"Halfpence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 20th.—A law passed by the common council of New York, "restraining slaves, negroes, and Indians from gaming with moneys." If found gaming with any sort of money, "copper pennies, copper halfpence, or copper farthings," they shall be publickly whipped at the publick whipping-post of this city, at the discretion of the mayor, recorder, and aldermen, or any one of them, unless the owner pay to the church wardens for ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... us settle about wages. I could not tell how much to offer you, till I saw how you worked. You've done very well for a new hand. I'll give you three-halfpence a-day till you've fairly learnt the trade, and twopence afterwards: maybe, in time, if I find you useful, I may raise you a halfpenny more: a penny of it in bread, the rest in money. Will that ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... Yaverland gave to their bickering amenities an attention that dwelt not so much on the words as the twanging, gibing intonations. But after they got into the streets again a question and answer began to tease his mind: "Would you be wanting your change in halfpence, Miss Melville?" ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... a short time, a labourer in the kitchen grounds of the Royal Gardens at Kew. King George the Third often visited the gardens to inquire after the fruits and esculents; and one day, he saw here Cobbett, then a lad, who with a few halfpence in his pocket, and Swift's Tale of a Tub in his hand, had been so captivated by the wonders of the royal gardens, that he applied there for employment. The king, on perceiving the clownish boy, with his stockings tied about his legs by scarlet garters, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... thou have? our king reply'd; Now tell me in this stound. "Noe pence, nor halfpence, by my faye, But a noble ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... standard yard, from the length of his own arm, in order to prevent frauds in the measurement of cloth. This standard is supposed to have been deposited, with other measures, &c. in Winchester; he likewise (it is said) ordered halfpence and farthings to be made round, which before his time were square.—The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were first called "studia," or "studies."—Edward the Confessor received yearly, from the manor of Barton, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... ever-deepening dusk Cleek and Arjeeb Noosrut moved onward together; and onward behind them moved, too, the same dilatory messenger boy who had loitered about in the neighbourhood of the park, squandering his halfpence now as then, leaving a small trail of winkle shells and trotter bones to mark the record of his passage, and never seeming to lose one iota of his appetite, eat as much and as often ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... recently discovered Southampton Shakespeare Collection, bearing date in the years 1593, 1602, and 1609, is contrary to the regulations of this institution. If you cannot visit London to examine these interesting manuscripts, copies will be made and transmitted you for three halfpence per folio, payment by our rules invariably in advance. I note that you are evidently in error upon one point. The collection contains no letters or manuscripts of Shakespeare. It is composed principally of letters written to Shakespeare by various people, and which, after his death, ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... other countries, the tax is still higher. Leather is a real necessary of life. The use of linen renders soap such. In countries where the winter nights are long, candles are a necessary instrument of trade. Leather and soap are in Great Britain taxed at three halfpence a-pound; candles at a penny; taxes which, upon the original price of leather, may amount to about eight or ten per cent.; upon that of soap, to about twenty or five-and-twenty per cent.; and upon that of candles to about fourteen or fifteen per cent.; taxes which, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in copper yet. His children often had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had gone into the common purse to buy meat that he had eaten, and drink that he had drunk; but fustian splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence on him, front to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... voluntary means instead of the old method by violence." On a certain day he offered a pecuniary reward for holing canes, which is the most laborious operation in West Indian husbandry. "He offered two-pence half-penny (currency), or about three-halfpence (sterling), per day, with the usual allowance to holers of a dram with molasses, to any twenty-five of his Negroes, both men and women, who would undertake to hole for canes an acre per day, at about 96-1/2 ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... his meals, looked out his linen for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for wear, when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence. I shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... sure, as far as we can, that we understand the conditions. For if we do not understand what it is we have to do, we are not very likely to succeed in doing it. We all know the story of the man who was asked the question, "If a herring and a half cost three-halfpence, how much will a dozen herrings cost?" After several unsuccessful attempts he gave it up, when the propounder explained to him that a dozen herrings would cost a shilling. "Herrings!" exclaimed the other apologetically; "I was working it ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Wood, of Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, a man enterprising and rapacious, had, as is said, by a present to the Duchess of Munster, obtained a patent, empowering him to coin one hundred and eighty thousand pounds of halfpence and farthings for the kingdom of Ireland, in which there was a very inconvenient and embarrassing scarcity of copper coin, so that it was possible to run in debt upon the credit of a piece of money; ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... stooped, bare- footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously of a two hundred miles tramp since early spring, of search for work, casual jobs with more kicks than halfpence, and a brief but blissful sojourn in a hospital bed, from