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noun
Scarcity, Scarceness  n.  The quality or condition of being scarce; smallness of quantity in proportion to the wants or demands; deficiency; lack of plenty; short supply; penury; as, a scarcity of grain; a great scarcity of beauties. "A scarcity of snow would raise a mutiny at Naples." "Praise... owes its value to its scarcity." "The value of an advantage is enhanced by its scarceness."
Synonyms: Deficiency; lack; want; penury; dearth; rareness; rarity; infrequency.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scarcity" Quotes from Famous Books



... it to become so scarce and obscure, by neglecting to republish it in a fair impression, with proper illustrations and especially an Index. But there may still be room left for a favourable construction of such neglect, and the hope that nothing but the casual scarcity of a work so long since out of print may have prevented its falling into those able hands that might, by such an edition, have rewarded the eminent Examples preserved therein, the Collector thereof and themselves according ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... daily to them. This arrangement would give her six pupils a day; and the twelve would complete their course in about two months. Then she could take twelve more, and so on. It was plain, from the success of the first experiment, that there would never be a scarcity ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... have been at the bottom of an edict which was shortly issued. Nothing that I remember in Kem better illustrated the absolute power of the Pharaoh and the unrestrained enforcement of his merest whim. The edict referred to the scarcity of bread and the multitude of foreigners who were flocking to the city to secure it, and provided (ostensibly for the good of the Kemish people) that no man in the city of Kem should give bread or any sort of food to any but ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... the pupils should assist in performing the experiment. In small rural schools the scarcity of apparatus will necessitate the teacher's doing most of the work. In Form V classes and Continuation Schools the pupils may ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... chest which held all their clothes in common, and Biddy made the second grab, poor Kitty had little left but her ordinary rags to appear in. But as, in the famous judgment on Ida's Mount, it is hinted that Venus carried the day by her scarcity of drapery, so did Kitty conquer by want of clothes: not that Love sat in judgment; it was Plutus turned the scale. But, to leave metaphor and classic illustration, and go back to Mat Riley's cabin—the girls were washing, and starching, and ironing all night, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... as to admit 'extreme local scarcity,' and they've started relief-works in one or two districts, the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... 1899, I was asked by the then United States Secretary of Agriculture to undertake experiments for the purpose of providing a vegetable substitute for meat. Dr. Dabney said there was no doubt that the time would come when such substitutes would be needed on account of the scarcity of meat. I succeeded in developing several products which have come to be quite widely known and used more or less extensively in this country and Europe. Among these were Protose (resembling potted meat) and malted nuts, a soluble product somewhat resembling malted milk. It was noted that the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... trifling duty to perform. So long as they gave a reasonably accurate outline of an area that would contain forty thousand acres of land, more or less, and did not trespass on any prior grant, no material harm could be done, there being no scarcity of surface in the colony; but, Mr. Traverse had to descend to a little more particularity. It is true, he ran out his hundreds of acres daily, duly marking his corners and blazing his line trees, but something very like a summer's work lay before him. This he understood, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... value, as well as the scarcity, of these photographs was so great, that in 1905 I had my set photographed twice, by dry and wet plate processes, and a few copies printed after a careful comparison and selection of the two sets of plates. It is from these that ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... economy is tourism. An estimated 13 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. Agricultural production is limited by a scarcity of arable land, and most food has to be imported. The principal livestock activity is sheep raising. Manufacturing consists mainly of cigarettes, cigars, and furniture. The rapid pace of European economic integration ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to the scarcity of distinctive forms, and to the consequent flexibility of English speech, words which are usually other parts of speech are often used as nouns; and various word groups may take the place of nouns by being used ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... without giving Andre time to gradually approach the subject weighing on his mind, she began to complain of the hard times, the scarcity of money, and the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... trouble with the whole paper business," Mr. Princeman was saying to Mr. Westlake. "It is not the tariff, but the future scarcity ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... "Probably from the scarcity of daughters who are willing to drive their fathers to distraction by their disobedience and contempt of ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... attempted to overwhelm the Chinese by superior numbers. But the better discipline and tactics of the Chinese turned the day, and the Corean army was driven in rout from the field. But this signal success did not entail the surrender of Anshu, which was gallantly defended. The scarcity of supplies and the approach of winter compelled the Chinese emperor to raise the siege after he had remained before the place for several months, and it is stated that as the Chinese broke up their camp the commandant ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... than the least able, and spoiling the aggregate wealth of society by burdensome regulations restricting labor. Logically, to the Trades-Union leaders the Chicago or Boston fire seemed a more beneficial event than the invention of the steam-engine; for plenty seems to them a curse, and scarcity the greatest blessing. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... of beer again became so general in France that, according to the "Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris," it produced to the revenue two-thirds more than wine. It must be understood, however, that in times of scarcity, as in the years 1415 and 1482, brewing was temporarily stopped, and even forbidden altogether, on account of the quantity of grain which was thereby withdrawn from the food supply ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... oat-meal or pease-meal, eaten with milk. They have commonly pottage for dinner, composed of cale or cole, leeks, barley or big, and butter; and this is reinforced with bread and cheese, made of skimmed-milk — At night they sup on sowens or flummery of oat-meal — In a scarcity of oats, they use the meal of barley and pease, which is both nourishing and palatable. Some of them have potatoes; and you find parsnips in every peasant's garden — They are cloathed with a coarse kind of russet of their own ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... said Mr. Sherwood. "What! not any more? It is not often we get such good shad in an inland town. Halifax is the place for fine shad! In the season, when the catch is fair, you can get your pick for a song almost, but here, I expect, their scarcity makes them ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... in S. Andrews is first to be served without taking any Professors or Ministers out of Edinburg, Glasgow, or Aberdene, and then the rest of the Colledges, would be provided for, as their necessity shal require: yet (in respect of the present scarcity) it were good for the Universities to send abroad for able and approved men, to be Professors of Divinitie, that our Ministers may be kept in their pastoriall charge ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... wondered if Sairy were making gingerbread. He tried to smell it again, and to feel the warmth of her kitchen—but then he knew too well that she was not making gingerbread! Tom's last letter had spoken of the growing scarcity; flour so high, sugar so high. Everybody was living very plainly, and the poor were going to suffer. Allan thought of the schoolhouse. It was closed. He could see just how it looked; a small unused building, mournful, deserted, crumbling, while past it rushed the strong ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... which is occupied in producing the first article of human subsistence is of the most cheering character to the feelings of patriotism. Proceeding from a cause which humanity will view with concern, the sufferings of scarcity in distant lands, it yields a consolatory reflection that this scarcity is in no respect attributable to us; that it comes from the dispensation of Him who ordains all in wisdom and goodness, and who permits evil itself only ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... coral island of Niue or Savage Island, in the South Pacific, there formerly reigned a line of kings. But as the kings were also high priests, and were supposed to make the food grow, the people became angry with them in times of scarcity and killed them; till at last, as one after another was killed, no one would be king, and the monarchy came to an end. Ancient Chinese writers inform us that in Corea the blame was laid on the king whenever too much or too little rain fell and the crops did not ripen. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... river, but that at present he may be found within half-a-day's walk of its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where Bushmen alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of information in years past, as the opportunities for receiving a knowledge of the animal have not been wanting; traders having for one hundred years frequented this river, and specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, could ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... would be gone from thence, and even the merchants who dwell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the ships are gone; so that I could have nothing but extremity of cold to encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie in an empty town all the winter. Therefore, upon the whole, I thought it much my better way to let the caravan go, and make provision to winter where I was, at Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was sure of three things to wear out a ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... their suggestiveness to the mind, can never rival them in the estimation of the world. Unhappily, we cannot count veritable tapestries as a modern recourse in wall-treatment, since we are precluded from the use of genuine ones by their scarcity and cost. ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

... hundred head of cattle, and one hundred calves dropped in the last two months. From the scarcity of rain this year, the fodder has been almost destroyed, and there is little hay from the winter. I have, therefore, sent great numbers of slaves with camels to the farther plains to eastward, whence they return daily with great loads of hay—of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... scanty rags, which after all, may be turned more easily to sack cloth. Who can doubt that there are hundreds of outcasts, living in persistent wrong doing, on account of this lack of humanity, this total abstinence of Christian charity, whose exercise could redeem just as many as its scarcity ruins. Poor foolish souls! Why need they thirst for mercy or sympathy that is human, know they not, that they are as justified in spurning the world's great ones, as those great ones are in spurning them. What can human ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. The derogations therefore which grow to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life and ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... they are still deep in debt to their master, and that they will have to pay off