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Customs   Listen
noun
customs  n. pl.  
1.
Money collected under a tariff; a duty imposed on imported goods.
Synonyms: customs duty, custom, impost.
2.
The government department administering the collection of import tariffs. Used with as singular verb.
3.
That area within an airport, sea port, or other border station where freight or the baggage of travellers is checked for dutiable materials or contraband; as, it took an hour to get through customs.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Customs" Quotes from Famous Books



... dull as not to see he was not wanted; but he was not yet used enough to social customs to know how to extricate himself dextrously from his false position, which his generally is who accosts people he is little acquainted with, and mingles in a conversation which does not concern him. He was mentally casting about for the least awkward manner of retreat, when ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... was well aware of the customs of the Bushmen, immediately proposed that they should mount as many as they could, and go in chase, as there was not an hour to be lost. In half an hour a party, consisting of our three travelers, Bremen, Omrah, and three of the most trusty of the Hottentots, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... ex-slaves living in Richmond County and Augusta who have vivid recollections of the days when their lives were inseparably bound to those of their masters. These people have a past rich in tradition and sentiment, and their memories of customs, habits of work and play, and the superstitious beliefs, which still govern their actions to a large extent weave a colorful pattern ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... one of the witnesses to the marriage was still living. His name and address were duly noted in the clerk's pocketbook. Subsequent inquiry, at the office of the Customs Comptroller, discovered the name of Septimus Darts on the captain's official list of the crew of an outward bound merchant vessel. With this information, and with a photographic portrait to complete it, the man was discovered, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... in pieces their limbs, and devoured them, yet warm and trembling, making a lion's meal of them, lapping the blood: for the Cyclops are man-eaters, and esteem human flesh to be a delicacy far above goat's or kid's; though by reason of their abhorred customs few men approach their coast, except some stragglers, or now and then a ship-wrecked mariner. At a sight so horrid Ulysses and his men were like distracted people. He, when he had made an end of ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... demands of the people themselves. An idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above, a set of rules devised by high-minded theorists who fail to take into account the living conditions and desires of the masses, can never be of the slightest value in effecting change in the customs of the people. Systems so imposed in the past have revealed their woeful inability to prevent the sexual and racial chaos into ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... the stage- drivers, hunters, cattlemen, prospectors, and pioneers of the early days. Most of them had come of good religious stock-Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians; and though they had little piety, and had never been able to regain the religious customs and habits of their childhood, they "Stood for the Thing the Old Folks stand for." They were in a mood which would tear cotton, as the saying was. There was not one of them but expected that broken heads and bloodshed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and as honest as the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping watch and watch in every corner of the three oceans, and the insurance leeches, and the consuls, and the Customs bugs, and the medicos, you can only get the idea by thinking of a landsman watched by a hundred and fifty detectives, or a stranger in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the French would be, and I waited for the time when I should put to keen use the sword Sir John Godric had given me. Life beat high then, for I was in the first flush of manhood, and the spirit of a rich new land was waking in us all, while in our vanity we held to and cherished forms and customs that one would have thought to see left behind in London streets and drawing-rooms. These things, these functions in a small place, kept us a little vain and proud, but, I also hope it gave us some ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Lincoln, York, London, and a score of other cities were set like jewels in a surface of rough clay, the Britons filling in the intervening spaces with their own rude customs, habits, and manners. Dwelling in wretched cabins thatched with straw and chinked with mud, they still stubbornly maintained their own uncouth speech and nationality, while they helplessly saw all they could earn swallowed up in taxes and tributes by their insatiate conquerors. ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... Greek school, and the nations who have not possessed these works or models have made little or no progress towards perfection. Nor does it seem that a mere imitation of Nature is sufficient to produce the beautiful or perfect; but the climate, the manners, customs, and dress of the people, its genius and taste, all co-operate. Such principles of conservation as Philalethes has referred to are obvious. No works of excellence ought to be exposed to the atmosphere, and it is a great object to preserve ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... per dozen, foreign valuation, represents a fair breaking point for customs purposes between lower-grade hats competing on a price basis and hats of superior material and workmanship ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission

... review of our growth in numbers and influence as a body of Christians, with our original and, in the eyes of the world, peculiar observances as to ordinances in the church, and deportment and customs in the world, is to say the least pleasantly surprising. Our name as Brethren is hardly a century old, if I am rightly informed; and what are we now? A legion, not of devils, but of angels for good. And may I not here add ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... themselves, and retain traditional accounts of their emigration to the south.[C] In the "History of the Indian Tribes of North America," when speaking of the Shawanoes, the authors say, "their manners, customs and language indicate a northern origin; and, upwards of two centuries ago, they held the country south of Lake Erie. They were the first tribe which felt the force and yielded to the superiority of the Iroquois. Conquered by these, they migrated to the south, and from fear or favor, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... room, or the creaking of one of the fences outside— everything sounding strange and loud in the stillness of the night; and as the time wore on, and no fresh attack came, the boys' hopes rose higher, and they turned to the black as the best authority on the manners and customs of ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... in the night by a man who wants the job of blacking your boots! It is more inevitable than seasickness, and may have something to do with it. It is like the ducking you get on crossing the line the first time. I trusted that these old customs were abolished. They might with the same propriety insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, he wanted to know what they had done to them,—they had spoiled them,— he never put ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... 390, Sociology. Statistics. Political science. Political economy. Law. Administration. Associations, institutions. Education. Commerce, communication. Customs, costumes, folklore. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... improve the vessel upon which it is placed, and this class includes all the ware except that of the province of Kaga, which would come under the head of graphic, as it delineates all the trades, occupations, sports, customs, and costumes of the people, as well as the scenery, flora, and fauna of the country. "Owari ware" is made in the province of that name; it is not as translucent, but stronger and more tenacious than some ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... Aunt Agnes was very fond of me, and I in turn loved and respected her, she was apt to inspire me with awe even on ordinary occasions. Her character was as upright as her figure, which in defiance of the relaxed customs of the day was always arrayed against a straight-backed chair. Conventionalities of every sort were an abomination to her. Black silk was the full extent of her condescension in the matter of what she was pleased to call Babylonian attire, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... history From everywhere, for you were of the sort, Cool and refined, who like rough company: Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee, Wise pensioners and boxers With whom you drank, and listened To legends of old revelry and sport And customs of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... people more to think about. There were also gigantic saws and powerful instruments, such as levers, leaden maces, handsaws, enormous axes, etc., without counting a considerable quantity of blasting cylinders, enough to blow up the Liverpool Customs—all that was strange, not to say fearful, without mentioning rockets, signals, powder-chests, and beacons of a thousand different sorts. The numerous spectators on the wharfs of Prince's Docks admired likewise a long mahogany whaler, a tin ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... the Angel again, fold upon fold. "The implications of yesterday bind me for the morrow. This is my world. This is what I am and what I am in. How can I save myself? How can I turn from these habits and customs and obligations to the service of the one true God? When I see myself, then I understand how it is with the others. All we priests and teachers are men caught in nets. I would serve God. Easily said! But how am I to serve God? How am I to help and forward His coming, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... detailed in charming fashion, under the title Through Deserts and Oases of Central Asia (Macmillan), their travels in lands still almost unknown. Sir Percy Sykes himself has added some chapters on the history and customs of the district in order to allow himself the pleasure of referring affectionately to his hunting of the giant sheep—the Ovis poli—of the Pamirs. Between them they have given me a good deal of information, with a lot of really ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... Mary's people were, almost without exception, of French descent, and still kept up many of the old French customs of out-door fetes and ceremonies. Hetty found their joyous, child-like ways and manners singularly attractive and interesting. After the grim composure, and substantial, reflective methods of her New England life, the abandon and ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... even before we had finished our supper, and perhaps gave us a better insight into the manners and customs of the miners than we could have otherwise learned ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... college career, which was in no wise different from that of a hundred other young gentlemen of that day. Meanwhile, while he was becoming used to the manners and customs of his new life and enjoying it thoroughly in his quiet way; at Castlewood Hall life was not so cheerful as it had been when he was there to note his mistress' sorrow or joy and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... declared that according to the laws and customs of the country he had a right to look upon the Landers and their people as his property, but that, not wishing to abuse his privileges, he would set them free in exchange for the value of twenty slaves in English merchandise. This decision, which Richard Lander tried in vain to shake, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... hope of gaining still higher triumphs than those to which he had already attained. Far from giving his time and attention to the public business of the empire, he devoted himself with new zeal and enthusiasm to the cultivation of his art. In doing this it was necessary, according to the customs and usages in respect to the training of musicians that prevailed in those days, that he should submit to rules and exercises most absurd and degrading to one holding such a station as his; and as accounts of his mode of life circulated among the community, ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it; whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs or laws of the country they live in; and the children upon such separation fall to the father or mother's lot, as such contract does determine. Sec. 83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under politic government, as well as ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... "The customs of this people, the Caribs," says Dr. Chanca, "are beastly;" and it would be difficult not to agree with him, in spite of the "politeness" and comparative civilization he has ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... found time, for somebody-or-other's sake, to pounce on a new arrival and bear him away to breakfast and a tawdry imitation of the real hospitality of northern India; but for the most part the beardless boys lounged in the red-hot customs shed (where they were to be mulcted for the privilege of serving their country) and envied ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... the early history of his native State, and while some critics are inclined to consider "Horse Shoe Robinson" as the best of his works, it is certain that "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the head of the list as a literary production and an authentic exposition of the manners and customs during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion of the action takes place in St. Mary's—the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... saw them this way before! I didn't know people ate raw fish at Parties! I.... This is the Very First Party I ever went to," she explained. It was surely extenuation enough for any ignorance of the customs of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... "General Historie of Virginia" and "A True Relation," that we find the best and fullest accounts of these first days at Jamestown. He tells us not only what happened, but how the new country looked; what kinds of game abounded; how the Indians lived, and what his impressions of their customs were. Smith was ignorant of certain facts about the Indians with which we are now familiar. The curious ceremony which took place in the hut in the forest, just before Powhatan freed Smith and allowed him to return ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... is not our way here. You have lived so long abroad that duelling seems a natural and proper thing. But we stay-at-homes no more recognize the right of these English fops to force their fighting customs upon us than we rush to tie our hair in queues because it ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... citizen regarded himself as a parent or guardian of every child, and if any youth was seen in public to violate any of the customs or ideals of the nation, it was the duty of the citizen to chastise the boy and to otherwise instruct him in the duties of citizenship. At the same time the citizen was careful himself to set an example worthy of emulation. The result was the most perfect and harmonious education that the ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... wanted to know, had a snippy little gunboat to hold up a private party of perfectly good New Yorkers and ask 'em where they was goin'? Humph! What was the government, anyway? Just a lot of cheap officeholders who spent their time bothering our best people about customs duties and income taxes. For her part, she didn't care a snap about the navy. If the Agnes could get away, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... him at Burry Mills Hydro, I spent a night at Holmescroft. Miss M'Leod had returned from her Hydro, and first we made very merry on the open lawn in the sunshine over the manners and customs of the English resorting to such places. She knew dozens of hydros, and warned me how to behave in them, while Mr. and Mrs. M'Leod stood aside ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... which would never have listened to arguments from Leviticus, or fine distinctions between malum per se and malum prohibitum. The ground of his repugnance was primarily his strong sense, already illustrated, that the sacredness of marriage, and the customs that regulate it, were triumphs of culture which had been won, painfully and with effort, from the unbridled promiscuity of primitive life. To impair that sacredness, to dislocate those customs, was to take a step backwards into darkness and ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... the Emperor I have been struck by his knowledge of other countries, lands which he had never visited. He was familiar not only with their manners, customs, industries and public men, but with their commercial problems. Through his conversation one can see the keen eye of the Hanseatic trader looking with eager envy on the trade of a rival merchant. The Emperor, incidentally, while instinctively commercial, ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... known to betray secrets. Indeed, much more of her conversation consisted of speculations on the tenderness of the poultry, or the freshness of the fish, than of anything that went much deeper. She did, however, spend much time in describing the habits and customs of the pensioners at Soissons; the maigre food they had to eat; their tricks upon the elder and graver nuns, and a good deal besides that was amusing at first, but which became rather wearisome, and made Cicely wonder what either of her mothers ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... obliged me to devote much attention to the literature and history of Norway during the Middle Ages, especially the latter part of that period. I did my utmost to familiarise myself with the manners and customs, with the emotions, thought, and language of the men of ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen

... work we have met numerous obstacles—the apathy of the people, the inherited and depraved appetites of drunkards, and the perilous social customs of the day, which are indorsed by the practice of many otherwise excellent people. Worse than all these combined is the influence of the licensed dram-shop. We can arouse the indifferent to action; we can enkindle in the drunkard ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... each session, to Her Majesty, or Her Majesty's Commissioners, assenting to their bills, by pronouncing a sentence of old and obsolete Norman French—a memorial in its way of the Norman Conquest; and our State customs are so archaeological that, when Her Majesty, and a long line of her illustrious predecessors, have been crowned in Westminster Abbey, the old Scottish coronation-stone, carried off in A.D. 1296 by Edward ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... the approbation of Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans, Monsieur," said St. Aulaire, turning gravely to Calvert, "we do all things a l'Anglaise—for the moment. You, who, after all, are English, will doubtless recognize many of your customs, manners, and sports among us—always supposing Paris is fortunate enough to keep you," and here he smiled deprecatingly and shook his head as if afraid such good fortune could not be true. "I have just conceived the idea of having ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... beauty and grandeur of the art consists in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, peculiarities, and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... as to the amount and character of the Western river trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere, in the reports of the collectors of customs located at the various Western ports of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely the hour when the West awoke to its first era of big business than the demand for the creation of "districts" and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... towns of England the produce both of English and foreign agriculture is largely consumed; elements of the soil indispensable to plants do not return to the fields,—contrivances resulting from the manners and customs of English people, and peculiar to them, render it difficult, perhaps impossible, to collect the enormous quantity of the phosphates which are daily, as solid and liquid excrements, carried into the rivers. These phosphates, although present ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... the country and race, we pass to a brief review of the history and religion including ritual and ceremonial observances of the Greek Church. Next come descriptions of regions, cities and architectural marvels; and then follow articles on the various manners and customs of rural and town life. The arts of the nation are treated comprehensively; and a chapter of the latest statistics concludes the rapid survey. The material is all selected from the writings of those who speak with authority ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... you to inform me, by Mr. Cottle, what length of time is allowed by the rules and customs of our institution for each book. Whether their contents, as well as their size, are consulted, in apportioning the time; or whether, customarily, any time at all is apportioned, except when the Committee, in individual ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... life in, see vol. i.; democracy in; vagrants in; violence and barbarity of; manners and customs; grows in civilization; economic conditions of; frontier law and politics; popular eloquence in; its ignorance ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... to me. I was left, too, to walk about the streets by myself. I enquired into the customs of the people; I visited the workshops; I examined the huge machines which bring water into the gardens. But it annoyed me to be separated from ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... alcoholic drinks and wine serve no real purpose but to promote drunkenness and wife-beating; that opium promotes only luxurious debauchery, and that all the elegant, graceful and beautiful ceremonies and customs of society are invented merely to amuse and gratify the ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison

... main discussion was ended, several of the chiefs took the opportunity of asking Captain Fitz Roy many intelligent questions on international customs and laws, relating to the treatment of ships and foreigners. On some points, as soon as the decision was made, the law was issued verbally on the spot. This Tahitian parliament lasted for several hours; and when it was over Captain Fitz Roy ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... has become dissociated from the masses, chiefly owing to the ignorance and intense conservatism of her rulers and their entirely unnecessary distrust of the discoveries of science? Pope Leo admits that this is "an age of greater instruction, of different customs, and of more numerous requirements in daily life," but he cannot divest himself of the trammels of ecclesiasticism which seem to mould his thoughts and lead him to consider it "essential in these times ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... British authorities chose General Murray, one of Wolfe's ablest lieutenants, who since 1760 had served as military Governor of the Quebec district. He was to be aided in his task by a council composed of the Lieutenant Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, the Chief Justice, the head of the customs, and eight citizens to be named by the Governor from "the most considerable of the persons of property" ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... Indian influence is obvious. Though primarily connected with religion it includes much more, such as architecture, painting and other arts, an Indian alphabet, a vocabulary of Indian words borrowed or translated, legends and customs. The whole life of such diverse countries as Tibet, Burma, and Java would have been different had they ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. Recently also he has been called upon as a public servant to revisit South Africa and took the opportunity to travel through Zululand, in order to refresh his knowledge of its people, their customs, their mysteries, and better to prepare himself for the writing of this book. Here he stood by the fatal Mount of Isandhlawana which, with some details of the battle, is described in these pages, among the graves of ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... avenges the blood of the defenseless. The white people do not murder slaves, and you want to be worse to them than Gebhr was to you—you, a Christian! Shame on you, Kali. Change the ancient and abominable customs of the Wahimas for good ones and God will bless you for this and the 'bibi' will not say that Kali is ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... but now I will. There are long services on that day in every church where the king's friends go. But there are parts of these services which we cannot approve; and so we think it best not to follow the other customs that the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the curses of the aesthetes and the antiquaries, really is, I suppose, a symptom of the strange and almost unearthly ugliness of our diseased society. The costumes and customs of a hundred peasantries are there to prove that such ugliness does not necessarily follow from mere poverty, or mere democracy, or mere unlettered ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... obtain so much instruction as from her brother, who, during every moment he could spare from his duties, devoted himself to teaching her. Her astonishment at seeing the lovely Pocahontas, dressed in the English fashion, and possessing far more knowledge of English customs than herself, knew no bounds, and instigated her to still greater exertions; so that, ere long, she distanced the young bride in book-learning, if not in other accomplishments. Harry Rolfe, indeed, at ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston

... being over, and the expiation made, according to the customs of the nation, the multitude assembled to the feast and sacrifice. Proclamation was made, that, the holy rites being performed, it was lawful for the hungry to taste food. But first came the sacrifice. The deer's ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... to be said in answer to these questions is that the standards of missionary living necessarily must vary with local conditions. In some places there is a mixture of races and peoples, each in general keeping with its own customs and dress, and yet mixing freely with the others. In such places there may be many Westerners, and Western ways may not only be familiar, but even adopted to a certain extent by the local people. In situations like this there may ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson

... drove along with them as many as they could, when they retired to the fortresses of North Devon and Cornwall, or the mountainous region of Wales, or when they took refuge in the retirement of East Sussex; and there, retaining all their prejudices, manners, and customs, were jealous of the preservation of that which reminded them of their native country before it yielded to ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel in their physical, moral, or political condition is perilous innovation; that their duty is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid in their courts obedience to acts of Parliament.... They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs, and manners; and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... of God at the exodus did not prevent that nation from repeated lapse into paganism, and acts of open disobedience to the Theocratic law. Still less were they debarred thereby the mere oriental customs of imparting moral instruction in secret associations, or the pursuit of science in hidden confraternities. But the train of thought and instruction in the Hebrew societies was singularly pure, and directly at variance with the mysteries of paganism. While ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... so neglectful of the enlightenment of the colored race, soon found themselves at war with the leaders of the time. In slaveholding communities the Quakers were persecuted, not necessarily because they adhered to a peculiar faith, not primarily because they had manners and customs unacceptable to the colonists, but because in answering the call of duty to help all men they incurred the ill will of the masters who denounced them as undesirable persons, bringing into America spurious doctrines subversive of the institutions ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... our allowance isn't anything like that,—it is quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne. "Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, as things are, we could go back and dress for the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle, and women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with wildflowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... of the Pattern, as it is called in Ireland, at which Larry and Sheelah duly performed their station. We, for our parts, should be sorry to see the innocent pastimes of a people abolished; but, surely, customs which perpetuate scenes of profligacy and crime should not be suffered to stain the pure and holy character ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... constant growth of oppression naturally incident to every tyrannic government, partly through the indirect operation of the Roman revolution—in the seizure, for instance, of the property of the soil in the province of Asia by Gaius Gracchus, in the Roman tenths and customs, and in the human hunts which the collectors of the revenue added to their other avocations there—the Roman rule, barely tolerable even from the first, pressed so heavily on Asia that neither the crown of the king nor the hut of the peasant there was any longer ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... your husband think of the upsetting of all home customs and the introduction of this young hero therein? Thank him for sending me the news in good season. I should not have liked it from a stranger. And by-the-bye, don't let your children say parp-er and marm-er, as nine children out of ten do. I daresay you never meant they should, having ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... regardeth Prince nor People, Law nor Custom; but doth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls Principles of Faith and Holiness. And in particular, I heard him once myself affirm That Christianity and the Customs of our Town of Vanity were diametrically opposite, and could not be reconciled. By which saying, my Lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... the occupants of almshouses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labor, or anything else, but their own independent exertions. These old gentlemen—seated, like Matthew, at the receipt of customs, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... into account the facts and testimony of impartial history in regard to human slavery among the nations, and the influence which the Roman Catholic Church brought to bear on that institution. We must study and remember the conditions and customs in pre-Christian times in regard to slaves, and we should also note the gradual transition from the state of things existing in the heathen world to that prevailing in our ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... without the consciousness of a great and common fatherland. Our German self-consciousness is no older than Bismarck. But we have become large-hearted, generous-minded, by having had to submit to foreign peoples and customs. Our religious feeling and our patriotism are of wider scope than those of others. Hence, I believe that, now that we have been for a generation occupied with our material strength and are politically united, our universal culture ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... first time we made game of it together. It was written in no style at all—split infinitives, and every sort of thing that makes an Oxford gorge rise. Then there was nothing that the man didn't swallow: mixing up classical myths, and stories out of the Golden Legend with reports of savage customs of today—all very proper, no doubt, if you know how to use them, but he didn't: he seemed to put the Golden Legend and the Golden Bough exactly on a par, and to believe both: a pitiable exhibition, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... how quickly she is becoming useful. She has almost given up her Indian customs, and is settling down quietly into English habits. Martin appears ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... to all that love to read and admire pure and chaste American works. It is a new work of unusual power and thrilling interest. The scene is laid in one of the southern States, and the story gives a picture of the manners and customs of the planting gentry, in an age not far removed backward from the present. The characters are drawn with a strong hand, and the book abounds with scenes of intense interest, the whole plot being wrought out with much power and effect; and no one, we are confident, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... him in free seat and cushioned pew. Ignorance of the world is worse than ignorance of letters, or sciences, or arts. A preacher ought, if possible, to know something of ancient oriental manners and customs and languages; but it is infinitely more important that he know something of the actualities of his own time. History tells us of the great French lady who, hearing the people clamour for bread, remarked that surely they need ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... small part of her family, with whom he was suffered to live on too intimate terms; for he afterwards published another extraordinary piece—"The Conduct and Good-Nature of Englishmen Exemplified in their charitable way of Characterising the Customs, Manners, &c. of Neighbouring Nations; their Equitable and Humane Mode of Governing States, &c.; their Elevated and Courteous Deportment, &c. of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as Vouchers," ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... gathering of long-severed friends? Do they find nothing to their purpose in our apple-bees, buskings, berry- pickings, summer picnics, and winter sleigh-rides? Is there nothing available in our peculiarities of climate, scenery, customs, and political institutions? Does the Yankee leap into life, shrewd, hard, and speculating, armed, like Pallas, for a struggle with fortune? Are there not boys and girls, school loves and friendship, courtings and match-makings, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... quaint, The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan. Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown; The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown; The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,— Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, All that lies buried under fifty years. To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, And, grateful, own the debt ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... practices required by the rule. The habit is similar to what was given to Lucchesio and his wife; but so, that this may be dispensed with, according to the state of life of the persons, and the customs of the country in which they may be. The spiritual exercises laid down in the rule, have nothing in them which can interfere with the different stations of persons living in the world. Days of fasting and abstinence are prescribed, but modified ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... that period, and more especially in latter years, the influence of the crown in this respect has been greatly diminished. First of all, there has been a large reduction of all such kinds of offices; and in the next place, in consequence of the different constitution and regulations of the customs and excise, and other public departments; and thus the influence formerly possessed by the Crown has ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... our principal landowner in Orkney, is just now writing an article on the ancient laws and customs of the county to be prefixed to a miscellaneous collection of documents, chiefly of the sixteenth century. He is taking the opportunity to give an account of the nature of the tenures by which the ancient Jarls held the Jarldom, and the manner in which the odalret became ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... masses as we find in the individuals, our work in the mountains would be quickly done. But, alas! what of these hundreds of thousands who seemingly have no more aspiration than the brute in their field? They are wedded to the customs of their ancestors, and they rebel at any innovation. Give them tobacco, and whiskey, and pistols, a little meal and bacon and coffee, a crude bed and a roof, and that, to them, is living. Oh, those purposeless lives! They exist simply because they are in the world and cannot help it. With the girls ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various

... speculation, on this sanative power in the physical constitution of man, lies open to out view, had we time to pursue it, in contemplating the habits, customs, and manners of the North American Indian. Guided by the simple dictates of nature, he gratifies his appetite with such food as comes most readily within his reach, and slakes his thirst at the first mountain brook. Sometimes, for days, he lies sleeping in his smoky wigwam without ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister

... Confederate times dat I come back from Sedalia to give you, dat's right. (This old negro, who had already been interviewed by the writer, came a long way and looked-up the author to tell him some incidents which he had forgotten to tell in the first interview.) Some customs is done went by now, but dey was practiced in Sedalia, and as to whar dem was done fer off ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... Venice very much to their liking, and all those I conversed with allowed its customs and style of living had a good deal of conformity to their own. The eternal lounging in coffee- houses and sipping of sorbets, agrees perfectly well with the inhabitants of the Ottoman empire, who stalk about here in their proper ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... deprived us of precious opportunities in the way of observations on the mental peculiarities which exist in a most interesting group of birds. In these days, when there is a fancy for reviving the customs of our forefathers, it might be well for some persons of leisure to give their attention to restoring the arts of falconry. Enough of the practice and of the traditions is left to make it an easy task to reinstitute all the important parts of the custom. Moreover, those ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... that a marriage that has nothing to do with love, and with honour, and with trust, is no marriage at all!" answered the girl. "Say what you please of customs, and traditions, and of station, and all that! God never meant that an innocent girl should be bought and sold like a slave, or a horse, for a name, nor for money, nor for any imaginary advantage to herself or to her father! I know what our privilege is, that the patricians ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... Statute of Mortmain; The Law Merchant; Origin of Habeas Corpus; Early Police Regulation; Opposition to Customs Duties; Interpretation of the Great Charter; Statute Against Chancery Jurisdiction; Early Tariffs on Wool; The English Language Replaces French; Freedom of Trade at Sea; Laws of the Staple; Early Food Laws Forbidding Trusts, etc.; The Statutes of Dogger; Department Stores ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... Red is intended, Mr. Hicks; it is just that Eastern people have different customs, and we have to humour them, although we may not ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... that severe Spartan school by which obedience is instilled into the youth of that country. For that reason it is said that the epithet of 'man-subduing' is applied to Sparta by the poet Simonides, because the Spartan customs render the citizens well behaved, and amenable to discipline, like horses who are broken to harness early in life. The direct heirs to the throne are not subjected to this training; but in the case of Agesilaus it happened that when ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... the very act. A war of words ensued; but the explanations given under the attendant circumstances were so unsatisfactory, that the vigilant chief of the customs clapped his broad mark on the mainmast, and seized the vessel and the unfortunate cask of rum in the name and behalf ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... Leave the Forks for Qu'appelle. Arrival at Brandon House. Indian Corpse staged. Marriages at Company's Posts. Distribution of the Scriptures. Departure from Brandon House. Encampment. Arrival at Qu'appelle. Character and Customs of Stone Indians. Stop at some Hunter's Tents on return to the Colony. Visit Pembina. Hunting Buffaloes. Indian address. Canadian Voyageurs. Indian Marriages. Burial Ground. Pemican. Indian Hunter sends his son to be educated. ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... selections are taken from The Oregon Trail, a narrative written by Francis Parkman describing the journey which he undertook in order to study the manners, customs and character of the Indians in their native state. Parkman planned this investigation to prepare himself more fully for writing his splendid Histories of the French and Indians in America, a series ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... which had affected them more cruelly than the others, very few of the mountaineers of Cibao paid tribute. These mountaineers did not differ in their customs and language from the people of the plain more than do the mountaineers of other countries differ from those who live in the capital. There exist amongst them, however, some points of resemblance, since they lead the same kind of simple, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... from the train, and hurrying into the customs-room of the station were soon lost in the crowd. The minutes ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... past nine, too. You hold to old-fashioned customs here, I perceive. 'Early to bed,' etcetera, etcetera. And yet they're no chickens. Let me see; I'm thirty-nine. According to my reckoning, they must carry about fourteen years apiece by this time. Dorothy looks ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... of this has been that the democratic revolution has been effected only in the material parts of society, without that concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and manners which was necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. We have gotten a democracy, but without the conditions which lessen its vices and render its natural advantages more prominent; and although we already perceive the evils ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... They have not lost the quaint simplicity of their parochialism, to become national if not cosmopolitan. Constant intercourse with even the most sober of visitors must take something from the provincialism, the cherished traditions and local customs, the personal peculiarities and dialect. But there is still a good deal left; there is still the possibility of reaching Nature in her inmost sanctuaries, and at the same time winning some of those elusive and shy confidences that are the ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... all the great reformatory questions of the day. Sympathising with all the great enterprises of Christian benevolence, it especially speaks against all war in the spirit of peace. It speaks for the slave as a brother bound; and for the abolition of all institutions and customs which do not respect the image of God and a human brother, in every man, or whatever clime, color or condition ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author



Words linked to "Customs" :   duty, Bureau of Customs, custom, customs duty, Customs Bureau, customs union, tariff



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