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Fourpence   Listen
noun
Fourpence  n.  
1.
A British silver coin, worth four pence; a groat.
2.
A name formerly given in New England to the Spanish half real, a silver coin worth six and a quarter cents.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fourpence" Quotes from Famous Books



... They frequent the court, the opera, the theatre, and the masquerade. They hold assemblies at their own houses: they make sumptuous entertainments, and treat with the richest wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. The substantial tradesman, who wont to pass his evenings at the ale-house for fourpence half-penny, now spends three shillings at the tavern, while his wife keeps card-tables at home; she must likewise have fine clothes, her chaise, or pad, with country lodgings, and go three times a week to public diversions. Every clerk, apprentice, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... winter visitors, flowers are to be had for the asking; on the market-place an enormous bouquet of tuberoses, violets, carnations, myrtle, priced at two or three francs, the price in Paris being twenty. Fruit also I found cheap, figs fourpence a dozen, and other kinds in proportion. This market is the great sight of Nice, and seen on a cloudless day—indeed it would be difficult to see it on any other—is a glory of colour of which it is impossible to give the remotest notion. I was somewhat taken aback to find Sunday less observed here ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... thirteen sermons, at fourpence apiece, including the binding, is an excellent photogravure portrait of the Archbishop. The face is keen and scholarly, and not unpleasant. A noticeable nose, a large fluent mouth, shrewd eyes, and a high well-shaped head, make on the whole an agreeable ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... a white ticket from her hand without any calculation on her part. She becomes a penny-in-the-slot machine, with her human brain free for other matters. She grows a great hatred for all fares above fourpence, because they ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... makers of tapestries was a workman named John Bakes, who was paid the magnificent sum of twelve pence a day, while in an entry in another document he is said to have received only fourpence daily. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment'—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... costly torture. One of the many reasons which lead me to regard the Americans as a leisurely people rather than a nation of "hustlers" is the patience with which they submit to the long-drawn tyranny of the barber. In England, one grudges five minutes for a shave, and one pays from fourpence to sixpence; in America one can hardly escape in twenty-five minutes, and one pays (with the executioner's tip)[G] from a shilling to eighteenpence. The charge would be by no means excessive if one ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... to social improvement was made by Spring Rice, the chancellor of the exchequer, in consolidating the paper duties on a reduced scale, and lowering the stamp duty on newspapers from fourpence to one penny. These were the only controversial elements in a budget otherwise modest and acceptable. The battle over paper duties and "taxes upon knowledge" raised in the debates of 1836 was destined to rage many years longer, but the relief granted ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... some of which we may reasonably conclude would find its way to its tables. Good wine, it may be incidentally remarked, was cheap enough when the Three Cranes was first opened, the delicate juice of the Gascoign grape being then vended, at fourpence the gallon, and Rhenish at sixpence! Prices, however, had risen considerably at the period of which we propose to treat; but the tavern was as well-reputed and well-frequented as ever: even more so, for it had ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... people who lose shillings and sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness? Servants and small clerks, to whom shillings and sixpences are of consequence. Did you ever hear of Rothschild or Baring dropping a fourpenny-piece down a gutter-hole? Fourpence in Rothschild's pocket is safer than fourpence in the pocket of that woman who is crying stale shrimps in Skeldergate at this moment. Fortified by these sound principles, enlightened by the stores of written information in my commercial library, I have ranged through ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... I'm hoping to avoid the fourpence in discounts. Total spare cash, twenty pounds, and nearly three months to go before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various

... belonged to an estate went away to a town, his lord could have him brought back to his old home. Any tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers came together with sticks, scythes, and flails; and Wat Tyler told them they would go to London, and tell the king how his poor commons ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... house, they went every day regularly to work; Maud spun nine cuts a day, besides doing all that was to be done in the house; Edmund got fourpence a day by his work; and Peggy and Annie earned twopence apiece at the paper-mills near Navan, where they were employed to sort rags, and to cut ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... administrations of government, were all excepted out of the grant. Lord Carteret was to hold this estate upon condition of yielding and paying to his Majesty and his heirs and successors, the annual-rent of one pound thirteen shillings and fourpence, on the feast of All-Saints, for ever, and also one fourth part of all the gold and silver ore found within this eighth part of the territory ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... Portrait of CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON, Memoir, &c. and a Title-Page, Preface, and copious Index to Vol XI., is now published. It extends beyond the usual quantity, the Memoir is of original interest, and the price is (in the present instance only) unavoidably advanced to Fourpence. ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... except those appointed by Thomas Withering, but letters were allowed to be sent by common carriers, or by private messengers passing between friends. The postage was fixed at twopence for under 80 miles, and at fourpence for ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... come to Ll 3s. 2-1/2d., and the Professor thought fourpence. But once again they were all wrong. What do you ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... the Doctor, "and buy them, too. I know of several lodging-houses where I could hire a baby from fourpence to a shilling a day. The prettier the child is the better; should it happen to be a cripple, or possessing particularly thin arms and face, it is always worth a shilling. Little girls always demand a higher price than boys. I knew of one woman—her supposed husband sells chickweed and groundsel—who ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... end of it all they had fourpence left, which, after serious consultation, it was decided to expend in a bed for ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... any time get immeasurably more by speculating on State secrets that are necessarily known to him. Some