by working for some time longer. The poor fellows stay on and on, continue to drink, are never out of debt, and never see their homes again. This practice has developed of late years in consequence of the scarcity of labour, and is nothing but slavery. It might easily be abolished by a slight effort on the part of the Government, but there is hardly any supervision over French plantations outside Port Vila, and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... in Boston suffered greatly from the scarcity of provisions. Washington took every precaution to prevent their receiving a supply. Inland, all aid could easily be cut off. To guard against their receiving any by water, from tories and other disaffected persons, the General ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... to the astonishment of mankind, flock hither and thither, dangerous, aimless, get the length even of Versailles. Turgot is altering the corn trade, abrogating the absurdest corn laws; there is dearth, real, or were it even factitious, an indubitable scarcity of broad. And so, on the 2nd day of May, 1775, these waste multitudes do here, at Versailles chateau, in widespread wretchedness, in sallow faces, squalor, winged raggedness, present as in legible hieroglyphic writing their petition of grievances. The chateau-gates must be shut; ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... aloud in private, or preferably, in the presence of such persons as know good reading when they hear it and are masters of the melody of sounds. It was Dean Swift's belief that the common fluency of speech in many men and most women was due to scarcity of matter and scarcity of words. He claimed that a master of language possessed a mind full of ideas, and that before speaking, such a mind paused to select the choice word—the phrase best suited to the occasion. "Common ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser

... harvest I am persuaded they will export much more. At the beginning of the century some of these Colonies imported corn from the Mother Country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, [Footnote: 19] had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... those days of scarcity there were curates: the precious plant was rare, but it might be found. A certain favoured district in the West Riding of Yorkshire could boast three rods of Aaron blossoming within a circuit of twenty ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... that German warships have violated her neutrality; there is a scarcity of copper; order for locomotives to be dismantled to ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... great scarcity of corn, and that the famine was sore among them, after which the plague overspread itself in many parts of the country, taking away whole families together, and few escaped where any house was visited, and that the Levellers got ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... Gospel. (4) Arguments from the manner of quoting the Old Testament to the manner of quoting the New must always be to a certain extent a fortiori, for it is undeniable that the New Testament did not as yet stand upon the same footing of respect and authority as the Old, and the scarcity of MSS. must have made it less accessible. In the case of converts from Judaism, the Old Testament would have been largely committed to memory in youth, while the knowledge of the New would be only recently acquired. These considerations seem to favour the hypothesis ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... damsel ended her notice of Second Day the astronomer said to her "Now tell me what will occur if New Year's day fall on Third Day (Tuesday)." She replied, "That is Mars' day and portendeth death of great men and much destruction and deluge of blood and dearness of grain; lack of rain and scarcity of fish, which will anon be in excess and anon fail. Lentils and honey in this year will be cheap and linseed dear and only barley will thrive, to the exception of all other cereals: great will be the fighting among kings and death will be in the blood ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... difficulty of increasing these plants need not be adduced than their present scarcity, though vast numbers have been imported, how few can boast of possessing them, or of preserving them for any length of time; careful management in their cultivation will doubtless go far, but peculiarity of soil and situation would appear to ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... That educated people to whom exact weather records are accessible should still find satisfaction in the fanciful lunar rule, is an interesting case of intellectual survival." [345] No marvel that the "heathen Chinee" considers lunar observations as forecasting scarcity of provisions he is but of the same blood with his British brother, who takes his tea and sends him opium. "The Hakkas (and also many Puntis) believe that if in the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth month (mid autumn) ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... difficulty had been experienced by any class in procuring specie for their wants. But this system could not long be carried on without causing a scarcity. The voice of complaint was heard on every side, and inquiries being instituted, the cause was soon discovered. The council debated long on the remedies to be taken, and Law, being called on for his advice, was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... you do," returned the man surlily. He was one of the many drivers who had taken advantage of a long-suffering public during the war-time scarcity of taxi-cabs and he hoped to continue the process during the peace. Incivility had become a confirmed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... yielded, after a sharp wrangle or two, to the combined influence of coaxing and a pair of sharp English rowels: in the latter days of our acquaintance we never had a difference of opinion. Considering the scarcity of staunch horse-flesh, the price asked was very moderate, and I closed the bargain on the spot. I was assured that my new purchase was of the Black Hawk stock, and he was christened "Falcon" ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... to have had a profusion of the precious metals