which he was dismissed with sentence passed upon him. For himself, he is determined to die on the road under a hedge, where a man can see ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... mother and myself by drawing pictures with coloured chalks upon the pavement; I used sometimes to watch him, and marvel at the skill with which he represented fogs, floods, and fires. These three "f's," he would say, were his three best friends, for they were easy to do and brought in halfpence freely. The return of the dove to the ark was his favourite subject. Such a little ark, on such a hazy morning, and such a little pigeon—the rest of the picture being cheap sky, and still cheaper sea; nothing, I have often heard him say, was more popular than this ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... wool,"—and "a weighty volume of theology under his arm." He was the man to buy cheap "a snuff-box, or a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife, or a quarter of a hundred quills," at any of the public sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap purchases, and for exceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted "the darkest and remotest corner of the Theatre Gallery." He was to be seen issuing from "aerial lodging-houses." Withal, says mine author, "there were many good points about him: he paid his landlady's bill, read his Bible, went twice to church on Sunday, seldom ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Timber—the exclusive property of the crown. Coals prohibited to be worked by individuals, but to be procured by government at ten shillings per ton, and cedar at three halfpence per superficial foot, exclusive of other duties and fines; viz. Licence 2s. clearance 1s. harbour-dues at Sydney at established rates, entrance in and clearance from the river 2s. entrance at Sydney 1s. King's dues for Orphans: coals for home consumption, or for exportation, 2s. ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... bitterness of his loss, he turned back, heartily cursing the spinner and the weaver of that most detestable piece of buckram that composed his breeches-pocket, for having put it together so villainously that it broke down with the carriage of a few dollars, halfpence, thimbles, balls of wax and thread, and a few other sundries, after the trifling wear of seven years, nine months, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... and brought down poor puss, and gave her to the captain with tears in his eyes. All the company laughed at Dick's odd venture; and Miss Alice, who felt pity for the poor boy, gave him some halfpence to buy another cat. ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... that he has. It has made him King of Bath[1340]. Sir, he has nothing to say for himself but that he is a writer. Had he not been a writer, he must have been sweeping the crossings in the streets, and asking halfpence from every ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... lady in a coach—Alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?), and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places inside—how the porter asked them all for money, and got sixpence from the gentleman and five greasy halfpence from the fat widow—and how the carriage at length drove away—now threading the dark lanes of Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St. Paul's, jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of Fleet-Market, which, with Exeter 'Change, has now departed to the world of shadows—how they passed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the open. Sellers of grain and wood are always there with everything native travellers require. If a bedstead—a low four-footed article with rope for its bottom and mattress—be preferred to the bare ground, it can commonly be procured for three-halfpence for the night. When in the evening we were near these places we went to them, and saw the poor weary travellers setting to the preparation of their simple meal—with most the only cooked meal of the day—with apparently as great contentedness as we have when after a fatiguing day ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... little 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, ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... go so far as to say that we ought not to get books too cheaply. No book, I believe, is ever worth half so much to its reader as one that has been coveted for a year at a bookstall, and bought out of saved halfpence; and perhaps a day or two's fasting. That's the way to get at the cream of a book. And I should say more on this matter, and protest as energetically as I could against the plague of cheap literature, with which we are just now afflicted, but that I fear your calling me to order, as being ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... out three halfpence on the Eastern Times for last Friday. In that Newspaper there is a good deal written about that Act for altering Vessels: the Writer is quite sure—that the Act does not apply to Fishing craft; and he writes as if he knew what he was writing about. But most likely if he ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... spoke of their humble wayfaring. "I came to London," said Johnson, "with twopence halfpenny in my pocket." "Eh, what's that you say?" cried Garrick, "with twopence halfpenny in your pocket?" "Why, yes; I came with twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine." Nor was there much exaggeration in the picture; for so poor were they in purse and credit that after their arrival they had, with difficulty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... oil, constantly boiling. The moment of projection is at hand; and soon all his kettles and gridirons will be turned into pure gold. Poor Professor Faraday can do nothing of the sort. I should deceive you if I held out to you the smallest hope that he will ever turn your halfpence into sovereigns. But if you can induce him to give at our Institute a course of lectures such as I once heard him give at the Royal Institution to children in the Christmas holidays, I can promise you that you will know more about the effects produced on bodies by heat and moisture ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... better, and I would have kept him another two months; but Lapo, so as not to be the only one blamed, so corrupted him that they both had to go. I write this not because I care for them, for they are not worth three halfpence between them, but because, if