say that he has even attempted something of the kind. Now, it would be quite possible to cut Mr. George down, not to four hundred a year, but to fourpence a day; and still leave him all these other and enormous financial superiorities. It must be remembered that a Socialist State, in any way resembling a modern State, must, however egalitarian it may be, have ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... not forget. Bridget got her fourpence the next day, a penny from mamma and threepence from papa. And all troubles were thrown to the winds, torn frocks and everything disagreeable forgotten, when she set off with Rosalys and Randolph, under their maid's charge, for a visit to Seacove, the ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... fourteen and eightpence, if you're so anxious to know," Mrs. Crowl resumed. "And there ain't a woman in the Mile End Road as 'ud a-done it cheaper, with bread at fourpence threefarden a quartern and landlords clamburin' for rent every Monday morning almost afore the sun's up and folks draggin' and slidderin' on till their shoes is only fit to throw after brides and Christmas comin' and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... pretty little sixpence, I love sixpence better than my life; I spent a penny of it, I spent another, And took fourpence home to my wife. ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... money, putting her feet in the dry gutter a la maniere born. She made first of all a stack of her half-pennies, and then of her pennies. There were nine half-pennies, three pennies, a threepenny bit and a sixpence. The grand total she found was one and fourpence halfpenny. More than even ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... is much oftener a poor countryman, who has wandered to London in search of employment, and, finding nothing else, has spent his last fourpence in the purchase of a besom, with which he hopes to earn a crust. Here his want of experience in town is very much against him. You may know him instantly from the old habitue of the streets: he plants himself in the very thick and throng of the most crowded thoroughfare—the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... the Boy-Bishop, who was to have for his supper a penny roll, a small cup of mild cider, two or three pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room, and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to attend choir and school the next day ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... and that it is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great railway, and that common great railway took me through the night to the town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and before, and which was about as much of Fairyland to ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... may seem to be but an old fellow's boasting and a childish vanity about my own calf-country. 'Tis the picture I would paint—a land laughing and content, well governed by Gillesbeg, though Gruamach he might be by name and by nature. Fourpence a-day was a labourer's wage, but what need had one of even fourpence, with his hut free and the food piling ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... that we should have hour talk hover a pint of hot coffee? There's a heatin-house where the young man have took down the shutters and is dusting away in a manner as his real appetizing. I has fourpence in my pocket. You wouldn't mind my treating yer, ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... Just before the termination of the voyage a man goes round with a bugle turned upwards to receive the eleemosynary pence and half-pence of the passengers. I gave one of them, the other day, a silver fourpence, which fell into the vitals of the instrument, and compelled the man to take ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... were the largest of any in the Mediterranean: this probably arose from the encouragement given to this trade by Tiberius, and afterwards increased by Claudius. The former emperor gave a bounty of about fourpence on every peck of corn imported: and Claudius, during the time of the famine, made the bounty so great as, at all events, and in every instance, to secure the importers a certain rate of profit. He also used all his efforts to persuade the merchants to import it even in winter, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... banks which are only two or three feet higher than the barge, and buy from the Arab women and children running along the banks selling eggs and fowls; as the demand has risen the prices have also advanced, and whereas at the opening of the campaign one could buy a dozen eggs for fourpence, by January 1917, I have seen officers pay twopence each or more. It is scarcely safe to jump ashore, as any moment the boat may launch out again into the middle of the stream, but when tied up by the bank waiting for another boat to pass brisk ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... I don't believe in, said the night watchman. The only dream I ever 'ad that come anything like true was once when I dreamt I came in for a fortune, and next morning I found half a crown in the street, which I sold to a man for fourpence. And once, two days arter my missis 'ad dreamt she 'ad spilt a cup of tea down the front of 'er Sunday dress, she spoilt a pot o' paint of ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... do it, dear,' persisted the other. 'If it came to the very worst, our food need not cost more than sixpence a day—three and sixpence a week. I do really believe, Virgie, we could support life on less—say, on fourpence. Yes, we ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... good-for-nothing little rascal, can't you be polite enough to say 'Miss Clara'? What do you want with her?" continued Sebastian roughly. "She owes me fourpence," ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for ploughed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are, generally, the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery, pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c, which are sold to make ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... noble-hearted, chivalrous, merry, gladsome, gallant young fellow. He was the soul of honour. Why," he added, with deep emotion, "I have left as much as fourpence in coppers on a mantel-piece alone with him, and on my return nave found every halfpenny ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various

... tragedy on John Huss; or he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away from books of which you are not the Involuntary Bailee, but the unhappy purchaser. The case becomes truly black, as we have said, when the uncalled-for tribute has to be returned. Then it is sure to be lost, when ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... bosoms, at six shillings and sixpence per dozen, for a man who pays half in merchandise, and who, when she is starving for bread, puts her off with calico at a shilling a yard that is not worth more than fourpence! But he is not the martyr in the case. When the visitor entered, her son George, about twelve years old, "was just coming in for dinner, pale and apparently exhausted by the effort of climbing the stairs, and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... deficient in the quaintness of expression that pleases the multitude: however, to encourage me, he ventured the expense of printing and paper, and, if I remember aright, my share of the sale amounted to fourpence halfpenny. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... receipt for the money. Here are smaller bills liquidated. With my pencil we will add them up. Seventy-eight pounds—the principal debt—bulks large. We add the smaller items and it reaches a total of ninety-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence. Let us now examine my purse. Here is a five-pound note; there is a golden sovereign. I now count out and place on the table twelve and sixpence in silver and two pence in coppers. The purse thus becomes empty. Let us add the silver and copper to the amount on the paper. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... by her Majesty Queen Anne for the "king's evil," as scrofula used to be called. Our honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a "fourpence ha'penny" or a "ninepence," about his neck, which, strange to say, after being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,—a proof of the poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system and gathered upon the coin. I remember that at one ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... books called When were you Born? There's one for each month. They tell you your character, your talents, your strong points, and your weak points at fourpence halfpenny a go. Bobbie's idea was to buy the whole twelve, and go through them till we found out which month hit off Mary's character. That would give us the month, and narrow ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing a public meeting, she ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... ridiculous. I had just scraped up four shillings for this little outing; and it cost me one-and-fourpence to get here. Well, Dubedat asked me to lend him half-a-crown to tip the chambermaid of the room his wife left her wraps in, and for the cloakroom. He said he only wanted it for five minutes, as she had his purse. So of course I lent it to him. And he's forgotten ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... wide, and I think when filled with houses it will be a fine place; but what spoils the appearance now is, the number of wooden buildings they are throwing up, as they cannot get workmen for others. When we were there, butter was from two shillings and fourpence to three shillings per pound, bread fourpence, milk eightpence per pint, vegetables enormous, butcher's meat and sugar, as at home. Fruit very dear; a shilling would not purchase as much as a penny in England. Beer and porter, one shilling per pint in Melbourne, but from two ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... his exaggerated and one-sided condemnation of the Irish national character, Carlyle is perfectly right. These Irishmen who migrate for fourpence to England, on the deck of a steamship on which they are often packed like cattle, insinuate themselves everywhere. The worst dwellings are good enough for them; their clothing causes them little trouble, so ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... give to each of their journeymen, if no meat and drink was allowed, sixpence a day for the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-half penny for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for the half year; for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... drawing up a contract to reinstate same and make good roof, replacing all defective work with new where necessary; only in his haste to come to his impressive climax—"the work to be done to the satisfaction of yourself or your Surveyor for the sum of L99.8.4 (ninety-nine pounds eight shillings and fourpence),"—he spelt this last word nesseracy. He called on the landlord, the gentleman of independent means at Brixton, with this document in his pocket and a strong conviction of his own honesty in his face, and pointed ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... some carefully cooked statistics relating to Free Trade and Protection. Bert, his eyes starting out of his head and his mouth wide open, was devouring the contents of a paper called The Chronicles of Crime. Ned Dawson, a poor devil who was paid fourpence an hour for acting as mate or labourer to Bundy, or the bricklayers, or anyone else who wanted him, lay down on the dirty floor in a corner of the room and with his coat rolled up as a pillow, went to sleep. Sawkins, with the same intention, stretched himself at ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... were worth, in goods, twenty shillings and upwards to five pounds, paid fourpence of every pound; from five pounds to ten pounds, eightpence; from ten pounds to twenty pounds, sixteen pence; from twenty and upwards, two shillings. Lands, fees, and annuities, from twenty shillings to five pounds, paid eightpence in the pound; from five pounds to ten pounds, sixteen pence; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... household riches of New England, which was of value to our own day. When Governor Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts, he promptly wrote over to his wife to bring candles with her from England when she came. And in 1634 he sent over for a large quantity of wicks and tallow. Candles cost fourpence apiece, which made them costly luxuries for the ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... and shall always suffer from hunger and thirst, for we shall never be able to earn enough to procure for ourselves any better food. Our bread supply is very scarce—a little in the morning and less at night, for none of us can gain by her handiwork more than fourpence a day for her daily bread. And with this we cannot provide ourselves with sufficient food and clothes. For though there is not one of us who does not earn as much as twenty sous [327] a week, yet we cannot live without hardship. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... a horse, within the borough, pays one penny to the mayor (sheriff?) and the purchaser another; of an ox, a half-penny; of a man, fourpence, in whatsoever place he may be brought within ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... the Wagon, for which we had another good hour to wait, came lumbering up to the Pillars of Hercules; and after the Wagoner had fought with a Grenadier, who wanted to go to Brentford for fourpence, and would have stabbed the man with his bayonet had not his hand been stayed, the Groom took me up, and put me on the straw inside. He paid the Wagoner some money for me, and also gave into his keeping a little bundle, containing, I suppose, some change ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... vas acquainted vith at the time. I artervards discovered she was French. She was werry thin, and as pale as a soft-shelled clam; there was a dark blue color under her eyes, like these here muscle shells. At first, she used to buy ninepence worth of oysters. Arter a while it came down to fourpence; and one day she only vanted two cents vorth. I asked her who they vas for, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... for a moment at the door, surveying the court, then walked up to a party of boys, and laid his hand on the shoulder of one, holding a silver fourpence to him. "Anderson Junior," said he, "there's your money. I am not going to let Stoneborough School be turned into a gin palace. I give you notice, it is not to be. Now you are not to bully May junior for telling me. He did not, I found ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... Mrs. Carter, "who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for fourpence halfpenny a day.... ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... before been produced in any part of the world at a price so low as a shilling a volume.' Far be it from us to make any heartless allusion to the fact that Shakespeare's Sonnets were brought out at fivepence, or that for fourpence-halfpenny one could have bought a Martial in ancient Rome. Every man, a cynical American tells us, has the right to beat a drum before his booth. Still, we must acknowledge that Mr. Walter Scott would have been much better employed in correcting some of the more obvious errors that appear ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... the last six. The price of grain, in place of promptly rising to three half-pence a pound as in 1865-66, continued at three farthings during the earlier months of the famine. During the latter ones it advanced to twopence, and in certain localities reached fourpence." ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... BARTHWICK's cook gave me a little bit of bacon. I'm going to make a stew. [She prepares for cooking.] There's fourteen shillings owing for rent, James, and of course I 've only got two and fourpence. They'll ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... reticule bag and counted the four coppers that jingled within the pocket. She had had no dinner. No music hall was possible to her with such capital. You know something of life when you have only fourpence in the world and vice is the only trade for which your hand has acquired ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... you don't return it, don't look me in the face again. I always write my name on them, so there's no excuse. And I don't know a greater piece of impudence—and people are wonderfully impudent now-a-days—than to think that because a thing only cost fourpence, you need not be at the trouble of keeping it clean and dry, and of ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Ladies' Clubs in Berlin all flourishing. The subscription to the Berliner Frauenklub is only six marks a year, yet it provides the members with comfortably furnished rooms and well cooked meals at low prices. A member of this club can dine for ninepence, and have a hot dish from fourpence to sevenpence. She has access to a library of 1300 volumes, to the leading papers and reviews, and to magazines in four languages. She can entertain women at the club, but not men; though she can meet men there at certain hours of the day. Social gatherings ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... so that in 1851 it would be only fifteen shillings and sixpence, and after that year permanently fourteen shillings. This was a great advantage to the consumers as compared with the old prohibitory duty of sixty-three shillings, and the protective duty of twenty-three shillings and fourpence. Lord John met the objections of "the negroes' friends," as to the admission of slave-grown sugar, by showing that the exclusion of such sugar was impracticable, inasmuch as by treaty, states producing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... shield and do battle for the King should pay enough to hire one who would. The scutage was assessed at two marks. Later, the assessment varied. The mark was two thirds of a pound of silver by weight, or thirteen shillings and fourpence ($3.20). Reckoned in modern money, the tax was probably at least twenty times two marks, or ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... and there were often pencilled notes in the margin. Of course he had chosen from among the most valuable he possessed; such a multitude must else have been sold to make this sum of two pounds ten. Books are cheap, you know. At need, one can buy a Homer for fourpence, a Sophocles for sixpence. It was not rubbish that he had accumulated at so small expenditure, but the library of a poor student—battered bindings, stained pages, supplanted editions. He loved his books, but there was something he loved more, and when Amy glanced at him with eyes ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... the ingredients proposed for sauces seem to our ears rather prodigious. In one place a contemporary peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought for fourpence, the condiments recommended for it were not to be had for less than ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... friend Lord Burleigh "a case of Hallamshire whittells, being such fruites as his pore cuntrey affordeth with fame throughout the realme." Fuller afterwards speaks of the Sheffield knives as "for common use of the country people," and he cites an instance of a knave who cozened him out of fourpence for one when it was ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... "Indeed, that is the only comfort of her—that she asks questions so fast you can scarce slide in an answer. She was free enough with her information as well— told me her name, and how many children she had, and that she paid three-and-fourpence the yard ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don't know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr Scruby, because you're a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?" ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... and never so much as the flick of a coat-tail seen. Those are the sort of men I'm thinking of, not the bricklayer out of work, who smashes a window and gets ten years for breaking open a cheesemonger's till with nine and fourpence ha'penny in it.' ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome

... as such in England. Down to 1765 the duty imposed was only one penny, but as newspapers grew in influence the restraining tax was increased from time to time, until in 1815 it reached the maximum of fourpence." At this figure the tax seems to have continued many years, for under the year 1836 Mackenzie refers to it as such, and remarks, "that this rendered the newspaper a very occasional luxury to the working man; that the annual circulation of newspapers in the United ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde

... pound of leg beef," said she, "and then we'll have fourpence left for bread and tea; no, take the other penny, too, and get half a pound of pieces at the butcher's for twopence and a twopenny tin of condensed milk, that's fourpence, and a three ha'penny loaf and one penny for tea, that's sixpence ha'penny, and get onions ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... do for him, Hogg resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he designated "The Spy," acting as his own publisher. The first number of this publication—a quarto weekly sheet, price fourpence—was issued on the first of September 1810. With varied popularity, this paper existed during the space of a year; and owing to the perseverance of the conductor might have subsisted a longer period, but for a certain ruggedness which occasionally disfigured it. As a whole, being chiefly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... Debates (Works, x. 418), makes General Handasyd say:—'The whole pay of a foot soldier is sixpence a day, of which he is to pay fourpence to his landlord for his diet, or, what is very nearly the same, to carry fourpence daily to the market ... Twopence a day is all that a soldier had to lay out upon cleanliness and decency, and with which he is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... state of things was not speedily remedied, they must end in ruin and anarchy. Nor, he continued, was the state of the manufacturing population better than that of the agriculturists. Artisans were at work for threepence or fourpence per day; and of those who received employment, a great proportion worked for wages which, when compared with the value of the article on which they were employed, were altogether deceptive. Then, he asked, what was the state ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... history. It occurred to him to try to turn his infant talents to account; and he painted upon cardboard a couple of birds in the style which the older among us remember as having been called Oriental tinting, took them to a small shop, and sold them for fourpence. The kindness of friends, to whom he was ever grateful, gave him the opportunity of more serious and more remunerative study, and he became a patient and accurate zooelogical draughtsman. Many of the birds in the earlier volumes ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... "Fourpence-halfpenny!" he repeated, and fell into profound meditation, from which he broke with a sudden return of anger. "What a double-dyed villain and robber that infernal woman has been! She told me that prices had risen to such a height that the commonest salt butter was eighteenpence a pound, that ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... breakfast, consisting of an egg, which the grocer, with pleasing optimism, insists upon calling "fresh," one penny; bread and butter, per week, one shilling and sixpence; tea, milk, and sugar, per week, one and fourpence. Lunch, a really good, substantial meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... that evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence; the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... himself. Nevertheless, he descended three steps from the court into which he had been directed, and pushed open the swing door, behind which Emil Sachs announced his desire to supply the world with dinners at eightpence and vin ordinaire at fourpence ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... array of fine homes, bungalows and stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine. Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along the rail of the race-course, cannot be found ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... essentials are concerned. Butcher meat, not surpassed in any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, is to be had at twopence per pound; the fine four pound loaf for sixpence halfpenny; brown sugar, fourpence; white, sixpence; candles, sixpence per pound; tea, the finest, three shillings the pound; fresh butter, one shilling and threepence per pound. Wild fowl in abundance. Vegetables are cheaper than in any part of England. Wines of moderate price, but not of good quality. Spirits ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... the sake of argument. It makes my calculations clearer. Very well, then. You buy your hen. It lays an egg every day of the week. You sell the eggs—say—six for fivepence. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit at least fourpence, three farthings on every half-dozen eggs. What do you think ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... Legislature at its late memorable session. The Assembly, at this epoch, was unusually well-informed, and, having passed many other wise and wholesome enactments, it crowned all with the Cat-Act. In its original form, this law offered a premium for cat-heads (fourpence a-piece), but the Senate succeeded in amending the main clause, so as to substitute the word "tails" for "heads." This amendment was so obviously proper, that the House concurred in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... drawers, dressing-table, chair, and bath were all gone. The sole object in the chamber was a coarse print of a well-known informer of the year '98, 'Jemmy O'Brien,' under whose portrait was written, in Atlee's hand, 'Bought in at fourpence-halfpenny, at the general sale, in affectionate remembrance of his virtues, by one who feels himself to be a relative.—J.A.' Kearney tore down the picture in passion, and stamped upon it; indeed, his indignation with his chum had now ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... five shillings and fourpence change with his quittance, and on his way home he made a detour to hobble into Mr Gedye's shop—"S. Gedye, Ironmonger and Ship-Chandler"—and purchase two staples, a hasp, and a ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... custom of 'shouting,' as it is called, is going—if it has not gone—out of fashion amongst the better classes in the capital cities. Beer, or more frequently spirits, form the favourite 'nobbler,' the price of which varies from fourpence to eightpence in Sydney and Adelaide according to the drink. In Melbourne all drinks are sixpence. There is a current story—which I know to be true—of two well-known colonials, who, on landing ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... Blades tells a very sad story of a nobleman who handed over some Caxtons to a provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500 pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400 pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco, stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are indifferent ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... chains. I used to be shown, when a child, a flat stone in the roadway to which the gibbet had been fixed. People of a willing fancy were persuaded, and sought to persuade others, that this stone was never dry. And no wonder, they would add, for the two men had only stolen fourpence between them. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... She also received sixpence from the Devil, and "her Familiar did commonly suck her right Breast about seven at night in the shape of a little Cat of a dunnish Colour, which is as smooth as a Want [mole], and when she is suckt, she is in a kind of Trance." Poor Christian Green got only fourpence half-penny for her soul, but her bargain was made some years later than that of the others, and quotations, as the stock-brokers would say, ranged lower. Her familiar took the shape of a hedgehog. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... send them with ready money, they turn factors, and take threepence or fourpence in the shilling brokerage. And here let me take notice of one very heinous abuse, not to say petty felony, which is practised in most of the great families about town, which is, when the tradesman gives the house-keeper or other commanding servant a penny or twopence ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... sixty pounds of oil, or seventy-two pounds of meat, or four and a half gallons of wine sold only for fivepence, or three-fifths of a denarius. In the time of Polybius, the traveler was charged for victuals and lodgings at an inn only about two farthings a day, and a bushel of wheat sold for fourpence. At such prices there was very little market for the farmer. Sicily and Sardinia were the real granaries of Rome. Thus were all the best interests of the country sacrificed to the unproductive population of the city. Such was the golden age of the republic—a ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... for you in the meat line, my dear," said her parent. "I don't indulge in meat more than once a week myself, but we'll take it out in fish. Fish is cheap and plentiful in Dawlish, and we can get dear little crabs for fourpence apiece." ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, and when you find how easy it be to do ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... and the baby lived there. He left the child at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which included a limited supply of milk. How he managed to keep himself and more than half keep the child on the remaining two shillings I cannot say. I only know that he did it, and that not a soul ever helped him or ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... thrown open. Richard with a few unarmed attendants rode forward; the best intentioned of the crowd followed him, and at Mile End he saw himself surrounded with sixty thousand petitioners. Their demands were reduced to four: the abolition of slavery; the reduction of the rent of land to fourpence the acre; the free liberty of buying and selling in all fairs and markets; and a general pardon for past offences. A charter to that effect was engrossed for each parish and township; during the night thirty clerks ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... for each of four large headings, forty illuminated letters with vignettes at 2s. 2d. each, a hundred and fifteen without vignettes at fivepence-halfpenny, two hundred and three in red, gold, and blue at fourpence-farthing, eighty-four drawn in black at twopence, and 2846 small letters at the beginning of each verse at less than one farthing. Next March this Psalter was brought back to Thomar on a mule whose hire was two shillings and twopence—a ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing, possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered annuitants, stranded humanity ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... surprise. 'Why, there's seventeen and fourpence farthing here,' he said. 'Do you mean to say you two have been out for a week, and only spent two and ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... driver alight first, and then throw yourself upon him, you will find that he breaks your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an offer of eightpence, on no account make the tender, or show the money, until you are safely on the pavement. It is very bad policy attempting to save the fourpence. You are very much in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful damage. Any instruction, however, in the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly unnecessary if you are going any distance, because the probability is, that ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... nap after supper. We played for about an hour and a half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence - George always is lucky at cards - and Harris and I had lost exactly ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... half-starved Frenchman, who had run away from his own country, and would soon run away from theirs; they profoundly pitied him and his soldiers; they would scorn to spend powder on such scarecrows; they would rather feed and clothe them, as being poor white slaves, hired to be shot at, and starved for fourpence a day. But as for the planters, overseers, and rangers, they should die, every one of them, and Bonny should be governor of the colony. "After this, they tinkled their bill-hooks, fired a volley, and gave three cheers; which, being answered by the rangers, the ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... sheaf he ever culls out for tithe, and to rob God holds it the best pastime, the clearest gain. This man cries out above others of the prodigality of our times, and tells of the thrift of our forefathers: how that great prince thought himself royally attired, when he bestowed thirteen shillings and fourpence on half a suit. How one wedding gown served our grandmothers till they exchanged it for a winding-sheet; and praises plainness, not for less sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his forefather's coat, which ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... jewels, in Grace Abounding (No. 232)-"It was glorious to me to see His [Christ's] exaltation. Now I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies, (Irish sixpences, which, in the dearth of silver coin in England, were made current at fourpence-halfpenny-ED), that rich men carry in their purses, when their GOLD is in their trunks at home. Oh! I saw that my gold was in my trunk at home, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... also looms up largely in the battle array, and pays better than her neighbors. With her artillery-private (or gunner as he is more properly called), we will compare a private of the United States artillery, or infantry, since both are on a par in this respect. The former receives one shilling fourpence farthing, or thirty-three and one-half cents, per day, from which, deducting his rations and clothing, there will be left thirteen and one-half cents, or about four dollars per month. The latter receives seven dollars ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you a prey to nightmare. Then, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... only went as fast as the coaches, but they gained time when the coach stopped to change horses, and so got the pick of the market. A dog-drawn cart used to bring fish from Littlehampton to Godalming, where oysters were often to be bought for three a penny." Three a penny, fresh oysters! Fourpence a dozen all alive! The street cries must ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... are very kind," replied Katy; and her nimble fingers had soon made a nice little parcel for the lady, who gave her a fourpence. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... cause why the army has been so indifferently fed, clothed and paid. It is the cause, likewise, of the nerveless state of the campaign, and the insecurity of the country. Now, if a tax equal to thirteen and fourpence per head, will remove all these difficulties, and make people secure in their homes, leave them to follow the business of their stores and farms unmolested, and not only drive out but keep out the enemy from the country; and if the neglect of raising this sum will let them in, and produce ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... rates at which periodical literature may be transmitted. A magazine which may be sent to any place in the United States for from an eighth of a penny to a farthing, according to its weight, will cost for postage in England from two-pence-halfpenny to fourpence. It is not the mere difference in cost of the postage to the subscriber that counts, but the low American rate has permitted the adoption by the publishers of a system impossible to English magazine-makers, a system which has had the effect of making magazines, at least as good as the English sixpenny ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... taking a few days' holiday and prudently availed himself of the Meteorological Office forecast before going. Listen: 'Immediate prospect for London warm and settled. Further outlook cooler but fine.' Well, well; I did get a pound of tomatoes for my fourpence." ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... Portuguese, and insisted on singing the Marseillaise until a crowd collected in front of the house, whose open windows looked on an irregular square. Then he and his friends shouted "Viva la partida dos Republicanos!" The charges at this hotel were ridiculously small—only three and fourpence a day for board and lodging. And it was by no means bad; at anyrate it was always possible to get fruit, including loquats, strawberries, custard apples, bananas, oranges, and the passion-flower fruit, which is not enticing on a first acquaintance, ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... and enjoying colour effects and the oddities of the streets (which cost him nearly nought), and reading: there were three shops of Putney where all that is greatest in literature could be bought for fourpence-halfpenny a volume. Do what he could, he could not read away more than ninepence a week. He was positively accumulating money. You may say that he ought to have compelled Alice to accept money. The idea never occurred to him. In his scheme of things money had not ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... three pounds and fourpence a week," an applicant told the Willesden Police Court, "out of which I give my wife three pounds." The man may be a model husband, of course, but before taking it for granted we should want to know what he does with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various

... as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane. There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... at it than I perceived myself to be lost. I had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny. All evening I sat by the fire considering my situation. I could not pay the bill; my landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either baggage or money, how was I to find another ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Turning from the niggardly surgeons, he enrolled his name as a student of divinity, and was frequently in Edinburgh attending the lectures at Divinity Hall. Wonderfully cheap was the living in those days, when, at the Edinburgh ordinaries, a good dinner could be had for fourpence, small beer included. John Witherspoon, years after a member of the American Congress, then a frank, generous young fellow, was a companion of Carlyle at this period, and they often went fishing together in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... lines of vast powder magazines, enormous barracks of recent construction, preparations for defence, on a scale altogether inconceivable and indescribable. Little wonder that meat is a shilling a pound, instead of fourpence as before the annexation, that bread has doubled in price, taxation also, and, to make matters worse, that ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... things, Art with man's thought and emotion about things. In Pure Mathematics things are rarefied into ideas, numbers, concepts, but still farther and farther away from the individual man. Two and two make four, and fourpence is not ninepence (or at any rate four is not nine) whether Alcibiades or Cleon keep the tally. In Acting on the other hand almost everything depends on personal interpretation—on the gesture, the walk, the gaze, the tone of a Siddons, the ruse smile of a Coquelin, the exquisite, vibrant ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... that stew looked satisfying; that's where it is, you see—a man can come here and get a thoroughly nutritious and filling meal for the trifling sum of fourpence—and yet you meet people who tell you Vegetarianism is a mere passing fad! It's a force that's making itself increasingly felt—you must be conscious of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various

... making inquiry, he ascertained that there were two tons and a half to be disposed of, and that an equal quantity had already been sold, for the purpose of converting it into pasteboard. The vendor said he could get fourpence a pound for the whole, and that it made capital Bristol board. The fact was mentioned by a member of the Council of the Royal Society, and they thought it necessary ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... Charles, "I am very sorry, but I have only fourpence, because I spent all my money on my new kite; but if that will ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... banqueting-house," continued the historian, "was set up a great pillar of timber, made of eight great masts, bound together with iron bands for to hold them together: for it was a hundred and thirty-four feet in length, and cost six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence to set it upright. The banqueting-house was covered over with canvas, fastened with ropes and iron as fast as might be devised; and within the said house was painted the heavens, with stars, sun, moon, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... consuming my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in silence. Nor did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shillings out of my pocket. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... thousand one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, nineteen shillings: for the expense of four regiments on the Irish establishment, serving in North America, they voted thirty-five thousand seven hundred and forty-four pounds, eight shillings and fourpence. For pay to the general and general staff officers, and officers of the hospital for the land-forces, they assigned fifty-four thousand four hundred and fifty-four pounds, eleven shillings and ninepence. They voted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... button holes; and at the most, when at work twelve and fifteen hours a day, she rarely succeeded in turning out more than fourteen or sixteen shirts a week—an excessive amount of toil that brought her in about three shillings and fourpence a week. And the case of this poor girl was neither accidental nor uncommon. And this, because the remuneration given for women's work is an example of revolting injustice and savage barbarism. They are paid not half as much as men who are employed at the needle: such as tailors, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch! See—there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier, Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of Portugal!—Lord Strangford's ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... "Blighter owes me fourpence, anyway," roars Elf; and I infer that neither of them has a high opinion of 'Arry's character from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... of Auchterarder in the account of the Great Chamberlain for 1366 as being in arrear of the contribution for payment of the King's ransom, being due the sum of thirty-one shillings.[8] In 1374, the Chamberlain debits himself with thirty-three shillings and fourpence received from the bailies of Auchterarder for contribution; and there are two different entries in the rolls of 1390, both relating to a debt owing by the Crown to the community of Auchterarder on account of certain services to the late King ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... found, and also that the trade in coal did not begin in Europe for some time afterward. And there really seems nothing improbable in the story that at a time when a kitten big enough to kill mice brought fourpence in England, such an animal, taken to a rat-infested, catless country, might not be sold for a sum large enough to start an enterprising youth in trade. Surely, the beginnings of some of our own railroad kings and financiers may as well look doubtful ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... prosperous year of 1856, incomes of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds were chargeable with a tax of elevenpence halfpenny in the pound: persons who enjoyed a revenue of a hundred and fifty or more had the honour of paying one and fourpence. Abatements there were none, and families supporting life on two pounds a week might in some cases, perchance, be reconciled to the mulct by considering how ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... seventeen. Better make a note of it on y'r card. You, nought nought nought, type seven, sixty-four, b.c.d., gamma forty-one, female; you 'ave to go to the Metal-beating Company and try that for a day—fourpence bonus if ye're satisfactory; and you, nought seven one, type four, seven hundred and nine, g.f.b., pi five and ninety, male; you 'ave to go to the Photographic Company on Eighty-first Way, and learn something or other—I ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... wonderful gorges and one dangerous rapid to Chunking and Chengtu. In those parts the travellers always took the three principal rooms of the inn they patronised, the cost 150 cash, something less than fourpence—oranges 20 a penny—the coolies with 100 lb. loads would cover 30 to 40 miles a day—salt is got in bores sunk with bamboos to nearly a mile in depth; it takes two or three generations to sink a bore. The lecturer described the Chinese frontier ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... in, 'Mr. Dusautoy is at the door. There is such a to do. All the women have been getting gin with their penny club tickets, and Mrs. Brock has been stealing the money, and Mr. Dusautoy wants to know if you paid up three-and-fourpence for the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the same time that Garrick had raised the profession of a player. He defended Garrick, too, against the common charge of avarice. Garrick, as he pointed out, had been brought up in a family whose study it was to make fourpence go as far as fourpence-halfpenny. Johnson remembered in early days drinking tea with Garrick when Peg Woffington made it, and made it, as Garrick grumbled, "as red as blood." But when Garrick became rich he became liberal. He had, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... show that the laws did not sleep. Thus there was in 1748 a fine of a penny for the absence of an undergraduate from prayers, and of a half-penny for tardiness or coming in after the introductory collect; of fourpence for absence from public worship; of from two to six pence for absence from one's chamber during the time of study; of one shilling for picking open a lock the first time, and two shillings the second; of two and sixpence for playing at cards or dice, or for bringing strong liquor into College; ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... in Christian England than the industrious, self-respecting but unfortunate poor. But come with me to see another sight! It is again afternoon, and we take our stand at 3.30 p.m. outside a shelter for women which every night receives, for fourpence each, some hundreds of ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... not so careful about money as a pattern boy should be. He did not say to himself, "Now I have got a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore I may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each week"—and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week accordingly. He ran through his money at about the same rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few days after he had got back to school. When he had no ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... two first chapters of the Gospel according to Saint John; that there was an unbaked gooseberry pie put prominently on the shelf in the schoolroom, a fortnight before the vacation at Midsummer, to be partaken of on the happy day of breaking-up, each boy paying fourpence for his share of the mighty feast. There were between forty and fifty of us. I had almost forgotten to mention that I was to be duly punished whenever I deserved it, but the master was, on no account, to hurt me, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... than 2,000 petitions were presented to Parliament in favour of Mr. Hill's plans, and eventually they were adopted and became law by the 3rd and 4th Vict., cap. 96. The new postage law by which the uniform rate of fourpence per letter was tried as an experiment, came into operation on the 5th of December, 1839, and on the 10th January, 1840, the reduced uniform rate of 1d. per letter of half-an-ounce weight was commenced. Under the new system the privilege of franking letters ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... and French Brandy is made into Punch, with the other of the finest Ingredients—viz., A quart of Arrack made into Punch for six shillings; and so in proportion to the smallest quantity, which is half-a-quartern for fourpence half-penny. A quart of Rum or Brandy made into Punch for four shillings; and so in proportion to the smallest quantity, which is half-a-quartern for fourpence half-penny; and gentlemen may have it as soon made as a gill of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... the fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad for his approaching birthday,—H. M. S. Majestic, now lying uselessly careened in the toyshop window, just ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... tokens of God's working in the minds of His people, and of His gracious working with and through His servant; and, for this reason, a thousand pounds caused no more sincere praise to God and no more excitement of mind than the fourpence given subsequently by ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... further evils, which were springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... my first year's stay in Germany, I found that my receipts in wages, during the twelve months, amounted to twenty-one pounds six shillings and fourpence, an average of eight shillings and twopence-halfpenny per week; but it must be remembered that, during nine months of that period, board and lodging formed part of my remuneration. I stayed a full year in Vienna, and received in wages, in all, three hundred and sixty-two guldens, thirty ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... was in all England; and provision made for it of 'fourpence halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant, invincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford; the rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor stalking about, in winter season, with his shoes worn ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... had come easily; double handfuls of money that he had tossed in the air like a child, to see it glitter. Sixteen hundred dollars from a lucky whaling cruise; seven hundred dollars, his share for salvaging the derelict steamer Shore Ditch; sixty-six pounds eight and fourpence that the passengers had raised for him when he saved the girl at Durban—that, and a gold medal, and a fancy certificate with the British and American flags intertwined. That medal! It had gone for a round of drinks and five dollars ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne



Words linked to "Fourpence" :   coin, groat



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