very disproportioned to the scarcity of their coined money. To say nothing of the torques, bracelets, and even breastplates of gold, common with their numerous chiefs, their laws affix to offences penalties which attest the prevalent waste both ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... earlier records that the scarcity of medical men may have compelled surgeons in Virginia to practice internal medicine: surgeons prescribed medicine with the same frequency as doctors. The surgeons, however, did not abandon the treatment of wounds, fractures, and dislocations; notes on amputations ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... leave secure, we made up our minds for a plunge into the plains again and a forced march to Lahore, being rather expedited in the determination by hearing that several travellers had been recalled from leave in consequence of there being a scarcity of officers with ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... and a Regatta Committee;" and the next business was to elect them, which had to be done by written or printed ballots. As the first three officers were required to be owners in whole, or in part, of yachts enrolled in the club, there was found to be an alarming scarcity of yachts. The Skylark, Sea Foam, Phantom, and Christabel were on hand. Edward Patterdale and Samuel Rodman had signified their intention to join, though they were unable to be present at the first meeting. The Maud, as ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... early day. They suggested, too, that the Lord might withhold an abundance from them for a few years until He had more thoroughly tried them. But their counsel seemed only to inflame him to fresh absurdities. In the very days of their greatest scarcity that winter, when almost every man was dressed in skins, and the daily fare was thistle roots, he declared to them at ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... But the Black Death fell on the villages almost as fiercely as on the towns. More than one-half of the priests of Yorkshire are known to have perished; in the diocese of Norwich two-thirds of the parishes changed their incumbents. The whole organization of labour was thrown out of gear. The scarcity of hands produced by the terrible mortality made it difficult for villeins to perform the services due for their lands, and only a temporary abandonment of half the rent by the landowners induced the farmers of their ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... mixed with our own wounded, who, like those of the Russians, amounted to 700. Our surgeons tore up their very shirts, and those of these poor creatures, to dress them; for there already began to be a scarcity of linen. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... During the scarcity of 1833 two hundred people died of starvation in this village alone;[3] and were all thrown into one large well, which has, of course, ever since remained closed. Autumn crops chiefly are cultivated; and they depend entirely on the sky for water, while the poor people of the village ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... thus enters life untrained, he but adds to the already great scarcity of competent labour. Modern industry requires a degree of ability and skill which neither early quitting of school nor long continuance at school provides. It is true that, in order to retain the interest of the boy and train him in handicraft, manual training ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... for "desertion," and promptly granted decrees, service by publication having been obtained through the medium of the Trigger Island Pioneer, printed monthly by Peter Snipe, editor and publisher, limited to an edition of one, owing to the scarcity of paper, and posted conspicuously for all subscribers on the bulletin board in front of the "government building." Additional spice was lent to the affair by the surprising reluctance of Joe and Matilda to re-enter the paradise from which they had been ejected. Apparently ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... from hunger and fatigue, and bringing with them not only the diseases of their own remote counties, but arriving in that weak state that courts the attack of any epidemic. Thus crowded together, with a scarcity of provisions, a want of water, and no possibility of cleanliness, with clothes that have been unwashed for weeks or months, in a camp of dirty pilgrims, without any attempt at drainage, an accumulation of filth takes place that generates either cholera or typhus; the latter, in its most ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... there was again great scarcity in every corner of the land; and one night the children overheard their stepmother saying to their father, "Everything is again consumed; we have only half a loaf left, and then the song is ended: the children must be sent away. We will take them deeper into the wood, so that they may not ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... the most part a barren, forest-clad region, in places swampy, with occasional scattered houses. But it is crossed by three lines of railway diverging from Charleston, and the damage which they suffered supplements to some extent the defects arising from the scarcity of buildings. These railway lines are the South Carolina, the North-Eastern, and the Charleston and Savannah, denoted by the letters A, B, and C, respectively, in Figs. 28 and 29.