they come to talk to Lodovico, he must not be surprised. Tell him by no means to lend them his ears; and if you want to know about them go to Messer Agnolo, the Herald of the Signoria, for ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... at this account; and, he having invited Robinson to dinner, they spent that day together. In the afternoon Booth indulged his friend with a game at cards; at first for halfpence and afterwards for shillings, when fortune so favoured Robinson that he did not leave the other a single shilling ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... was Swift who, by the Drapier's Letters, for the first time called into existence a public opinion flowing from and representing Ireland as a whole. He reasserted the doctrine of Molyneux, and denounced Wood's halfpence not only as a foul robbery, but as a constitutional and as a national insult. The patience of the Irish Protestants was tried very hard, and they were forced, as Sir Charles Duffy states in his vivid book, to purchase the power of oppressing their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... ever saw anything, or ever looked at anything; and she had always lost something out of a straw hand-basket, and was trying to find it, with all her might and main, among an immense quantity of English halfpence, which lay, like sands upon the sea-shore, at the bottom of it. There was a professional Cicerone always attached to the party (which had been brought over from London, fifteen or twenty strong, by contract), and if he so much ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... will you pay me?" Say the bells of Old Bailey. "When I grow rich," Say the bells of Shoreditch. "When will that be?" Say the bells of Stepney. "I do not know," Says the great Bell of Bow. "Two sticks in an apple," Ring the bells of Whitechapel. "Halfpence and farthings," Say the bells of St. Martin's. "Kettles and pans," Say the bells of St. Ann's. "Brickbats and tiles," Say the bells of St. Giles. "Old shoes and slippers," Say the bells of St. Peter's. "Pokers and tongs," Say the bells ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... third day, having slept one night at Thornhill, and another at New Cumnock; and having needed, owing to the kindness of acquaintances upon whom I called by the way, to spend only three halfpence of my modest funds. Safely arrived, but weary, I secured a humble room for my lodging, for which I had to pay one shilling and sixpence per week. Buoyant and full of hope and looking up to God for guidance, I appeared at the appointed hour before the examiners, as did ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... prove a source of annoyance or even distraction to their more rational neighbours. It was by these growling and cantankerous philanthropists that German "Bands of Three," or even damaged bagpipes, were invited by halfpence to make hideous noises in quiet back-streets. He merely offered these remarks for what they were worth, in passing, and he would now proceed to listen to such fresh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... laughed a little. "Frankly, I assure you, it is to me the most deplorable arrangement that a true woman should be destined to give all the passion and love of her life to one man, while the same man scatters his worthless affections about like halfpence among dozens of drabs! My dear Mr. Leigh, do not frown at me in that tragic way! I am not blaming YOU! I am not in the least inclined to put you in the general category,—at least not at present. You do not look like the ordinary man, though you may be for all ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... chap, will make but a small hand of the bills, and I shall go to pott. You also will be a sufferer, if you post-pone sending my paper, for you shall have neither plate paper,[1] nor a single crown, no, nor a cartridge of halfpence from me this half year, unless you play your cards better. I have more bills to write out than a bag cap, made of the largest grand eagle you have in your warehouse, could contain; so that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... Goguelat had spoken had on several occasions given me alms. I reminded him that, if we were now reduced to hold out our hands and sell pill boxes for charity, it was something very new for soldiers of the Empire. We had all seen bandits standing at a corner of a wood truckling for copper halfpence, and after their benefactors were gone spitting out injuries and curses. "But," said I, "I trust that none of us will fall so low. As a Frenchman and a soldier, I owe that young child gratitude, and am bound to protect her character, and to support that of the army. You are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... out into the cold world to find a living just when they are beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence are as scarce perhaps, but you do ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... sweep the crossings for your sake I Mother, for your sake I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for halfpence. Mother, I am not proud—I would be honest, if I can—but when I see you pining away, and so changed, the devil comes into me, and I often shudder lest I should commit some crime—what, I ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... working at times as I have told you. Sometimes she thought of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving herself to the first comer; she spent most of her time thinking dark thoughts, lying by the side of a wall in the sun, with her face buried in the grass, and passers-by would sometimes throw a few halfpence to her, simply because she asked them for nothing. One whole year she spent in a hospital at Annecy after heavy toil in the harvest field; she had only undertaken the work in the hope that it would kill her, and that so she might die. You should hear her herself when she speaks ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Poynings' Law, Potato Rot, and Plantations. Their friend, Rhona Burke, had V, W, X, Y, Z, and succeeded only in finding Wentworth and Woollen Trade Destroyed, until Miss Odevaine helped her with Wood's Halfpence, about which everybody else had to be enlightened; and there was plenty of laughter when Francesca suggested for V, Vipers Expelled by St. Patrick. Salemina carried off the first prize; but we insisted C and D were the easiest letters; at any rate, her list showed great ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... nevertheless, that one of the only two copies existing of the first edition was bought for three halfpence. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Taylor, relighting his pipe at the gas-jet. "Take her all together, limb by limb, she's not such a bad-looking piece—particular by candlelight. To be sure, halfpence that have been in circulation can't be expected to look like new ones from the mint. But for a woman that's been knocking about the four hemispheres for some time, she's passable enough. A little bit thick in the flitch perhaps: ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... elder, took delight in learning, and made great progress in his lessons; but Samuel, the younger, was a dunce, notoriously given to mischief and playing truant. When about eight years old he was put to manual labour, earning three-halfpence a day as a buddle-boy at a tin mine. At ten he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and while in this employment he endured much hardship,— living, as he used to say, "like a toad under a harrow." He often thought of running away and becoming a pirate, or something ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your request by making a few remarks on Owen's review. (104/1. "The Edinburgh Review," April, 1860.) Hooker is so weary of reviews that I do not think you will get any hints from him. I have lately had many more "kicks than halfpence." A review in the last Dublin "Nat. Hist. Review" is the most unfair thing which has appeared,—one mass of misrepresentation. It is evidently by Haughton, the geologist, chemist and mathematician. It shows immeasurable conceit and contempt ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... in his old age had preserved the pseudo-didactic of his youth. The "Adventures of Captain Dangerous" have been, in every sense, an experiment, and not a very gratifying one. I have earned by them a great many kicks, but a very few halfpence. Should the toe of any friendly critic be quivering in his boot just now, at the bare announcement of "Captain Dangerous'" re-appearance, I would respectfully submit that there could not possibly occur a better opportunity than the present for kicking me de novo, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... should be grateful if you would refer me to any one in this country who is interested similarly, for I get more kicks than halfpence in ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... appeared, the inhabitants subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes for the "Work of the Propagation of the Faith." Some of this, I could not help hoping, would be applied to my native land. Cheylard scrapes together halfpence for the darkened souls in Edinburgh, while Balquhidder and Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each other with evangelists, like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dover. However, my scattered senses were soon collected and I sat down on a doorstep, quite spent. Fortunately, it was a fine summer night, and when I had recovered my breath, I went on again. But I had only three-halfpence in the world, and as I trudged on, I pictured to myself how I should be found dead in a day or two, under some hedge. Passing a little pawnshop, I left my waistcoat, and went on, richer by ninepence, and I foresaw that my jacket would go next, in fact that I should be lucky if I got to ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... autumn flowers in the garden, Auntie Alice was able to put away from her the dread fears which in the darkness took such real and awful shapes, and to agree with Dr. King and Mrs. Grey that the children had only gone off for a frolic somewhere, and, like bad halfpence, would certainly come back when least expected. They were not dead, she told herself; they could not be dead, she said in her heart over and over again. Darby, the wise, manly little lad, many of whose quaint, sweet sayings were carefully stored in ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... was ordered to bring in a quarter of a pound, which he did in scales, at four-pence halfpenny. The Prince gave a sixpence, but the landlord was desired by Captain Macdonald to bring in the change. Charles smiled at Donald Roy's exactness, and said he would not be at the trouble to pick up the halfpence; but Donald Roy persuaded him to do so, saying, that in his Highness's present situation he would find "bawbees ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... This time I did not go back to the great house, having a misgiving that they would not receive me; so I turned my back to the great house where I was born, and where my poor mother died, and wandered for several days I know not whither, supporting myself on a few halfpence which I chanced to have in my pocket. It happened one day, as I sat under a hedge crying, having spent my last farthing, that a comfortable- looking elderly woman came up in a cart, and seeing the state in which I was, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... China, where a workman earns three halfpence a day, and this cheapness of labor enables the Chinese to manipulate each sheet of paper separately. They take it out of the mould, and press it between heated tablets of white porcelain, that is the secret of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to vaunt themselves as to their circulation, but they had no need to call in the aid of the chartered accountant, as they could get their facts from the number of stamps supplied—the stamp then being of the value of three halfpence per newspaper, an impost which was not removed until 15 June, 1855, by the Act 18 and 19 Vict., c. 27. The Times of 5 Aug., ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... was, however, liberal to the boy in many ways, and when in a good temper would often bestow such halfpence as he might have in his pocket upon him, and now and then taking him with him into town, returned with such clothes and shoes that "mother" held up ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... pearly white colour. It is so well known to the settlers' children in that desert country that they are always wandering off to the plain to look for it, just as the children in a town are always running off with their halfpence to the sweet-stuff shop. This pretty white root is watery, so that it satisfies both hunger and thirst at the same time. Now when Martin woke next morning, he found a great many of the little three-leaved plants