"Exorbitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between the lines of these verses we learn that what darkened the life of this true and loving woman was a mercenary husband, and that this husband survived her, and in his unhallowed greed sold her body, and this, too, at so exorbitant a price, that it required the united purses of three doctors to induce him ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... seventeenth century, then, when it is admitted that the high price of wool was not the cause which induced landowners to convert arable to pasture, it cannot be shown that the high price of cattle or exorbitant wages will account for the withdrawal of land from cultivation. This is an important point, for historians frequently support their main contention with regard to the enclosure movement (i. e., that it was caused by an increase in the price of wool), by the statement that increasing wages ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... the landlord of the hotel, was most obliging in helping us to arrange for our journey, promising to provide us with carriage and ekkas for a sum which did not seem to me to be at all exorbitant. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... much distracted with doubts as to my future line of conduct. God direct me. I am utterly blind. Wrote a very long letter to my dear father on the subject of my future profession, wishing if possible to bring the question to an immediate and final settlement.' The letter is exorbitant in length, it is vague, it is obscure; but the appeal contained in it is as earnest as any appeal from son to parent on such a subject ever was, and it is of special interest as the first definite indication alike of the extraordinary ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... leave it waste, or erect upon it horrible and devastating eyesores. If the community needed a road or a tramway, if it wanted a town or a village in any position, nay, even if it wanted to go to and fro, it had to do so by exorbitant treaties with each of the monarchs whose territory was involved. No man could find foothold on the face of the earth until he had paid toll and homage to one of them. They had practically no relations and no duties to the nominal, municipal, or national Government amidst whose larger areas ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... more patient man than Herr von Schalckenberg. The applicants proved to be, almost without exception, trades-unionists, out on strike because their employers had declined or had been unable to accede to the exorbitant demands of the workmen. These workmen had in many cases been idle for months; yet they now unhesitatingly refused employment, and refused it insolently too, because the wages offered by the professor, though fully equal to ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... because the furniture and everything else would require to be accordant therewith, besides making me pay an extravagant price, perhaps to accommodate the alterations to the taste of another or to the exorbitant rates of workmen. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... An exorbitant jealousy of miracle, revelation, and ultimate moral distinctions has been imported from evolutionary science into religious thought. And it has been a damaging influence, because it has taken men's attention from facts, and ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... to morning, without knowing what it is to lose. Far from losing the money you brought hither, as you have done in other places, you have doubled it, trebled it, multiplied it almost beyond your wishes, notwithstanding the exorbitant expenses you are imperceptibly led into. This, without doubt, is the most desirable situation in the world: stop here, Chevalier, and do not ruin your affairs by returning to your old sins. Avoid love, by pursuing other pleasures: love has never ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... so irritated Philip, might have met with other sentiments from the townsmen. The chancellor, Peter Flotte, foresaw this; he distributed among the public, instead of the original bull, a species of resume in which he had assembled, in a few lines, in the crudest terms, the most exorbitant pretensions of Boniface, at the same time suppressing everything which touched on the troubles of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Atheismi Triumphati, cap. 9. both urgeth and answers), besides the covetousness, imposture, and knavery of priests, quae faciunt (as [6639]Postellus observes) ut rebus sacris minus faciant fidem; and those religions some of them so fantastical, exorbitant, so violently maintained with equal constancy and assurance; whence they infer, that if there be so many religious sects, and denied by the rest, why may they not be all false? or why should this or that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Red Jacket strenuously resisted. He regarded the proposed cession of lands as exorbitant and unjust, and summoned all the resources of his eloquence to defend his position. The course of his argument and the various means he took to enforce it, we have no means of adequately presenting. A few hints respecting it, and the testimony of those present ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived. There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the convent, having been long in treaty with the friars for a steed which he had been commissioned by a nobleman to buy at any reasonable price. The friars, however, were exorbitant in their demands. On arriving at the gate, he sang to the friar who opened it a couplet which he had composed in the Gypsy tongue, in which he stated the highest price which he was authorised to give for the animal in question; ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... refused to supply them with necessaries; and as they could not return home, many had perished of want, or perhaps of the pestilence, in the open fields. Horses and coaches, he added, were not to be procured, except at exorbitant prices; and thousands had departed on foot, locking up their houses, and leaving ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... pretexts of offence. On the evening of the Emperor's birthday, March 22nd, 1887, certain Germans were congregated in a public bar. The season and the place considered, it is scarce cynical to assume they had been drinking; nor, so much being granted, can it be thought exorbitant to suppose them possibly in fault for the squabble that took place. A squabble, I say; but I am willing to call it a riot. And this was the new fault of Laupepa; this it is that was described by a German commodore as "the trampling upon by Malietoa of the German Emperor." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... again and again for the sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinous passion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; massacred them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities; fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... he was much patronised. To give credit to a certain amount was the miser's policy. When he once got the unhappy debtors in his toils it was hopeless to extricate themselves, and so they continued paying, as they were able, high prices and exorbitant interest, which left them no chance of making any profit in their own humble sphere. He had also lent a great deal of money, his income from that source alone being more than sufficient to keep himself and his niece in modest comfort, had he ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... may be left to the ignorance or the intolerance of the man of one idea. He will settle it for us, and we will duly disregard him. It is, for example, not the cultivated scientist, not the wise scientist, who urges those huge and exorbitant claims which are sometimes advanced for physical science in these days—for electricity and chemistry and ologies. The true scientist may perhaps prefer that his kine should be the fat kine—for he is but human—but he does not desire ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... law." It is difficult to see how the growth of the University during the past twelve years with its constantly expanding building program could have taken place without this salutary check upon the exorbitant demands of property owners in the neighborhood ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... Church is a little more careful in that direction. At least she does not openly demand tribute from prostitutes. She finds it much more profitable to go in for real estate, like Trinity Church, for instance, to rent out death traps at an exorbitant price to those who live off ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Hatton. He had also misconducted himself in a dispute with the Lord Chancellor respecting injunctions; moreover, he had insulted the king when called before him in the case of commendams. In addition, many extravagant and exorbitant opinions had been set down and published in his reports for positive and good law. So heinous an offender could