[40] It will be convenient to follow ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... whaling fleet through the Pacific that year. The habits of the whale in changing his locality at certain periods are somewhat curious, and afford old sailors a subject for the most wild and unreasonable stories. The sailors, yielding to their superstitions, attributed the scarcity of whales to the appearance of a number of mermaids, whom the natives on various islands had reported, and the sailors sincerely believed, had been seen and heard singing in various parts of the Pacific ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... early from his experimental field to get his dinner, well, city folks would call it lunch, and so he'd be ready afterwards for a talk with the colony committee. He'd eaten his lunch, all right, a good one. There was never any scarcity of food on Eden. Always plenty, and wide variety. If anything, a man ate too much and didn't have to work hard enough to get it. That was the main thing that had been wrong with Eden, right from ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... women from some other group. This explanation of exogamy is so simple that it seems likely to be true. It is much more reasonable than any of the numerous other theories that have been brought forward. Mr. McLennan, for instance, suggests that the custom arose through a scarcity of females, owing to the widespread practice of female infanticide. This can hardly be accepted, for such conditions, where they exist, would arise at a much later period. Even less likely is the theory ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... second time to Panama, to endeavour to procure a larger force, and Pizarro retired in the mean time to the small island of Gallo somewhat farther to the north, near the shore of the Barbacoas, and not far from Cape Mangles, where he and his people suffered extreme hardships from scarcity of provisions, amounting ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... feeling of depression over Richmond. Bread was higher, Confederate money was lower; the scarcity of all things needed was growing; the area of Southern territory had contracted, the Northern armies were coming nearer and nearer, and a false note sometimes rang in the gay life of ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... effected by nature. The vegetable life of the Karroos, which has only been suspended, not extinguished, is then released; the arid watercourses are filled in a few hours, and the great desert tract becomes within that brief time a garden of flowers. Even then, from the scarcity of buildings and inhabitants, and hence of supplies, the Karroos still form a barrier not to be lightly attempted, unless by an army fully equipped, and carrying its own magazines; or, on the other hand, by a band of partisans ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... in a familiar voice, "thou knowest well that there is a painful scarcity of waiters to stand in the presence of the king; and even those we have are not what I could desire them to be in point of intelligence and cultivation. This must be remedied without delay. My father's taste in this matter ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... variations, having the effect of as many different conjugations, and giving great variety of expression. The predominance of these modifications over the noun, the idea of time contained in the roots of almost all its verbs, so expressive and so picturesque, and even the scarcity of its prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs, make this language in its organic structure breathe life, vigor, and emotion. If it lacks the flowery and luxuriant elements of the other oriental idioms, no one ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... omen excited much animation, and the British, still advancing, attempted to charge upon the left, but were received on that side with a well directed fire, which caused them to break and fly in great disorder. Had Gen. Marion's cavalry been present they might now have been cut to pieces; but scarcity of forage had induced him to quarter them at the distance of six miles. The enemy rallied and manoeuvred about in the old field for an hour, making several different feints of charging, but never coming in reach of Marion's fire, whose men stood firm at their post. Capt. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... defended. The Indians, after their first fierce onset, fighting in their own way, behind trees and sheltered by buildings outside the fort, were able to besiege the place indefinitely with comparatively small loss to themselves; while the garrison, shut in almost without warning, looked forward to scarcity of provisions. ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... volumes of adjudicated cases was, however, not an unmixed evil. Causes were necessarily argued upon principle. How well this conduced to the making of the real lawyer is well known. The admonition, "Beware the man who reads but one book," is of deep significance. The complaint to-day is not of scarcity, but that "of the making of many books there is no end." Professor Phelps is authority for the statement that "it is easy to find single opinions in which more authorities are cited than were mentioned by Marshall in the whole thirty years of his unexampled judicial life; and briefs that contain ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... the meantime, the state of the country was gradually assuming a worse and more depressing character. The season was unfavorable; and although we do not assert that many died of immediate famine, yet we know that hundreds—nay, thousands—died from the consequences of scarcity and destitution—or, in plainer words, from fever and other diseases induced by bad and insufficient food, and an absence of the necessary comforts of life. Indeed, at the period of our narrative, the position of Ireland was very gloomy; but when, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... perhaps circuitously expresses it, go to walk on horseback on a donkey,—dar um passeio a cavallo n'um burro. The beggars, indeed, are numerous; but one's expenditures are always happily limited by the great scarcity of small change. A half-cent, however, will buy you blessings enough for a lifetime, and you can find an investment in almost any direction. You visit some church or cemetery; you ask a question or two of a lounger in a black cloak, with an air like an exiled Stuart, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... worldly; and frequently their arbitrators in disputed rights, for the legal class was still small, and its services costly. The pastor knew intimately every soul in his parish. He was the State's moral guardian. He was the intellectual leader and more, for, in the scarcity of books and newspapers, not alone in his Sunday sermon but in those on fast days and thanksgivings, and on all public and semi-public occasions, he talked to his people upon current events. The story is told of a clergyman who in his Sunday prayer recounted the life of his parish during the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... travellers advanced, they observed the increasing scarcity of vegetation; here and there might be seen a few tufts of saxifrage lifting up amidst the stones their rose-tinted posies—a rank, thorny, and creeping herbage—some attenuated heaths, and in the crevices and hollows ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... Northern Arkansas, all males between fifteen and forty-five years of age have been ordered to be ready for the Confederate service when called upon. This has caused a fear of failure in next year's crops from scarcity of men in that section. There is great suffering among them now. Salt rose to $25 a sack. The authorities prohibited the holders from charging more than $12, the present price. Pins are $1.50 per paper; jeans $5 per yard; ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... there is one department which experiences a degree of scarcity—a department to which these volumes properly belong. Pious families require a supply of religious reading, adapted to occupy the intervals of business, the hours of devotion, and the time which is often and properly appropriated to domestic instruction in the evenings of the Christian Sabbath. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... young leaves are produced, and the old glands do not secrete honey. Then want and hunger overtake the ants that have reveled in luxury all the wet season; many of the thorns are depopulated, and only a few ants live through the season of scarcity. As soon, however, as the first rains set in, the trees throw out numerous vigorous shoots, and the ants multiply ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of so radical a temper are not numerous. If esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect. Indeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence visible, that William Gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous species of animal produced by our common parent ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... Germans, these men would literally have died like flies.... Lord Beresford and other noble lords had been rather prone to ignore the fact that Germany was a blockaded country. It was common knowledge that there was a general scarcity of food throughout Germany, and, if the prisoners did not get as much as they ought to have, in all probability the vast majority of the German population was in a state of comparative hunger.... He could not see what advantage there was in making out that the case of ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... found a box of matches among other stores the two men had collected in this retreat; so that there was now no scarcity ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... his prelection here, and is striding off in the plenitude of his wisdom. Now we are shown a long set of stone apartments, provided for future great men. Considering the general scarcity of the article in most countries, these sleeping accommodations are remarkably ample. Nobody need be discouraged in his attempts at greatness in Paris, for fear at last there won't be room to bury him. After this we were marched to a place where our guide made a long speech about ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... things first came to a head. Louis Philippe and his minister, Guizot, tried to render the government gradually independent of the nation, in imitation of the absolutist empires; and the uneasiness caused by this policy was emphasized by the scarcity that prevailed during the years 1846 and 1847. The Liberals began to demand electoral reform; but the king, on opening the Chambers, intimated that he was convinced that no reform was needed. Angry debates ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... tail of the kanguroo, which is very large, is found to be used as a weapon of offence, and has given such severe blows to dogs as to oblige them to desist from pursuit. Its flesh is coarse and lean, nor would it probably be used for food, where there was not a scarcity of fresh provisions. The disproportion between the upper and lower parts of this animal is greater than has been shown in any former delineations of it, but is well expressed in the ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... until he has come and gone, your life is still in peril." At that moment the master himself entered, and having had to complain that his oxen had not been properly fed, he went up to their racks, and cried out: "Why is there such a scarcity of fodder? There is not half enough straw for them to lie on. Those lazy fellows have not even swept the cobwebs away." While he thus examined everything, he spied the antlers of the Stag peeping out of the straw. Summoning his laborers, he ordered ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... Jeanne Falla, and George Hamon. And if I needed further company, I could people the grim stockade with old friends out of those four most wonderful books of my grandfather's. And very grateful was I now for the insistence which had made me read them times without number, and for the scarcity which had limited me to them till I knew parts of ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... spread planters who hastened to avail themselves of this new-found means of getting rich. Land and climate alike favored them, but they were confronted with a scarcity of labor. The emergency was promptly met by the buying of white servants in England to be resold in Virginia to the highest bidder. This, however, was not sufficient, and complaints poured over to the English government. As the demands of commerce had to be sustained ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... appliances, and get an outfit and sail. Of course, there was nothing involved in the enterprise but the departure, the voyage and the arrival at San Francisco. No steamer had ever crossed the ocean at this time, and all navigation was done in sailing ships. So great was the rush that a scarcity of ships was soon felt. I remember distinctly on one occasion, when an old played-out vessel, purchased by a party which proposed to take out a printing press and start the first newspaper, was seized by ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... Scarcity of labor is not only certain to grow, but the demands upon the United States for service are increasing by leaps and bounds. America must throw man-power into the trenches, must feed herself, must contribute more and ever more food to the hungry populations ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... the drift was against all forms of servitude and tenantry and in the direction of the freehold; that is, the small farm owned outright and tilled by the possessor and his family. This was favored by natural circumstances and the spirit of the immigrants. For one thing, the abundance of land and the scarcity of labor made it impossible for the companies, the proprietors, or the crown to develop over the whole continent a network of vast estates. In many sections, particularly in New England, the climate, the stony soil, the hills, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... Hutchins' family then, say I," returned Olly, "for I'm glad to be able to read, though, on account of the scarcity and dearness of manuscripts, I don't have the chance of makin' much use of my knowledge. But you puzzle me, Paul. It was poor Lucy Wentworth who used to live with us, and who died only last year, that taught me to read, and I never heard her mention the ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... provision for the army and large towns; already their best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-waggons; already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... The scarcity of wood and the danger of suffocation precluded the building of an adequate fire, and the miserable night wore interminably upon the nerves ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... Wind Southerly and fair weather in the Forenoon, but in the Afternoon Showers. We have had a Scarcity of all sorts of Fruit for these 2 days past, which we immagine to be ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... year 1830, in Central New York, there was a time of great scarcity of provisions. Grain was very high, and difficult to be obtained at any price; and, of course, families of limited means were very much straitened. In one family, the wife and mother of six children, a Godly woman, worked at her trade (tailoress) to ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... in New England all trade and business is not as much at a stand, upon a scarcity of paper-money, as with us from the ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... who has preserved you safe through the dangers and sorrows of the past autumn. You owe more than one debt to God. You owe, all England owes, thanks to Him for the late bounteous harvest, thanks to Him for the present prosperous seed-time: think what our state might have been with scarcity, as well as war, upon us, and pay part of your debt this day. You owe a thank-offering for the cessation of the cholera; a thank-offering for the sparing of your own lives;—pay it now. You owe a thank-offering for the glorious victories of our armies:—pay it now. You belong, too, ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... religion, and laws." Immigration was to be encouraged from Britain and from the other American colonies, which, in the view of the Lords of Trade, were already overstocked and in danger of being forced by the scarcity or monopoly of land to take up manufactures which would compete with English wares. And since it would greatly contribute to speedy settlement, so the Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared, that the King's subjects should be informed of his paternal care for the security of ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... purchased by Americans at a vast expense. Moreover, the money which used to be sent to England in payment for superfluous luxuries would be kept at home, to be there laid out in domestic improvements. Gold and silver, the scarcity of which caused great inconvenience in the colonies, would remain in the country. All these advantages would accrue from a course which at the same time must give rise in England itself to a pressure so extreme that Parliament could not long resist it. "The trading part of the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... previously bore, some gentlemen of the Forest, and of the Grand Jury, interceded with his Majesty on their behalf, they underwent on the 11th April, 1797, acknowledging the justice of their sentence. The extraordinary scarcity, and consequent high price of provisions about this time, were so acutely felt in this neighbourhood, that the Crown distributed 1,000 pounds worth of grain amongst ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... food; that they had consumed their winter store of dryed fish and that those of the present season had not yet arrived. I could not learn wheather they took the Sturgeon but presume if they do it is in but small quantities as they complained much of the scarcity of food among them. they informed us that the nations above them were in the same situation & that they did not expect the Salmon to arrive untill the full of the next moon which happens on the 2d of May. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... the waggons had been dragged into the forest; but it was thought that the Cossacks were preparing an ambush—a view taken by the French engineer also. Meanwhile, the Koschevoi's words proved not unfounded, for a scarcity of provisions arose in the city. According to a custom of past centuries, the army did not separate as much as was necessary. They tried to make a sortie; but half of those who did so were instantly killed by the Cossacks, and the other half driven back into the city with no results. But the Jews ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... city, the monopolists, merchant princes, and syndicates, are the theme of universal invective throughout this period. To them the rapid and enormous rise in prices during the early years of the sixteenth century, the scarcity of money consequent on the increased demand for it, and the impoverishment of large sections of the population, were attributed by noble and peasant alike. The whole trend of public opinion, in short, outside the wealthier burghers of the larger cities—the class immediately interested—was ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... the Royal Family—invariably a favourite topic this, in genteel circles furthest removed from the throne—in anecdotes of servants and of pets interspersed with protests against the rise in butcher Cleave's prices, the dullness of the newspapers and the surprising scarcity of eggs.—Ran on any and every subject, in short, save that of sermons preached by curates enamoured ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... which prevailed through the country that the Rajah's government was not to be permanent, but that another revolution was fast approaching. During the Nabob's government, the price of grain was considerably higher (owing to a very unusual scarcity in the Carnatic) than when he was in Tanjore.—Being asked, Whether he was ever in the Marawar country? he said, Yes; he was commissary to the army in that expedition.—Being asked, Whether that country was much wasted by the war? he said, Plunder was not permitted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... classes "there are," he says, "many other creatures in the sea which it is not possible to arrange in any class from their scarcity" (Creswell, loc. ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... collars, like swine, who were reluctant to go, and yet afraid to stay. Quarters of beeves were trundled along in carts or barrows, and were soon seen swinging at different main-stays; while the gathering of eggs, butter, poultry, mutton, lamb, and veal, menaced the surrounding country with a scarcity. Through this throng of the living and the dead, our party held its way, jostled by the eager countrymen, and respectfully avoided by all who belonged to the fleet, until it reached the point where ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a chilly and dark year, following three bad seasons of severity and scarcity. And in the northwest of Yorkshire, though the summer was now so far advanced, there had been very little sunshine. For the last day or two, the sun had labored to sweep up the mist and cloud, and was beginning to prevail ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... plant; moreover, it is one of those plants which the artist can scarcely do justice to, for though the illustration (Fig. 42) depicts faithfully its neat habit and handsome foliage, the living plant makes a better impression. I said it was rare, but this is less in the sense of scarcity than because it is little known and seldom seen; it is also quite distinct from any other plant, and the ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... their own." But he went on to add that a few years ago he had put some minnows into the lake by the chalet, and that they had multiplied like the Hebrews of old till they literally swarmed. As a natural consequence the trout had become bad risers, and the growing scarcity of natural flies suggested that the minnows, by preying upon larvae, have had a share in this decline. The trout meanwhile had grown big and fat, as they naturally would do, fellows of 3 lb. and upwards being not uncommon. Mr. Walton fished ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... partly because he could not endure to see the mess that things were in, and partly because they told him he would have to make a speech that night, and he had to spend two of his hardearned dollars for the hire of a dress-suit. Here, as always, the scarcity of dollars was like a thorn in his flesh. He had been obliged to leave Corydon heart-broken at home, because he had not been able to lay by enough to bring her; he had to stay at a cheap hotel—cheaper even than any of the actors; and when Miss Lewis and Mr. Tapping ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... womanhood. If she ever marries, it will be at the cost of a terrible mental struggle. There are women-haters among men, and there are a very few—so few as to rank with albinos and white blackbirds in scarcity—man-haters among women. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... Linton said. "We knew one Australian, an officer's wife, who was stranded in a remote corner of South Wales with two servants and two babies; it was just at the time of greatest scarcity before compulsory rationing began, when most of the food coming in was kept in the big towns and the Midlands. That woman could certainly get milk for her youngsters; but for three months the only foods she and her maids were sure of getting were war bread, potatoes, haricot beans ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... child of the desert," replied Alexander; "he has been brought up among lions, and where there is scarcity of water, and he has most wonderfully guided us in our path; but we are still in the desert, and have lost our companions. What must we do? Shall we attempt to regain the caravan, or push off to the westward, to fall ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... manes, trim barrels, and clean legs; and slack-jointed cart-horses nearly asleep—for "ginger" is an institution which does not seem to have come so far north as Inverness. Business is lively here, the chronic "dourness" of a market being discounted by the scarcity of horseflesh. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... Players, as we had always a turn for the Stage. Accordingly we offered our services to one and were accepted; our Company was indeed rather small, as it consisted only of the Manager his wife and ourselves, but there were fewer to pay and the only inconvenience attending it was the Scarcity of Plays which for want of People to fill the Characters, we could perform. We did not mind trifles however—. One of our most admired Performances was MACBETH, in which we were truly great. The Manager always played BANQUO himself, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... no need of you." When the sweet singer was absent, every one admitted that the congregational music was less interesting; when the skilful penman removed to another district, the Church soon began to complain of a scarcity of copies of the sacred manuscripts; and even when the pious widow died in a good old age, the blank was visible, and the loss of a faithful servant of the Church was acknowledged and deplored. "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen



Words linked to "Scarcity" :   scarce, deficiency, infrequency, rareness, abundance



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