growing close to the spot where ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... third; and accordingly we find that spectacles nicely adjusted to such peculiarities are fabricated, one kind supplying the American, a second the Spanish, a third the English market, and so on. So wonderfully quick is the process that a pair of spectacles can be made for three-halfpence! The clocks made by machinery at Morez are chiefly of the cheap kind, but wear well, and are to be found in almost every cottage in France. The prices vary from ten to twenty francs, and are thus within ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Cobbett is fired by the glowing description, and resolves that he must see them, and work upon them too. So he sets off, one summer's morning, with only the clothes he has upon his back, and 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... one to Dr. Johnson, "giving halfpence to common beggars? they only lay them out in gin or tobacco." "And why," replied the doctor, "should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to shut out from them every possible avenue to those pleasures reckoned too ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... of the Excise, being sworn, stated, that he and Spencer, an officer, went, on the 28th of February last, to the shop of the defendant, and asked for an ounce of coffee, at three halfpence per ounce. He received the same, and having paid for it, left the shop. He examined the article, and found it was part coffee, and part imitation coffee, or what the defendant called vegetable powder, which is nothing ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her—and that she careth not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... continuing, and times being very bad, several Peers take advantage of the 5th of the month, and make a tour of their immediate neighbourhoods in their own arm-chairs, thereby realising a very handsome sum in halfpence from a not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... his Catalogue of Traders' Tokens, recites that in 1672 "divers persons who presumed ... to stamp, coin, exchange and distribute farthings, halfpence and pence of brass and copper" were "taken into custody, in order to a severe prosecution"; but upon submission, their offenses were forgiven, and it was not until the year 1675 that the private token ceased to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Thady, when his sister slowly opened her eyes. He began to turn somersaults in the wheel-like fashion which had drawn him sundry halfpence in the streets. "I won my bet," he repeated gleefully. "You'll have to give me ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... north and south. Ernest's party were on the north side, and their goal consequently on the south side of the field. Bracebridge and Blackall tossed up to settle which side was to begin. "Heads!" cried Ernest. The shilling came down with the head up. It was considered low by the big boys to employ halfpence on such occasions. Blackall looked daggers at his opponent. Bracebridge took the ball, and placed it about a third of the distance away from his line. His side were arranged behind and on either hand of him. He planted his ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... neglect it? She made one petticoat, and then gently appealed to her husband. Did not he think that petticoats could be bought cheaper than they could be made? He figured it out, and found that his wife could earn three-halfpence a day by two hours' work; and even Lady Sarah did not require from her more than two hours daily. Was it worth while that she should be made miserable for ninepence a week,—less than L2 a-year? Lady George figured it out also, and offered the exact sum, L1 19s., to Lady ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... circumference round the forearm being 21 inches. The captors have claimed and obtained from the local authorities the promised reward of one hundred dollars, besides having sold the flesh of the animal itself to the Chinese, Klings, and others for six fanams a catty (a fanam is about three halfpence), by which they realized about ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... order. They view them as the embodiment of heroism, unsympathetically and disgracefully treated by the narrow understanding of the law. If one half the world does kick a man when he is down, the other half invariably consoles the prostrate individual with halfpence. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... after twenty years, has had the warm encomium of the President of the United States in his message to Congress, it is interesting to a veteran recipient of its early buffets to recall conditions. In my two years' incumbency we got decidedly more kicks than halfpence. Yet in retrospect it gains. A prominent New York lawyer once told me of a young man from a distant State consulting him with a view to practising in the city. In response to some cautious warning as to the difficulties, he said: "Do you ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that I brought him for sale, they had not been performed at the theatres nor Vauxhall, nor any other place, and Johnson would not print them." "The Thompsons, however, of St. Paul's Churchyard, published six ballads for me, which sold at three-halfpence a-piece, and for the copyright of which they generously gave me three guineas." Though we may not feel disposed to apply the term "generous" to a payment of half-a-guinea for a Dibdin ballad, yet in all probability we are indebted to the Thompsons for this particular ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... I saw in St. Paul's cost me only a little more than a shilling, which I paid in pence and halfpence, according to a regulated price, fixed for every ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... three-halfpence cheaper, and the lettuces are only six a penny in the Broadway, just fancy! We must save as much as ever we can on our housekeeping money if we want to go away ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... 1810—his father, Thomas Rawlinson, of Chorley, Lancashire, was a mason and builder, his mother a Devonshire woman. Sir Robert barely went to school—he frankly declares that his education only cost three-halfpence a week. He worked at his father's business at Chorley, and before he was twenty-one he was a stone-mason, bricklayer, millwright, carpenter, sawyer, and even a navvy, and all with a view of grounding himself in everything of a practical nature which would ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... thoughts were then dark and hazy, like an oil-lamp full of fungus; and I have trimmed them, as when they burned, with scissors sharpened long afterwards. All I mean to say is this, that jogging along to a certain tune of the horse's feet, which we call "three-halfpence and twopence," I saw my way a little into some things which had ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... living in Chelsea at the time he ought to have been robbing orchards: that, of course, was my fault. I did not think of that. He stole a bicycle that a lady had left outside the tea-room in Battersea Park, he and another boy, the son of a common barber, who shaved people for three-halfpence. I am a Republican in theory, but it grieved me that a son of mine could be drawn to such companionship. They contrived to keep it for a week—till the police found it one night, artfully hidden behind bushes. Logically, I do not see why stealing apples should ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Joe was perfectly willing to be reclaimed. Heretofore in his life, no one had ever extended the hand of fellowship to him. Human sympathy was what Joe needed, and precious little he had had of it. There were more kicks than halfpence in this world for a poor man. The rich did not care what became of the poor; not they—a proposition ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Rome. Bread of the coarsest and mouldiest quality costs, according to the Government tariff, by which its price is regulated, from a penny to three halfpence for the English pound. Meat is about a third dearer than in London, and clothing, even of the poorest sort, is very high in price. On the other hand, lodgings, of the class used by the poor, are cheap enough. There is no outlay for firing, as even in the coldest weather (and I have ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... generally began with stating that they were poor natives of the place, and not Spaniards and that they were in sad want of tobacco and other comforts. At Caylen, the most southern island, the sailors bought with a stick of tobacco, of the value of three-halfpence, two fowls, one of which, the Indian stated, had skin between its toes, and turned out to be a fine duck; and with some cotton handkerchiefs, worth three shillings, three sheep and a large bunch of onions were procured. The yawl at this place was anchored ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... "young Harry with his beaver up." He used to tell with much relish, how, one fine summer Sabbath evening after preaching in the open air for a collection, in some village near, and having put the money, chiefly halfpence, into his handkerchief, and that into his hat, he was taking a smart gallop home across the moor, happy and relieved, when three ladies—I think, the Miss Bertrams of Kersewell—came suddenly upon him; off went the hat, down bent the head, and over ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... lots however, and in the night the sailor whispered to Helmar again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife in my hand, though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight; and in the morning I agreed to Helmar's proposal, and we handed halfpence to find the odd man. The lot fell upon the sailor; but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked Helmar with his hands. They grappled together and almost stood up. I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping the sailor's leg; but the ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... cakes and jellies in a pastrycook's shop. "Oh, uncle," said he, as his uncle was going to turn the corner to pursue the road to Bristol, "look at those jellies!" pointing to a confectioner's shop. "I must buy some of those good things, for I have got some halfpence in ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Act of Parliament, March 28, 1808, which fixed the duties to be paid on the foreign goods thus passing through British custom-houses. Cotton, for instance, was to pay nine pence a pound, an amount intended to be prohibitory; tobacco, three halfpence. These were the two leading exports of United States domestic produce. In the United States this Act of Parliament was resented more violently, if possible, than the Order in Council itself. In the colonial period there had been less jealousy of the royal ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... whose cure is most in drawing of blood, and a desperate purge, either to cure or kill, as it hits. His discourse is most of the cures that he hath done, and them afar of; and not a receipt under a hundred pounds, though it be not worth three halfpence. Upon the market-day he is much haunted with urinals, where if he find anything (though he know nothing), yet he will say somewhat, which if it hit to some purpose, with a few fustian words he will seem a piece of strange stuff. He is never ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... from the Christmas waits. But there was a liveliness in the tones incompatible with the season when the clarionet, trombone, and cornet-a-piston form a syndicate of noise, and parade the streets for halfpence. The bugle was in a jocular mood. Judge of my astonishment when I learned that this merry melody was the Carlist's reveille! The insurgents had got so far with their military organization that they had actually buglers and bugle-calls. Nay, more, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... bricks are good playthings, and so is cardboard money—shillings, sixpences, threepences, pence and halfpence. ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Molyneux's "Case of Ireland," Effect of its publication, Death of Molyneux, Dean Swift, His position in Irish politics, The "Drapier Letters," Their line of attack, Effect on popular opinion, Wood's halfpence suspended. ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... works, a number probably unparalleled in the case of any author within the same limits of time. Besides being one of the most voluminous book-writers, he is one of the cheapest. We can buy one of Voltaire's books for a few halfpence, and the keepers of the cheap stalls in the cheap quarters of London and Paris will tell you that this is not from lack of demand, but the contrary. So clearly does that light burn for many even now, which scientifically speaking ought to be extinct, and for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... please my Lady, there is only that coarse grey serge at three halfpence the ell, which was bought for ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... out, Old Flint!" he cried again and again. "It'll be all right, you know, in a day or two, and a few halfpence over. Shell out, old fellow! What signifies, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... in October, grapes cultivated in immense quantities—under glass, and with a little artificial heating in the environs of London—are sold at the same price as grapes bought by the pound in the vineyards of Switzerland and the Rhine, that is to say, for a few halfpence. Yet they still cost two-thirds too much, by reason of the excessive rent of the soil and the cost of installation and heating, on which the gardener pays a formidable tribute to the manufacturer and the middleman. This being understood, ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... everything and I'm nothing. I've made thunder for Jupiter, odes for Apollo, battles for Mars, and love for Venus. I've married couples for Humen and six weeks afterwards, I've divorced them for Cupid, and in return I get all the kicks while they pocket the halfpence. And in compensation for robbing me of the halfpence in question, what have they done ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... miserable musician, you beer-house fiddler! wait till I catch you alone, I will hunt you till the soles of your shoes fall off! You ragamuffin! just put five farthings in your mouth, and then you may be worth three halfpence!" and went on abusing him as fast as he could speak. As soon as he had refreshed himself a little in this way, and got his breath again, he ran into the town ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... this idea, and encouraged the children by every means in his power; so that, for more than three weeks, the beans went in regularly and the halfpence in Tuttu's store, which he kept like a magpie hidden away in a crack of the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... 'Three halfpence outside, and twopence here, Sir,' said he with an awkward grin, throwing the money on the table; 'that's the way our shepherd deglubat oves, Sir; she's brought it ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a strange coincidence nobody happened to have any gold with them, it was decided to make shift with the halfpence. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... a year, Johnson resolved to give it up and go to London, there to seek his fortune. Leaving his wife at Lichfield, he set off with his friend and pupil David Garrick, as he afterwards said, "With twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three halfpence in thine." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Why, there are people yet alive who can recollect the day when Manchester cottons could not have stood one hour's competition with the free, or even 100 per cent taxed fabrics of India.[40] How, indeed, could competition have been possible, with the wages of weaving and spinning in India at three-halfpence per day, whilst for equal quantities and qualities of workmanship, the British weaver was earning five shillings, and the spinner ten shillings per day on the average? In 1780, Mr Samuel Crompton, the ingenious inventor of the mule frame for spinning, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... At first, perhaps, you will be angry, viz., when you hear that this simple difference of four cubits, or six feet, measures a difference for your expectations, whether you count your expectations in kicks or halfpence, that absolutely strikes horror into arithmetic. The singularity of the case is, that the very solemnity of the legend and the wealth of the human race in time, depend upon the cubical contents of the monument, so that a loss of one granite chip is a loss ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven't I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save, Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... winter, and, in his brown velveteen coat, with immense pockets, he made a notable figure. He loved a chat and was always happy and communicative, and his arrival seemed as much a herald of spring as that of the welcome cuckoo. He was paid "by the piece," "three-halfpence a graft and cider," quantity not specified, but an important part of the bargain because of a superstition that grafts "unwetted" would not thrive! Some of these large trees would have ten or more limbs requiring separate grafting, and therefore they earned him a considerable sum, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... out of order, and a lovely "public-house" tenor, who is heard only after dark, but with a voice so sweet and true in tone, that one wonders how it is that instead of thrilling the High Street of Torsington-on-Sea for possibly the few halfpence he picks up in that rather unappreciative thoroughfare, he is not simultaneously rushed at and eagerly caught up by the leading impressarios of all ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... must have been quite a shilling's worth of halfpence wrapped up in paper. They hit me on ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... English miles. He has raised his rents, to the danger of depopulating his farms, and he fells his timber, and by exerting every art of augmentation, has obtained an yearly revenue of four hundred pounds, which for a hundred square miles is three halfpence ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... in the evening and disguising ourselves so well as not to recognize each other. Madame Duplessis was charming in a red petticoat; Ursule, in a blue blouse and a big hat was a most comical fellow; Casimir, got up as a beggar, had some halfpence given him in all good faith; Stephane, whom I think you know, as a spruce peasant, made believe to have been drinking, stumbled against our sous-prefet and accosted him—he is a nice fellow, and was just going ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... can work at the loom he can earn some sort o poor, miserable livin'. But it's many a day since I've been able to get that sort o' job. Now I tries to put a bite into my mouth with this here basket-mak-in'. I sits at it late into the night, and by the time I tumbles into bed I've earned three-halfpence. I puts it to you as knows things, if a man can live on that, when everything's so dear? Nine shillin' goes in one lump for house tax, three shillin' for land tax, nine shillin' for mortgage interest—that makes one pound one. I may reckon my year's earnin' at just double that money, and that ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... income by reasonable and likely labour; but a belief in a far more improbable proposition, impetuously expressed, warmed him with the idea that he might become famous there. The greater is frequently more readily credited than the less, and an argument which will not convince on a matter of halfpence appears unanswerable when applied to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... leave this thankless trade; 160 Erect some pedling stall, with trinkets stock'd, There earn thy daily halfpence, nor again Trust the false Muse; so shall the cleanly meal Repel intruding hunger.—Oh! 'tis vain, The friendly admonition's all in vain; The scribbling itch has seized him, he is lost To all advice, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... 1/63 of an ounce troy. It was at first indented with a cross so as to be broken for halfpennies and farthings, but silver coins of these denominations were coined by Edward I. Edward VI. stopped the farthings, and the halfpence were stopped in the Commonwealth. Copper coinage was established in 1672. The present coins were issued first in 1860. They are half the size of their predecessors, and intrinsically worth one-seventh of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... nine miles from the shore or until they lose the fish. When the fisherman gets a bite the wind is spilled out of the sail so as to deaden the boat's way. The fish is then got alongside, promptly gaffed, and got on board. Tunny sells for about three halfpence a pound in Lequeito. The season extends from June to November. Bream are taken in the winter and spring, 9 to 12 miles off the coast. They are caught by hook and line in two ways. The first is worth describing. A line 50 fathoms long has bent to it snoods ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... mother saw who it was, she flew to him, and, clasping her arms about his neck, hugged him till she wasn't worth three halfpence. After Jack sot a while, he made a trial to let her know what had happened him, but he disremembered it all, except having the money in the rock, so he up and tould her that, and a glad woman she was to hear of his ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the fire. At last the old fellow turned round to get a spoon with which to stir his pot, and then the cock, waking up, looked in and saw that the miser was making oyster-soup, for he had found some oyster-shells in an ash-pit, and to give the mixture a colour he had put in a few halfpence in ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... repeating, 'I wish you had been with me.' Having no change, he gave the boy sixpence, which was certainly, if he had formed any expectations at all, far beyond them; but he received it with the utmost indifference, without any remark of surprise or pleasure; most likely he did not know how many halfpence he could get for it, and twopence would have pleased him more. My little girl was delighted with the sixpence I gave her, and said she would buy a book with it on Monday morning. What a difference between the manner of living and education of boys and of girls among the lower classes ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... to this hoary student, Ferratus entered in a hurry, and informed us with the abruptness of ecstasy, that his set of halfpence was now complete; he had just received in a handful of change, the piece that he had so long been seeking, and could now defy mankind to outgo his collection of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... the Dutch urban working classes is by no means an enviable one. Granting that wages are much higher than half a century ago, when bread cost fivepence-halfpenny the loaf as against three halfpence to-day, and when clothes and furniture cost fifty per cent. more than now, the average working-man cannot be otherwise described than as distinctly poor when compared with his English colleague. Yet it would be misleading to judge exclusively by the scale of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... With the exception of two winters' schooling, he was wholly self-taught. Sent to tend cattle so early as his eighth year, he regularly carried books and writing-materials with him to the fields. His books were procured by the careful accumulation of the halfpence bestowed on him by the admirers of his juvenile tastes. In his sixteenth year, he entered on the business of a flax-dresser, in his native town—an occupation in which he was employed for a period of fourteen years. He afterwards engaged in mercantile concerns, and has latterly retired from business. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... both a correct eye and taste, while they constitute a wholesome species of diet. A most pernicious method of dressing vegetables is often adopted, by putting copper into the saucepan with them in the form of halfpence. This is a dangerous experiment, as the green colour imparted by the copperas, renders them in the highest degree unwholesome, and even poisonous. Besides, it is perfectly unnecessary, for if put into boiling water with ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... [605] He shall give the horses in the stable two armsful of hay and a peck of oats, daily. [611]: A Squire is Master of the Horse; under him are Avener and Farrier, (the Farrier has a halfpenny a day for every horse he shoes,) and grooms and pages hired at 2d. a day, or 3 halfpence, and footmen who run ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Bradbury and Evans, a Beckett began to fall off in the amount of his contributions, and for a time practically ceased altogether. At this time he edited the "Squib" (28th May, 1842), a folio sheet published at three-halfpence, very respectably conducted and printed, and owned by Last Punch's old printer, illustrated by Henning, Hamerton, and Newman, Punch artists, treating many of Punch's pet subjects in the Punch spirit, including "Physiologies," ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... thou to me of halfpence! Know that thou art a mercenary varlet; yes, knave, mark that, a mercenary varlet." The sleepy Ganymede replied not, and the wrath of Mr. Gordon subsided into a low, interrupted, internal muttering of strange oaths, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