not go unpunished. By royal mandate the delinquent was suspended from his office of Chief Justice. Simple suspension, however, brought no consolation to Bacon, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... by Cantouz and Guilhembert when they made that grim first ascent; and our guide, approaching now with the horses, points out the direction afterward taken by Whymper and himself. We settle our account for the repast,—an account by no means exorbitant; wraps are re-cylindered and re-strapped, and we are soon on the return path downward through the woods. The saddles pitch like skiffs at sea. These Pyrenean horses are far more pronounced in their motions than the lowly Swiss mule. One by one the ladies dismount, and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... a moderate Fortune that is gained with honour and Reputation, than in an overgrown Estate that is cankered with the Acquisitions of Rapine and Exaction. Were all our Offices discharged with such an inflexible Integrity, we should not see Men in all Ages, who grow up to exorbitant Wealth with the Abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary Mechanick. I cannot but think that such a Corruption proceeds chiefly from Mens employing the first that offer themselves, or those who have the Character of shrewd worldly ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... illumination,—which you cannot get; or if you could, it would be hell, and not heaven, that would be illuminated for you; not a spur to action,—for as things are constituted, any spur at such a time would drive you to wrong and exorbitant action:—what you need is not these, but simply stability to hold on; simply the habit of propriety, the power to go on at least following harmless conventions and doing harmless things; not striking out new lines for yourself, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... distinctly traders. They bind themselves to no time; they are often a week late, and they touch wherever demand calls them. The freight-charges are exorbitant, three pounds for fine goods and a minimum of thirty-six shillings, when fifteen per ton would pay. The White Star Line, therefore, threatens concurrence. Let us also hope that when the Gold Mines prosper we shall have our special steamers, where the passenger will be ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... that night, or rather tossed sleepless in the agency lodging house, on a dirty bed occupied by two women besides herself. In all her life she had never been inside such a filthy room, or heard such frightful conversation. Therefore next morning she gladly paid her exorbitant bill of one dollar and seventy-five cents, besides a fee of two dollars and a half for obtaining employment, and accepted the first place ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... conditions of life in Italy, as regards taxation, the problems of transit, the government restrictions on agricultural production and on manufactures, are absolutely intolerable and should not be endured for a day. The taxation is so exorbitant that it is a marvel Italy is not depopulated. On land the tax rate is from thirty to fifty per cent; the income tax is not merely, as one would suppose, levied on a legitimate income derived from a man's possessions, but is levied on salaries, ranging from ten to twenty per cent ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... exchange superfluities for necessaries. There the rarest articles, the value of which was not known to their possessors, were sold for the merest pittance; while others of little worth, but more showy appearance, were purchased at the most exorbitant prices. Gold, from being most portable, was bought at an immense loss with silver that the knapsacks were incapable of holding. Everywhere soldiers were seen seated on bales of merchandise, on heaps of sugar ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... certifying to the correctness of Connolly's books, William Copeland, a clerk in the office, was making a transcript of the Ring's fraudulent disbursements. Copeland was a protege of ex-sheriff James O'Brien, who had quarrelled with Connolly because the latter refused to allow his exorbitant bills, and with the Copeland transcript he tried to extort the money from Tweed. Failing in this he offered the evidence to the Times. A little later the same journal obtained a transcript of fraudulent armoury accounts through Matthew J. O'Rourke, a county bookkeeper. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... had reported their arrival, the trading commenced and was conducted upon a basis which gave general satisfaction. The most exorbitant and fabulous prices ruled for such articles as the mountaineers required. Sugar and coffee brought two dollars the pint; powder, the same; and ordinary blankets were sold at fifteen and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... not—there are persons who are willing to get you out of prison at no great cost; and as for the informers they are far from being exorbitant in their demands—a little money will satisfy them. My means, which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of money ...
— Crito • Plato
... the naturalists; she became acquainted with their origin and their virtues, and was extremely sad and dejected when, in one of her families, a single species was wanting. But what a joy when this gap was filled! No price was too exorbitant, then, to procure the missing species; and one day she paid for a small, insignificant plant from Chili the high price of three thousand francs, filling Bonpland with ecstasy, but the emperor with deep wrath as soon as he heard ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... unjust, as Victor could feel, though he did not know how coldly unjust. For among the exorbitant requisitions upon their fellow-creatures made by the young, is the demand, that they be definite: no mercy is in them for the transitional. And Dudley—and it was under her influence, and painfully, not ignobly—was in process of development: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... John of Barneveld," said the sentence, "without being put to the torture and without fetters of iron, has confessed . . . to having perturbed religion, greatly afflicted the Church of God, and carried into practice exorbitant and pernicious maxims of State . . . inculcating by himself and accomplices that each province had the right to regulate religious affairs within its own territory, and that other provinces were not to concern ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a pretty woman, occasionally called to apologize to her husband's chiefs for his absence, when he stayed away through ill-health. He was often ill, but he obtained promotion at each illness." In order to secure Saccard's influence, Michelin assisted him in getting exorbitant prices for land sold ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... the place and the time to ask you, respected reader, what your opinion is with regard to the renewal of the tobacco monopoly, and what you think of the exorbitant taxes on wines, on the right to carry firearms, on gaming, on lotteries, on playing cards, on brandy, on soap, cotton, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... money which it frequently could not repay. When this property became bankrupt, not only wiping out these investments but leaving the agricultural population at the mercy of what it regarded as exorbitant rates and all kinds of unfair discriminations with high interest charges on its mortgages and high local taxes, the blind fury that resulted among the farmers ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... "Mr Wallace," said the Major, "my friend Mr Newland was about, as you may see, to pay you the whole of your demand; but allow me to observe, that being my very particular friend, and the Piazza having been particularly recommended by me, I do think that your charges are somewhat exorbitant. I shall certainly advise Mr Newland to leave the house to-morrow, if you are ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... subjected to all manner of extortion and annoyance, being repeatedly brought before the authorities on the most absurd charges. The fear that her husband would be put to death so haunted her, that she was willing to meet the most exorbitant demands, hoping thereby ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... young patrician began to doubt his own identity when he was thus addressed—"Ketch on and do them yourself!" There was no redress, no possible remedy, and finally our compatriot humbled himself to a negro, and paid an exorbitant ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the London cabman seldom asks more than fifty per cent. above what the law allows him; and this (by Americans, at least) is considered quite reasonable and cheerfully paid. If our New-York Jehus could only be made to realize that they keep their carriages empty by their exorbitant charges, and really double-lock their pockets against the quarters that citizens would gladly pour into them, I think a reform might ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... frauds. To confirm all these observations, it is sufficient to refer to France, where State influence has been supreme for the last seventy years in university education, and where the Government has exercised an exorbitant control over every branch of public instruction. What has been the result? Literature has fallen away, the number of schools has decreased, the French language has decayed, whilst moral corruption has penetrated the heart of the country, and infidelity of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... silks," says Hutton, in his 'History of Derby,' "was the taste of the ladies, and the British merchant was obliged to apply to the Italian with ready money for the article at an exorbitant price." Crotchet did not succeed in his undertaking. "Three engines were found necessary for the process: he had but one. An untoward trade is a dreadful sink for money; and an imprudent tradesman is still more dreadful. We often see instances where a fortune would last a man ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... as he has least studied, and forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let him lend the bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit of an exorbitant subscription.' Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same journalist of June 8. 'The bookseller proposed the book by subscription, and raised some thousands ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... great Library. His Oriental researches, as we know, were speedily abandoned, but the rooms in Great Russell Street still kept their tenant. They were far from an ideal abode, indifferently furnished, with draughty doors and smoky chimneys, and the rent was exorbitant; the landlady, who speedily gauged her lodger's character, had already made a small competency out of him. Even during long absences abroad Egremont retained the domicile; at each return he said to himself that he must really find quarters at once more reputable and more homelike, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... it should be added that the same game is repeated in the associations. The directors would often be satisfied with much lower salaries, for they often really do not know what to do with their incomes, which, in comparison with prices in Freeland, are in some cases exorbitant, and increase with every increase in the value of labour. Particularly during the last decade, since the value of the hour-equivalent has increased so much, proposals from above to reduce salaries have become a standing rule. I repeat, this reduction must be understood to be merely relative—that ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... confinement they proposed to him to redeem his liberty with the sum of L3000, and to persuade the king to purchase their departure out of the kingdom, with a further sum of L10,000. As Alphage's circumstances would not allow him to satisfy the exorbitant demand, they bound him, and put him to severe torments, to oblige him to discover the treasure of the church; upon which they assured him of his life and liberty, but the prelate piously persisted in refusing to give the pagans any account of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... at a price that for any other English sixpenny paper I would have considered exorbitant, a copy of the Speaker at one of the charming kiosks that decorate Paris; institutions, by the way, that I think we should at once introduce into London. The kiosk is a delightful object, and, when illuminated at night from within, as lovely as a fantastic Chinese ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... mile's walk they entered the town. It was open, and undefended by a wall. The streets were wide, and laid out at right angles. The shops, however, were poor, for the slightest appearance of wealth sufficed to excite the cupidity of Tippoo or his agents, and the possessor would be exposed to exorbitant demands, which, if not complied with, would have entailed first torture ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... Meanwhile he pretended that it was requisite to have all the fortresses of Scotland delivered into his hands, in order to enable him, without opposition, to put the true heir in possession of the crown; and this exorbitant demand was complied with, both by the states and by the claimants.[**] The governors also of all the castles immediately resigned their command; except Umfreville, earl of Angus, who refused, without a formal and particular acquittal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... plunge into the abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of their heads is not understood. An artist's face is always exorbitant, it is always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call the beau-ideal. What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... we would know how far, and in what sense, the opposite views are true" (Eth. Nic., ix, c. viii. Sec. 3). What do you mean by "usury"? (C) Do you comprehend under it any payment of money as interest for the use of borrowed capital? or only exorbitant, inequitable, grinding interest, such as the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... quite willing to oblige an old customer to that extent. He could well afford it, he said; and it was unquestionable truth that he uttered, for his charges were exorbitant. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... beech-boughs change mysteriously to brightest green; and the bluebells burst into blossom in the untrodden glades and bottoms. Captain Winstanley found a small house in Mayfair, which he hired for six weeks, at a rent which he pronounced exorbitant. He sacrificed his own ideas of prudence to the gratification of his wife; who had made up her mind that she had scarcely the right to exist until she had been presented to her sovereign in her new name. But when Mrs. Winstanley ventured ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... which inflicts a succession of shocks on any one who takes hold of it, producing spasms which contract the muscles of the hand, so that the man cannot open his fingers; and the animal inflicts new and more violent shocks, until he paralyzes and kills his victim. So, this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him; and the universal cry of France, and of Europe, in 1814, was, "enough ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... as the Chinese on rice, the monopolist is able to obtain a high price for the whole of a supply which does not exceed what is necessary to keep alive the whole population. Thus a monopolist of corn or rice in a famine can get an exorbitant price for a considerable supply. But after the supply is large enough to enable every one to satisfy the most urgent need for sustenance, the urgency of the need satisfied by any further supply falls rapidly, for ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... town in the United States which exhibits more deplorably the ravages of war than Harper's Ferry. More than half the buildings are in ruins, and those now inhabited are occupied by small dealers and peddlers, who follow troops, and sell at exorbitant prices, tarts and tinware, cakes and crockery, pipes and poultry, shoes and shirts, soap and sardines. The location is one of peculiar beauty. The Potomac receives the Shenandoah at this point; each stream flowing through its own deep, wild, winding valley, until ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... hours, which could on pressure be extended to forty-eight, and, therefore, any one could obtain shelter for forty-eight hours, and have no questions asked, provided he or she was willing to pay the exorbitant sum usually ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... out of unsatisfactory farming conditions was the exorbitant rates of interest charged Negro farmers by merchants and planters for money borrowed to aid them in raising their crops. The system of lending sums of money was thus: The tenant would contract for a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... currency, or Continental money, had by this time brought the serious burden of high prices upon the people. The traders, who demanded apparently exorbitant rates for their goods, were denounced in public meetings at Pittsburgh as being "now commonly known by the disgraceful epithet of speculators, of more malignant natures than the savage Mingoes in the wilderness." This hardship grew in severity until the finances were put upon ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... was afraid that he would not be able to secure a seat in the diligence, so numerous were the travellers who wished to leave Brussels behind them. But in this, Chance and the length of his purse favoured him: he bought his seat for an exorbitant price, but he bought it; and at nine o'clock the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... an exorbitant price, even if the book were new, but Abe was at the old man's mercy. He realized this, and made the best of a bad bargain. He cheerfully did the work for a man who was mean enough to take advantage of his misfortune. He comforted ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... miscreants selling mouldy bread at exorbitant prices. The dead in their thousands, over whom there was no time to carry out funeral rites, were borne away ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... unparalleled even in their own history. Danzig's Life of Man (Hayye Adam, Vilna, 1810), containing all Jewish ritual ceremonies, was followed out to the least minutiae. Despite the poverty of the Jews and the comparatively exorbitant price the publisher had to charge for the Talmud, and, aside from the many sets of former editions in the country and those continually imported, and in addition to the Responsa, commentaries, Midrashim, and other works directly and indirectly bearing on it, ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... could not afford to lag far behind.[256] The Margrave of Brandenburg, "the father of all greediness," as the Austrians called him, was particularly influential because his brother, the Archbishop of Mainz, was also an elector and he required an especially exorbitant bribe. He was ambitious as well as covetous, and the rivals endeavoured to satisfy his ambitions with matrimonial prizes. He was promised Ferdinand's widow, Germaine de Foix; Francis sought to parry this blow by offering to the Margrave's son the French Princess Renee; Charles bid higher ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Delfosse, Belgian minister at Washington, a gentleman certain to favor Great Britain at our expense. As a consequence, we were forced to pay for reciprocity to the round note of $5,500,000. The money was a trifle; but its exorbitant amount had the unhappy effect of prejudicing our people against the new arrangement. The result was that at the earliest possible moment, viz., July 1, 1883, our Government gave the notice necessary for its abrogation. This followed on July 1, 1885, in the very ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... many temptations of court life for a gay young wife, he sometimes doubted, but he had to accept the fact. His uncle had given him a handsome income at first, but he could see now that it was paid at longer intervals and with much pleading of hard times. Indeed, from these very complaints of exorbitant taxes, he gleaned that the war was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... William's state of mind had become is matter for exorbitant conjecture. Jane, arriving at his locked door upon an errand, was bidden by a thick, unnatural ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows, an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms? Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Have you no fear that you are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may flesh itself in the hand that dares ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... from which no income could possibly arise, seemed to him an act of egregious folly. But any thing for peace. To sell it, and put the money in his business, was a much more desirable act, instead of borrowing money, at an exorbitant interest, in order to make his payments. He had more than once thought of doing this. At the time the investment was made, his business operations were light, and he did not need the use of over ten thousand ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... proprietor was obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced, ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which the government admitted of this alterative. Such was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... asses, and mules,) camels, which are much in use as beasts of burden. Smoking is a very general practice here, and consequently there is no want of ordinary cigars; but I was surprised to find that Havannah cigars are very difficult to be procured. They can be obtained, however, but at un exorbitant rate, in consequence of the risks attending the smuggling. Tobacco is a royal monopoly, and the duty is so high, that it amounts almost to a prohibition, and consequently affords great temptation ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... know, that we are here three degrees to the north of you, and that the present is the coldest winter since the year 1780-81; and yet I have not seen a close stove since I left New York. The tavern bills in these states are near one hundred per cent under yours. The exorbitant charges of your tavern-keepers are a disgrace to the country: I could never account for your submitting so quietly ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... professional singer, generally the tenor from the opera; the canon could always get such people—he was a great favourite with artistes and "the profession." Of course, the singers were paid, and the difficulty this week had been due to the exorbitant fee demanded by the Italian ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... equal value; but I assured them that Europeans would much rather run the risque of being plundered in a hostile manner than have their goods (which were brought to purchase provisions) extorted from them by such exorbitant demands. After going backwards and forwards to the king, his Majesty was pleased to say he was satisfied; and what surprised me, said that he was coming to pay us a friendly visit in the afternoon. He accordingly paid us a visit, attended by ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... this description: a somewhat sticky, candy-eating lady with a mania for card parties, who undoubtedly would have dyed her hair if she had lived. He was not inconsolable, but he had had enough of marriage to learn that it demands a somewhat exorbitant price for joys otherwise ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... However, after exorbitant compensation had been made, and Molly had given in return "a bit of her mind," she left for the Irish colony of San Patricio, and Manuel immediately sought his favorite monte table. When he had doubled his money, he intended to obey Molly's emphatic orders, ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... I found my father under the hands of the Medical Rubber, she took no notice of me. On the second occasion—when she had been in daily attendance on him for a week, at an exorbitant fee—she said in the coolest manner: "Who is this young gentleman?" My father laid down his book, for a moment only: "Don't interrupt me again, ma'am. The young gentleman is my son Philip." Mrs. Tenbruggen eyed ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... a fine specimen of the product of a shrewd charlatan's fertile brain, and doubtless found a ready sale at an exorbitant price. The fact that one, at least, of its ingredients is mythical, probably enhanced its curative properties, in the minds of a gullible public. The horn of the unicorn was popularly regarded as the most marvellous of remedies. In reality, it was the tusk of a cetaceous ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... be better, and recalling that under the old private system the fare for the forty-seven miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents for every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem particularly exorbitant. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... depraved. But love is only one of many passions, and as it has no great influence upon the sum of life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet who caught his ideas from the living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... brown-bouted beggar!' exclaimed Mr. Watchorn, returning his horn to its case, and eyeing Mr. Sponge and Miss Glitters sailing away with the again breast-high-scent pack. 'Oh, you exorbitant usurer!' continued he, gathering his horse to skate after them. 'Well now, that's the most disgraceful proceedin' I ever saw in the whole course of my life. Hang me, if I'll stand such work! Dash me, but I'll 'quaint the Queen!—I'll tell Sir George Grey! I'll write to Mr. Walpole! ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... loan companies that charged exorbitant rates of interest and had their contracts so arranged that a failure to pay put them in possession of the household goods of the party in debt. It was also held to be a criminal offense punishable by a term in the penitentiary for a person to borrow ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... an exorbitant drojky-driver at St. Petersburg are worthy of record. They remind one of a story which he himself used to tell as having happened to a friend of his at Oxford. The latter had driven up in a cab to Tom Gate, and offered the cabman the proper ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... alive, that they send this man to me to recover him of his leprosy?' Or contrast it with Peter's 'Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?' Christ takes as His due all the honour, love, and trust, which any man can give Him—either an exorbitant appetite for adulation, or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... is exorbitant for a g-gypsey's fiddle! You could buy a d-dozen other instruments for that, just as ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... shall be transmitted word for word to M. de Villars, who will lay them before the king," said Lalande, "and you may be sure, sir, that my most sincere wish is that His Majesty may not find them exorbitant." ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... against the "rage for speculating in and forestalling of land on the North West of the Ohio," protesting that "scarce a valuable spot within any tolerable distance of it is left without a claimant." He therefore urged Congress to fix a reasonable price for the land, not "too exorbitant and burdensome for real occupiers, but ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... in Massachusetts in the five years following 1656. These early Quakers, when not the veritable persons, were the ghosts of the old troublers of "the Lord's people in the Bay." Gorton, Randall Holden, Mrs. Dyer, and other "exorbitant persons," who had been found "unmeet to abide in this jurisdiction," could not be got rid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... a reply to us when the cellar was getting empty. But in London they seem to be ready to put up with any excuse. Why the men who ought to deliver the coals are not made to, I can't imagine. Anyhow, as I was freezing, I moved into lodgings, where there is coal, although an exorbitant price is asked for ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... is, above all else, courteous and considerate. He is master of himself, and that at all points,—in his carriage, his temper, his aims, and his desires. Calm, quiet, and temperate, he will not allow himself to be hasty in judgment, or exorbitant in ambition; nor will he suffer himself to be overbearing or grasping, arrogant ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... their journey a week later, having communicated with Rochambeau, who agreed to meet them at Wethersfield. All went well, for the wretched inns were not exorbitant, until they reached Hartford. They arrived late in the afternoon, weary and ravenous. After a bath and a glimpse of luxurious beds, they marched to the dining room and sat down to a sumptuous repast, whose like had greeted neither nostril nor palate ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... location in the heart of each town, perhaps on the main street, is more important than the price. You will, of course, protect me from robbery to the best of your ability; but buy, even if the price is exorbitant. I will this afternoon place a hundred thousand dollars to your credit in the bank, with which to make advance payments, and when you notify me how much more is required I will forward my ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... perfect and lasting satisfaction." He then adds, "My last observation received the most marked approbation of the lunar inhabitants: they truly pitied the ignorant triflers of our sinful world, who prefer drunkenness, debauchery, sinful amusements, exorbitant riches, flattery, and other things that are highly esteemed amongst men, to the pleasures of godliness, to the life of God in the soul of man, to the animating hope of future ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... each submitted to these exorbitant demands on their mind and attention, in hope of a crowning triumph, when at last Dinah should become human; for neither of them was so bold as to imagine that Dinah would give up her innocence as a wife till she should have lost all her illusions. In 1826, when she was surrounded ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... by the large Neapolitan force at present in Calabria. This would put the King's Government in a far more commanding position for terms in any future negotiations with Sicily, and probably put off a final settlement by inducing claims too exorbitant to ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... ferns, invent their own patterns, or, what seems even more wonderful, make them by chewing a piece of bark into the form they require—the bark assuming the appearance of a stamped braiding pattern. As the white people put an exorbitant price on the flour and trinkets they give in exchange for the Indians' work, the latter ask, when selling for money, what seems more than its full value; but many who travel that way, provided with cheap trinkets and gaudy ribbons, get ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... is the ability of the negro to bear these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may net for a year's work the fabulous sum of from fifty to eighty dollars. And this in a country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... travelling Moorman, who had just arrived at the village with a little rice to exchange with the Veddahs for dried venison. As the villagers did not happen to have any meat to barter, we purchased all the rice at an exorbitant price; but it was only sufficient for half a meal for each servant and coolie, when ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Eustace's mind a vivid picture—the black-fellow with poised boomerang standing over the shrinking Chinkee, threatening his life if he did not obey the exorbitant demands. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... is what may be called, from no mere Grundyite point of view, the drawback that they are all studies of "the triangle." They are quite decently, and in fact morally, though not goodily, handled. But it certainly may be objected that trigonometry[267] of this kind occupies an exorbitant place in French literature, and one may be a little sorry to see a neophyte of talent taking to it. However, though Sandeau in these books showed his ability, his way did not really lie in, though it might lie through, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... be found to comprehend, we may say, in an eminent degree, variety of outline, correctness of detail, force of expression and purity of taste, with simplicity of execution, and in those parts of the country where lumber is abundant, and labor not exorbitant, it can be ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... sandwich, "that any decent chap would know that we belonged to the union? We are going to form a housewives' league at dawn to-morrow, and then we will find the culprits. They will be offering us our own grub at exorbitant rates." ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the cathedral, whilst the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he celebrated his first school prize with an illustrated letter, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... situation as that of the Binan tenantry in his grandfather's time, when the landlords were compelled to produce their title-deeds, and these proved that land of others had been illegally included in the estate. Other tenants, emboldened by Mercado's example also refused to pay the exorbitant rent increases. ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... is no duty on tea, the average consumption is 41/2 lbs. per head per annum. The same rate for the United Kingdom would require an annual importation of nearly 150 million lbs. I asserted, many months ago, if the duty could be gradually reduced from its present exorbitant amount to 1s. per lb., the revenue would not suffer much, whilst the comfort of the people would be much increased, and our trade with China ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Still their prices are high enough to mark the thoroughfare as one out of the common, and it is further distinguished by two rows of lofty eucalyptus trees. These have a real feathery beauty, and are perhaps a factor in the seemingly exorbitant prices demanded for the choice bungalow and home sites they shade. Save for a casual pioneer bungalow or two, there are no buildings to attract the notice until one reaches a high fence that marks the beginning of the Holden lot. Back of this fence is secreted ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... of his work is somewhat too much of a good thing. He begged for an increase of wages to compensate him for the loss of the hut, but Sir John pointed out to him that if he was not satisfied his place could be easily filled by less exorbitant shepherds. Sir John even condescended to explain that the laws of political economy bind employers to buy labor in the cheapest market, and our poor friend, just as ignorant of economics as Sir John, of course did not know that this ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the sweat of his face was peculiarly marked. He was the eldest of seven sons, ranging in age from eleven to twenty years, including one pair of twins. The parents had been greatly pitied for the exorbitant exactions of rearing this large family during its immaturity, but now, the labor of farm, barnyard and woodpile, distributed among so many stalwart fellows of the same home and interest was light and the result ample. Perhaps ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... at the statement that "Swedenborg and Behmen both failed by attaching themselves to the Christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which carries innumerable christianities, humanities, divinities in its bosom." The men of science will smile at the exorbitant claims put forward in behalf of Swedenborg as a scientific discoverer. "Philosophers" will not be pleased to be reminded that Swedenborg called them "cockatrices," "asps," or "flying serpents;" "literary men" will not agree that they are "conjurers ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... changed for better or worse, and looked to that first reading as the creation of my world; for when we are young the less circumstantial, the further from common life a book is, the more does it touch our hearts and make us dream. We are idle, unhappy and exorbitant, and like the young Blake admit no city beautiful that is not ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... composers. Another animal which shares with the hedgehog the defensive faculty of rolling itself up in a ball is the "pill millipede," a myriopod with seventeen pairs of legs, but fortunately exempt from the necessity of wearing trousers, which at present prices would impose an exorbitant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... indiction, or tax levy of each diocese, which was set up in its principal city, and when this proved insufficient, an additional tax, or superindiction, was imposed. Lands, cattle, and slaves were all heavily taxed, and the declining agriculture of the empire was finally ruined by the exorbitant demands of the state. In Campania alone, once the most fertile part of Italy, one eighth of the whole province lay uncultivated, and the condition of Gaul seems to have been no better. Besides this, merchants, manufacturers, mechanics, and citizens were taxed beyond their power of endurance, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... what he did, Was at last condemned for what he could not do. Oh! indignant reader! Think not his life useless to mankind! Providence connived at his execrable designs, To give to after ages A conspicuous proof and example Of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth In the sight of God, By his bestowing it on the most unworthy ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... reign of King William, by which it was made felony for any person to buy goods stolen, knowing them to be so, and some examples having been made on this Act, there were few or no receivers to be met with. Those that still carried on the trade took exorbitant sums for their own profit, leaving those who had run the hazard of their necks in obtaining them, the least share of the plunder. This (as an ingenious author says) had like to have brought the thieving trade to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... pence for every action that lay against him. For leave to go out with a keeper upon security (as formerly in the Queen's Bench) the prisoners paid for the first time four shillings and tenpence, and two shillings every day afterwards. The exorbitant prison fees of three shillings a day swallowed up all the prison bequests, and the miserable debtors had to rely on better means from the Lord Mayor's table, the light bread seized by the clerk of the markets, and presents of under-sized and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to organize and win their own rights. Their demands do not seem to us so very criminal as we read them today; the privilege of electing their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the right to hunt and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction of exorbitant rents, extra payment for extra labor, and—that universal cry of peasant communes whether in Russia, England, Mexico or sixteenth century Germany—the restoration to the village of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear nothing of slaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... monster collection of pin-cushions, needle-books, card-racks, workbags, articles of infant wear, etc., etc., etc., made by the willing or reluctant hands of the Christian ladies of a parish, and sold perforce to the heathenish gentlemen thereof, at prices unblushingly exorbitant. The proceeds of such compulsory sales are applied to the conversion of the Jews, the seeking up of the ten missing tribes, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... reception in 1763 was very different. He wrote to Adam Smith:—'I have been three days at Paris, and two at Fontainebleau, and have everywhere met with the most extraordinary honours which the most exorbitant vanity could wish or desire.' The Dauphin's three children, afterwards Lewis XVI, Lewis XVIII, and Charles X, had each to make a set speech of congratulation. He was the favourite of the most exclusive coteries. J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 168, 177, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... reality of the opposition, the Presidents bowed to him as he passed them. The denunciations of the Roman system by Strossmayer and Darboy were listened to in January without a murmur. Adversaries paid exorbitant compliments to each other, like men whose disagreements were insignificant, and who were one at heart. As the plot thickened, fatigue, excitement, friends who fetched and carried, made the tone more bitter. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the fisherman and the longshoreman were notorious offenders in this respect. Whenever they saw a vessel bound in, they were in the habit of putting off to her and of first inciting the crew to escape and then hiring themselves at exorbitant rates to work the vessel into port. On such mischievous interlopers the gangsman had no mercy. He took them whenever he could, confident that when their respective cases were stated to the Board, that body would "tumble" to ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... of precious stones came along, and saw in this pile a block of jade of great value. In order to get possession of this stone at a small cost, he undertook to buy the whole heap, pretending that he wished to use it in building. The little head of the family asked an exorbitant price for them, and, as he could not induce her to take less, he promised to pay her the sum she asked, and to come two days later to bring the money and to remove the stones. That night the girl thought ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... evidently gathered there to await the arrival of the boat. The air was filled with the yelling and chattering of Arabs and negroes. The crowd was composed of all sorts of porters, hawkers offering their cheap wares for sale at exorbitant prices, dirty donkey boys with their wretched "mokes" looking even more starved and miserable than their owners. The dresses were of many kinds, and in a great variety of colours, from a dingy white to a bright scarlet. Close-fitting ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... was compelled to ride as he was yet unable to walk. I barted my Elkskins old irons and 2 canoes for beads. one of the canoes for which they would give us but little I had cut up for fuel. These people have yet a large quantity of dryed fish on hand yet they will not let us have any but for an exorbitant price. we purchased two dogs and some shappellel from them. I had the horses graized untill evening and then picquited and bubbled within the limits of our camp. I ordered the indians from our camp this evening and informed them that if I caught them attempting ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... direction, to be supplied with cattle, he indeed promised to furnish us with as many as we wanted, but we never got more than a single lean bullock. The company perfectly tyrannizes over the inhabitants, and sells them wretched merchandize at exorbitant prices."—G.F. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... to the Revolution of 1688, during the whole progress that Louis XIV. made in obtaining such exorbitant power, as gave him well-grounded hopes of acquiring at last to his family the Spanish monarchy, England had been either an idle spectator of what passed on the continent, or a faint and uncertain ally against France, or a warm and sure ally on her side, or a partial mediator between her and the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... half-a-crown for each day the servant has been absent from public labour. Servants, who are prisoners, are not to be beaten by their masters; who are to complain to a magistrate when necessary, on pain of forfeiting such future accommodation. Those prisoners off the stores who charge exorbitant prices for their labour, or misbehave in any other respect, will be recalled, and such other punishment inflicted according to the nature of the offence. Masters of convicts to clothe and maintain them with a ration equal to that issued ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... Coast, however—or at least at several of the big hotels out on the Coast—the system, thanks to Eastern influence, has been changed. The whole scheme is patterned after the accepted New York model. The charges for small services are as exorbitant as in New York, and the iniquities of the tipping system are worked out as amply and as wickedly as in the city ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... happier tone. After some years, when four daughters had been born to Colonel and Mrs. Taylor, while yet they had no son, the general chaffed them gently on the subject: "Give my congratulations to Mrs. Taylor," he wrote. "Tell her I hope that when her fancy for girls is satisfied (mine is exorbitant) she will begin upon the boys. We must have somebody ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... took advantage of the restful hours, to ask Barbara just how much money she needed to defray her expenses in camp, with her mother. And in spite of her mentioning an exorbitant sum, he silently wrote out ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... laid under Charity's eyes a summons and complaint against Peter Cheever. She glanced over it and found it true except that Zada L'Etoile was not named; Cheever's alleged income was vastly larger than she imagined, and her claim for alimony was exorbitant. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... high, nearly double those of Nicolayevsk, and the stocks of goods on hand are neither large nor well selected. Officers complained to me of combinations among the merchants to maintain prices at an exorbitant scale. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... told that the most beautiful spot in Savatthi was the royal park of Prince Jeta, which Anatha Pindika wanted to buy for the brotherhood of Buddha. The owner was unwilling to sell and made the exorbitant demand to have the whole ground covered with gold as its price. But Anatha Pindika had the gold carried to the garden ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... 'insults.' He calls his country a republic—it is so in name only. The majority of the population, representing the wealth and intelligence of the country—the Uitlanders—are refused almost every civil right, except the privilege of paying exorbitant taxes to swell an already overgorged treasury. Under this ideal(?) government, which is really a sixteenth-century oligarchy flourishing at the end of the nineteenth, and is, certainly not ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... difference in his duties; he still combined the functions of loan-agent, consul, naval director, and minister, as before. Nor was he even yet wholly rid of Arthur Lee. He had, however, the satisfaction of absolutely refusing to honor any more of Lee's or Izard's exorbitant drafts ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... me. Do you think I have devoted to you my life, my blood, shown myself ready to kill, to assassinate your enemy, in order that I may receive that exorbitant interest called gratitude? Have I become an usurer of this kind? There are some men who would hang the weight of a benefit around your heart like a cannon-ball attached to the feet of——, but let that pass! Such men I would crush as I would ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... with two small black bulls yoked to a pair of wheels such as are used by lumbermen. Their owner was a compound of Caucasian, African, and Indian, with the shrewdness of the white, the good temper of the negro, and the indolence of the red man. He was at first exorbitant in his demands; but a little money, some tobacco, and a spare fowling-piece made him happy, and he was ready to let us drive his beasts to the end of the peninsula. It required some skill to mount the boat securely ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... elected to Congress.* It would not be correct to say that the Negro race was malicious or on evil bent. Unless deliberately stirred up by white leaders, few Negroes showed signs of mean spirit. Few even made exorbitant demands. They wanted "something"—schools and freedom and "something else," they knew not what. Deprived of the leadership of the best whites, they could not possibly act with the scalawags—their traditional enemies. Nothing was left for them but ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... all. We pray them to send us troops from home to fight the French; and we propose to maintain the troops when they come. We not only don't keep our promise, and make scarce any provision for our defenders, but our people insist upon the most exorbitant prices for their cattle and stores, and actually cheat the soldiers who are come to fight their battles. No wonder the General swears, and the troops are sulky. The delays have been endless. Owing to the failure of the several provinces to provide their promised ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... it. But confess now, noble Piso, if in thy judgment it would have been exorbitant if I had required of thee three talents of Jerusalem instead of two? For what wouldst thou cross that molten sea, and be buried under its fiery waves! It is none other than a miracle that I am here alive in Ecbatana. And for thee I fear that miracle would not have been ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... for it. They told me the price—swindlingly exorbitant for the unwary traveller who might ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... other employment without the risk of impressment while openly looking for it. These crimps were to be found in every British seaport, abroad as well as at home, and a very good thing they made of it, what with their exorbitant charges for board and lodging on the one hand, and, on the other, the premiums or head- money that they received from ship-masters for the supply of men. It was, of course, to their interest to be loyal to the men, and hence they hedged themselves and their houses about with ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... were dethroned; everywhere were the French, with their Republican banners, mouthing the great words Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, ravaging and plundering in the most shameless fashion, and extorting the most exorbitant taxes. But the contagion spread—the Italians were impressed with the wonderful exploits of the one-time Corsican corporal, and they, in turn, began to wag their heads in serious discussion of the "rights of man," ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... by this new route to the East (via Duluth for a portion of Northern Iowa and Southern and Central Minnesota) is a saving of the three hundred miles of extra rail transportation incurred by way of Lake Michigan; to say nothing of avoiding the exorbitant tolls and inexplicable delays of the latter route. The difference inhering to the benefit of the public, between the two routes, has been estimated, amounts to about one dollar per barrel in favor of this new outlet. If this can be proved true by practical experience, it must inevitably ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... of surly defiance and ostentation of poverty that showed they expected Gerrard's financial expedient to take the form of obtaining a forced loan from them. The sight of the gold ingots softened them wonderfully, and though it would not have been human nature had they failed to exact an exorbitant rate of exchange for their silver, both sides parted well pleased, the money-changers only grieving that they could not discover whether this transaction was a final one, or merely a prelude to further business of the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... to Patras. We therefore inquired for a vessel to take us thither; but never shall I forget my feelings of horror while trying to contract with a man for a boat. I said in my heart, O that I might be permitted to try the fleece once more in turning our faces towards Athens. The man was exorbitant in his demands, and it was too late to reach Patras without risking the night on the sea. To stay where we were was next to impossible without serious injury, especially to my dear Martha. Strong indeed was our united prayer for direction and help in this time of distress, and ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... taking into account Marion's penurious habit of charging Kate for every facial massage and every manicure she gave her. When Kate looked ahead to the long winter they must spend together in that cabin, she was tempted to feel as though she, for one, would be paying an exorbitant price for her ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... speculation; but they can bring nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and honest labor. Who are they that profit by the present state of things? They are not the many, but the few. They are speculators, brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant interest. Small capitalists are crushed, and, their means being dispersed, as usual, in various parts of the country, and this miserable policy having destroyed exchanges, they have no longer either money or credit. And all classes of labor partake, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... students, to whom I paid one hundred dollars for my course of instruction. Since that time I have never employed a physician or paid out a penny for medicines. In view of these facts, do you think that the price of the book and teaching should be regarded as 'exorbitant,' 'out of all reason,' an 'imposition upon the public,' and many similar expressions, as are repeated over and over by numerous ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... abusing their position to enrich themselves by trade with the Kafirs. This abuse has sometimes occurred, and clearly ought to be checked by the home societies. But probably it does not disgust the wandering white trader any more than the fact that the missionary often warns the native against the exorbitant prices which the trader demands for his goods. They are blamed for making the converted Kafir uppish, and telling him that he is as good as a white man, an offence which has no doubt been often committed. ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... necks. They begged us to visit their village, and offered a heifer for each lion shot on Mount Libahlay: unhappily we could not afford time. These youths were followed by men and women bringing milk, sheep, and goats, for which, grass being rare, they asked exorbitant prices,—eighteen cubits of Cutch canvass for a lamb, and two of blue cotton for a bottle of ghee. Amongst them was the first really pretty face seen by me in the Somali country. The head was well ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the end that remuneration might be granted to the regiment for loss sustained. This committee, after due consideration, placed the estimate at a very low figure—viz., L1,500. The parsimony of those in power refused us full payment of this just debt, intimated also that the demand was exorbitant, and closed all further action in the matter by sending us a draft on the Treasury for half the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... had courage to stand up in his favour. It was finally resolved, without a dissentient voice, that Mr. Aislabie had encouraged and promoted the destructive execution of the South-Sea scheme with a view to his own exorbitant profit, and had combined with the directors in their pernicious practices, to the ruin of the public trade and credit of the kingdom: that he should for his offences be ignominiously expelled from the House of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Dolorosa to come into her room. It was a queer fancy in one so devoted to paintings as she is. I have been wishing ever since she got it to buy a pendant for it. I found a splendid 'Niobe in Tears'—paid an exorbitant price for it—brought it home, thinking Helen would be charmed, but she banished it to the library. Then I purchased a 'Hecate'—a wonderfully beautiful thing, but that was also condemned, and sent into banishment. ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... highest bidder; the rich man will be tempted to purchase them for himself, in order that he may increase his own comfort and luxury, and feel comparatively lazy and careless about their application to the welfare of the masses; he will be tempted to pay an exorbitant price for anything that can increase his personal convenience, and yet when the question is about improving the supply of necessaries to the poor, stand haggling about considerations of profitable investment, excuse himself from doing the duty ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... allowed to put the money in their own pockets; and in 1821 it was only two hundred and six. The circulation through the kingdom of Great Britain itself was not entirely free, inasmuch as every newspaper sent through the post office was charged for by weight, at an exorbitant rate, unless it was franked by a member of Parliament. This regulation continued in force until 1825, when an act was passed which provided that newspapers should be sent through the post free, on condition that they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... injuring these poor people, though I shall find it difficult to bring it home to him. His agent, Bandar Dowud (a man involved in debt), took fifteen Dyak cloths and sold them, or rather forced them to take them, at an exorbitant rate; in a month or two after, he returns and demands 200 reals over and above the large price already paid for articles worth seven or eight reals; the poor Dyaks not being able to pay, he seizes the chief's daughter (a married woman), and demands four ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... entering into the king's pleasures, he preserved his affection; by conducting his business, he gratified his indolence; and by his unlimited complaisance in both capacities, he prevented all that jealousy to which his exorbitant acquisitions and his splendid ostentatious train of life should naturally have given birth. The archbishopric of York falling vacant by the death of Bambridge, Wolsey was promoted to that see, and resigned the bishopric of Lincoln. Besides enjoying the administration ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... revision, or to bring about an increased duty. What can be said of the Iron Monopoly? This, as one fact; that in Pennsylvania, it employs miners at fourteen dollars a month, charges them five dollars a month each for a tenement in which to live, and charges them exorbitant prices for the food and provisions which, in spite of a law prohibiting the system, must be purchased at the Monopoly's stores. At the end of the month, many of these miners have not only consumed every dollar of their wages but are ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... fixed. These are fixed by stereotypes, acquired from earlier experiences and carried over into judgment of later ones. And, therefore, if the financial investment in each film and in popular magazines were not so exorbitant as to require instant and widespread popularity, men of spirit and imagination would be able to use the screen and the periodical, as one might dream of their being used, to enlarge and to refine, to verify and criticize the repertory of images with which our imaginations ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... zeal for the main chance you flog the exchange with many a stripe,' a mysterious passage generally supposed to mean 'if you exact exorbitant usury'. A little less enigmatic, but fully ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... which had been tenanted for seven or eight years by a wine merchant. He required from this man, if he wished to remain where he was, a sum of six hundred livres as a payment for goodwill. Although the wine merchant considered it an exorbitant charge, yet on reflection he decided to pay it rather than go, having established a good business on these premises, as was well known. Before long a still mare arrant piece of dishonesty gave him an opportunity for revenge. A young man of good ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... told him I once thought myself a kind of monarch in my old station, of which I had given him an account; but that I thought he was not only a monarch, but a great conqueror; for he that had got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and the absolute dominion over himself, he whose reason entirely governs his will, is certainly greater than ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... attention to the fact that California, in spite of her vast wealth, was peopled, for the most part, with people desperately poor; and that ground in the vicinity of any city, town or place of enterprise was held at so exorbitant a figure that the poor were actually enslaved by the men who owned the land. That is to say, the men who owned the land controlled the people who had to live on it, for man is a land animal, and can not live apart from land, any more than fishes can live ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the early San Franciscans should foregather where good cheer was to be found, and the old El Dorado House, at Portsmouth Square, was really what may be called the first Bohemian restaurant of the city. So well was this place patronized and so exorbitant the prices charged that twenty-five thousand dollars a month was ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... vexed most the inhabitants of Egypt, and which brought down on him the most violent and implacable hatred, was the ordinance by which all ascending or descending the Nile were obliged to provide themselves with a passport bearing a tax. This exorbitant claim was carried out with an abusive and arbitrary sternness. A poor widow, the Oriental writers say, was travelling up the Nile with her son, having with her a correct passport, the payment of which had taken nearly all she possessed. The young man, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... not so exorbitant in my demands upon your good-nature; but observe, I may get up four or five chapters already with the hints you have given me, but I do not know how to move such a creation of the brain—so ethereal, that I fear he will melt away; and so fragile, that I am in terror ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat |
