Johnstown are lined with pretty and tasteful homes, in which the hum of the sewing machine is constantly heard during the working hours of the day, but the workers are exceptionally fortunate in being able while earning good wages to enjoy all the comforts and surroundings of home, and in being practically their own masters ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... returned Will desperately. "It was the only quiet night I've had for three weeks: I slept like a log straight through until the breakfast-bell. Then I was late, of course, and he threatened to take an hour's time from my day's wages. By the way, he pays me now, you know, just as he ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... did not care a button whether his grindstones revolved or not, they soon brought the defaulters to book. Bayne was sent upstairs, to beg Mr. Little to advance the trade contributions, and step the amount from the defaulters' wages. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... in his History of Bremhill, makes a few observations suggested by the account in Domesday Book, on the wages, and some of the prices of agricultural produce on the farms where the villani and servi, literally slaves and villans, laboured. When we find two oxen sold for seventeen shillings and four-pence, we must bear in mind that one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... Cornell did not control in the metropolis and its vicinity. Among them and their lieutenants, however, none could dispute leadership with Conkling and his corps of able managers. Starin had pluck and energy, but two terms in Congress and popularity with the labouring classes, to whom he paid large wages and generously contributed fresh-air enjoyments, summed up his strength.[1644] Pomeroy was better known. His public record, dating from the famous speech made in the Whig convention of 1855, had kept him prominently before the people, and had he continued in Congress he must have ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the medium of foreign exchanges and balances, than as the means by which, above all other means, the operations of industry, and the employment of labour, are facilitated at home. How would industry progress, and wages be dispensed, if the master manufacturer could offer payment of wages only in yards or pieces of cloth, the iron-master in ore, or the land-proprietor in oxen, sheep, corn, hay, or cabbages? In respect of commercial balances, that of Great Britain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... bit, sir, so long as Mr Hakim's going to be one of the party. Me mind being a slave? Not I. Ain't Mr Harry one pro tempenny? I'm willing, sir, willing for anything. I don't want no wages. I want ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... maried. Whervpon king William being then in Normandie, reteined a great power of French soldiers, both archers and footmen which togither with his Normans he brought ouer into England in haruest season, and meaning to disburthen himselfe of the charge of their keeping, he caused their finding and wages to be borne by the lords and peeres of the realme, by the shirifs of shires, and other officers. [Sidenote: Anno 20.] Howbeit, when he vnderstood that the Danes changed their purpose, and would not hold on their ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed |
