"Inefficiency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for the friends of the incomers to power. Fancy a new premier in England making a clean sweep of nine-tenths of the clerks, &c., at the Treasury, Foreign-office, Post-office, Custom-house, Dockyards, &c., &c. Conceive the jobbing such a system must lead to, not to mention the comparative inefficiency it must produce in the said departments, and the ridiculous labour it throws upon the dispensers of these gifts of place. The following quotation may be ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in this gospel and programme of American fellowship, every one is aware. If the obstacle to effective individualism is lack of discipline, the obstacles to effective fellowship are vagueness, crankiness, inefficiency, and the relics of primal selfishness. Nobody in our day has preached the tidings of universal fellowship more fervidly and powerfully than Tolstoi. Yet when one asks the great Russian, "What am I to do as a member of this fellowship?" Tolstoi gives but a confused and impractical answer. He ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... prayers, and coerce the sordid corn- dealers, who had, no doubt, numerous pits yet unopened. The alarm became still greater in the cantonments, where the commanding officer attributed all the evil to the inefficiency of the commissariat and the villany of the corn-dealers; and Major Gregory was in dread of being torn to pieces by the soldiery. Only one day's supply was left in the cantonment bazaars—the troops had become clamorous almost to a state of mutiny—the people of the town began to rush in upon every ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... world by Mr. Diogenes Dottle in a letter to The Daily Mandate. But the POSTMASTER-GENERAL is content to treat the question with the airy scepticism and obstructive complacency that have rendered the London Telephone service a byword of inefficiency, and refuses even to make a grant in aid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... duty, the necessity of marrying early and procreating large families.[113] In France, the campaign against the religious Orders in their educational capacity, while doubtless largely directed against educational inefficiency, was also supported by the feeling that such education is not on the side of family life; and Arsene Dumont, one of the most vigorous champions of a strenuously active policy for increasing the birth-rate, openly protested against allowing any place as teachers ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Service, Naval Intelligence Service, Neutrality Squads of the Customs, and the Postal Inspection. Then there's the State Service and the police and several other services. And there is no proper co-ordination, no single head for all these agencies. The result is a ghastly confusion and shameful inefficiency. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... public should be prepared for an inefficiency which can hardly fail to continue; and, in justice to the American squadron, it should be imputed to the true cause, and not to any lack of energy or good-will on the part of the officers. Whatever be their zeal (and hitherto they have been active and indefatigable), it is ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... matter of fact, he had felt the same way about it—he felt that way still. It hurt him to think that Helen should be wearing the badge of his inefficiency. And then, deep down, he had a masculine distaste for sharing his workday world with a woman. He liked to preserve the mystery of those hours spent in the fight for existence, because he knew instinctively that battle grounds lost their glamour at close range. His Californian ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... determined as never before. They now welcome strong work and strong hands, and if the Republic does not respond to the responsibilities of the hour, they will not as in 1870 burn and destroy, but will set up another government in quick order and wipe out the weakness and inefficiency found to exist when the strain came in ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... of the strings be slightly wanting in absolute cylindricity. I speak specially of "staccato," as that form of bowing suffers perhaps more than any other from faulty bows; but any form of bowing that calls for special dexterity will betray the inefficiency of ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... the fifth morning, when Virginia awoke, that she found Bulan rolling and tossing upon the wet ground before her shelter, delirious with fever. At the sight of the mighty figure reduced to pitiable inefficiency and weakness, despite the knowledge that her protector could no longer protect, the fear of the jungle faded from the heart of the young girl—she was no more a weak and trembling daughter of an effete civilization. Instead she was a lioness, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... on the ground that he had violated the law and been guilty of tyrannous and despotic conduct, the mayor had ousted him not for pursuing an illegal course in arresting and "mugging" a presumptively innocent man (for illegal it most undoubtedly was), but for inefficiency and maladministration in ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... with Napoleon when the latter received the despatches containing an account of what had happened in Paris. He informed me that Napoleon was much agitated on perusing them, and that he launched into abuse of the inefficiency of the police. Rapp added that he did not confine himself to complaints against the agents of his authority. "Is, then, my power so insecure," said he, "that it may be put in peril by a single individual, and a prisoner? It would appear that my crown is not fixed very firmly on my head if in my ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... steadily and rapidly growing disapproval, the peculiar methods of the Spaniards for the suppression of the rebellion. It was the opinion of America, indeed— and not of America alone, it may be said—that there would have been no rebellion in Cuba but for the gross corruption and inefficiency of the local government; and that the proper method of suppression was, not force of arms, but the introduction of reforms into the system of government. The fact is, that the state of affairs in Cuba was generating a strong and ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... ownership. But it is to be noted that the class seems to include the most peaceable—perhaps all the characteristically peaceable—primitive groups of men. Indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... home where I was being wooed back to brisk health was situated along the sea-front. Chuckling at the MacNeils' efforts to modify my views of our Home Defenders and their inefficiency, and brooding on the folks' kind hearts, I paused to light a cigarette. The wind blew out the fluttering flame. It also set me sneezing, for I had a bad cold in the head. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... pages of their Report, discussed the nature and effects of transportation, and what alterations can be made in the existing system, now consider that they have submitted the most unquestionable proofs that the two main characteristics of transportation, as a punishment, are inefficiency in deterring from crimes, and remarkable efficiency, not in reforming, but in still further corrupting those who undergo the punishment; that these qualities of inefficiency for good, and efficiency for evil, are inherent ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... far as one knows, to his suggestions or reproaches. At Harrow he lived for five years, on terms of affectionate intimacy with the Head Master and the staff; and, though he was keenly alive to the absurdities of the "catch-scholarship," as he called it, which was cultivated there, and to the inefficiency of the Principia and Notabilia, on which the Harrovian mind was nourished, his adverse judgment never made itself felt. Marlborough he praised and admired as "a decided offspring of Rugby." At Eton his fascinating essay on "Eutrapelia" was given;[11] and he in turn was fascinated by ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... and that better days are in store for her long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... In the prematurely gray hair, the good-looking face, the abrupt speech, he was very much American. He was neat—neat in his way of dressing, and in his compact phrases, as hard and well-rounded as a pebble. The world to him was a place full of slackers, of lazy good-nature, of inefficiency. Into that softness he had come with a high explosive and an aim. He moved through life as a hunter among a covey of tame partridges—a brief flutter and a tumble of soft flesh. He had the cunning lines about the mouth, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... in return for what they consume; they have no understanding of any relation of service to the community, they have never been trained nor their imaginations touched to any social purpose. A great proportion of small shopkeepers, for example, are people who have, through the inefficiency that comes from inadequate training and sheer aimlessness, or improvements in machinery or the drift of trade, been thrown out of employment, and who set up in needless shops as a method of eking out the savings upon which they count. They contrive to make sixty or seventy ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... that evening, at which they demanded that the ten per cent. should be restored, and the running of double headers abolished. In the meantime, the railroad authorities, perceiving the inefficiency of the local police powers, and alarmed at the still-increasing mob and the vicious spirit which it displayed, invoked the aid of the sheriff of the county. At midnight Sheriff Fife came to Twenty-eighth Street with a hastily summoned posse, a part of which deserted him before he ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... hierarchy of civil and military officials. The change was welcome to the orthodox clergy, the more so because Justinian gave large powers in local administration to their bishops. Of outward pomp there was enough to gild corruption and inefficiency with a deceptive splendour; but in fact the restored Empire was little more civilised, in the true sense of the word, than the barbarian states of the past and future. Upon the Italians the Emperor conferred the boon of his famous Corpus Juris, a compendium ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... proposition of the inefficiency of doctors, and asked my companion if he had been ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... Scraggs, after abandoning all hope of salving the bark Chesapeake, returned to the Maggie, the little craft reminded him of nothing so much as the ward for the incorrigible of an insane asylum. Due to Captain Scraggs's stupidity and the general inefficiency of the Maggie, the new navigating officer was of the opinion that he had been swindled out of his share of the salvage, while the new engineer, furious at having been engaged to baby such a ruin ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... cooperation, and consequently the almost entire absence of social and national self-consciousness. This rather than intellectual inferiority explains the lack of social sympathy, the presence of such barbarous institutions as cannibalism and slavery, the low position of woman, inefficiency in the industrial and mechanical arts, the low type of group morals, rudimentary art-sense, lack of race-pride and self-assertiveness, and in intellectual and religious life largely ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... populated, and least developed nations. The economy is largely agricultural, with the cultivation of rice the single most important activity in the economy. Major impediments to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, the inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, a rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy resources (natural gas), inadequate power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. Prime Minister Sheikh HASINA Wajed's ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that the Dardanelles campaign was a cruel blunder, that the blood of the Anzacs' bravest and best had been uselessly spilt, that their splendid young lives had been an empty sacrifice to the demons of Incompetence and Inefficiency. To those in Australia who in their hearts may feel that shreds of truth were woven in the rumours—that the Anzacs were spent on a forlorn hope, were wasted on a task foredoomed to failure—let this simple drawing bring the comfort ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men come from crowded shops and the children ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... the efficient service rendered by the Y. W. C. A. in its hostess-house work in the American camps; that work alone would have entitled it to the support of the American people. That of the Y. M. C. A. was on so large a scale that naturally its inefficiency was often in proportion to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the spirit of exclusiveness fostered and the old suspicions bred. The old intense competition of nation with nation for trade to the exclusion of other nations from the markets of the world will return with its attendant inefficiency. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... scientific view which took into account the social destructiveness of the benevolent. Millner was persuaded that every individual woe mitigated by the philanthropy of Orlando G. Spence added just so much to the sum-total of human inefficiency, and it was one of his favourite subjects of speculation to picture the innumerable social evils that may follow upon the rescue of one infant from ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... filled with bore, up to the space which the loading had occupied! and, the priming of the weapons being left untouched, nothing but actually drawing and examining the charge could have discovered the inefficiency of his arms till the fatal minute arrived when their services were required. Charlie bestowed a hearty Liddesdale curse on his landlady, and reloaded—his pistols with care and accuracy, having now no doubt that he was to be waylaid and assaulted. He was not far engaged in the Waste, which ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... In reply to the captain's charges, the sergeant, acting as spokesman for the rest, stated the grievances of the men. The result was, that the captain received directions to exercise his company in the colonel's presence; and, complying reluctantly, demonstrated his own inefficiency in a manner which elicited the merriment of spectators, and even provoked the ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... and great thirst. It is in these cases that the patient continually grows worse, and the appearance of suppuration at the top of the hoof in about two weeks after the inception of the disease proves the inefficiency of any treatment which may have been used and the hopelessness of the case. These patients die usually between the tenth and twentieth days either from exhaustion ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... meagrely nourished it. But during that generation of yesterday—and how many generations before it?—there grew up inevitably, from the conditions, a traditional toleration of incompetence, a faith as it were in inefficiency. Ireland of yesterday was bound up in one vicious circle of work that was necessarily underpaid because it was inefficient, and work that was necessarily inefficient because it was underpaid. In the lower class there were no reserves; ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... mind to regard the War of 1812 as a maritime conflict. This is natural enough, for the issue was the freedom of the sea, and the achievements of Yankee ships and sailors stood out in brilliant relief against the somber background of the inefficiency of the army. The offensive was thought to be properly a matter for the land forces, which had vastly superior advantages against Canada, while the navy was compelled to act on the defensive against overwhelming odds. The truth is that the navy did amazingly well, though ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... interest and instruct both the Members of the Academy, and the public generally, upon the subjects naturally falling within the scope of the first of such a series of lectures. It is gratifying to see that the members of the Academy are at last beginning to awake to the consciousness of its inefficiency, and we trust that some benefit may accrue to Art ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... defective, places a burden upon those who are mentally and physically capable and renders them liable to results which are the outgrowth of weakness or viciousness. The fact that alcohol causes pauperism, crime, and general inefficiency, thereby rendering the social environment less conducive to what is best in life, is plainly evident. To realize how alcohol harms the individual through its effects upon society in general, one has only to take into account his dependence upon ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... I was willing to co-operate in every way, but my patience ran out. Also, I was alarmed at the bungling and inefficiency I saw. For that reason I went straight to the people ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... of a considerable industry, was a mere village as compared with its present extent. People who travelled went about armed, by reason of the abundance of highwaymen and the paucity and inefficiency of the police. Stage coaches had not reached Birmingham, and it took three days to get to London. Even canals were a recent and ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Maroons. Their course was first directed against the two small islands, nearly contiguous, of St. Catharine's, on the coast of Costa Rica. These, though strongly fortified, were easily taken, by reason of the inefficiency both of the commander and his troops, superinduced by the terror inspired by the very name of the pirates. The design of Mausvelt in the acquisition of these islands, was to fortify and hold them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was the word the English applied to officers, who, on account of inefficiency, or for other reasons, had to be dismissed. Stellenbosch was a place where only very unimportant work ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... from the phraseology of these concluding paragraphs, what is made still more evident by the perusal of the whole letter, that the great ground of Peter's complaint against his son was not his immorality and wickedness, but his idleness and inefficiency. If he had shown himself an active and spirited young man, full of military ardor, and of ambition to rule, he might probably, in his private life, have been as vicious and depraved as he pleased ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... are much like the men of the past, and the live issues of the present can be faced to better advantage by men who have in good faith studied how the leaders of the nation faced the dead issues of the past. Such a study of Lincoln's life will enable us to avoid the twin gulfs of immorality and inefficiency—the gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have avoided one if shipwreck is encountered in the other. The fanatic, the well-meaning moralist of unbalanced mind, the parlor critic ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... employment of cavalry, with an increase in the number of their own horse, a larger employment of auxiliary irregulars, and a greater use of the sling. At the same time they learnt to take full advantage of the Parthian inefficiency against walls, and to practice against them the arts of pretended retreat and ambush. The result was, that Parthia found she could make no impression upon the dominions of Rome, and, having become persuaded of this by the experience of a decade ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of the rising power of his brother. He no longer dared to treat him ignominiously, lest his brother should be provoked to some desperate act of retaliation. On the other hand, Matthias despised the weakness and superstition of Rhodolph. The increasing troubles in the realm and the utter inefficiency of Rhodolph, convinced Matthias that the day was near when he must thrust Rhodolph from the throne he disgraced, and take his seat upon it, or the splendid hereditary domains which had descended to them from their ancestors would pass from ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... provision-boats had not arrived, and for three days they waited there literally without food; very uncomfortable days for Governor Reynolds, who accompanied the expedition, and was forced to hear the outspoken comments of two thousand hungry men on his supposed inefficiency. But on the 6th of May the William Wallace arrived, and "this sight," says the Governor with characteristic sincerity, "was, I presume, the most interesting I ever beheld." From there they marched to the mouth ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... circular to every division of police employed in London, requiring instantly the names in all districts of all such much-puffed streets or courts which no man durst go down; and suppose that in such circular he gave plain warning, 'If those places really exist, they are a proof of police inefficiency which I mean to punish; and if they do not exist, but are a conventional fiction, then they are a proof of lazy tacit police connivance with professional crime, which I also mean to punish'—what then? Fictions or realities, could they survive the touchstone of this atom of common sense? ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... newspaper carefully while he collected his thoughts. "My dear Mr. Phelps," he stated, finally, "that is simply inefficiency. I doubt if it is anything criminal; certainly there is no connection with the death of Stella Lamar, my only interest in ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... wide diversity in human beings ranging from herculean physical strength to pitiable weakness; from the mental power of genius to the nonentity of imbecility; from outstanding and unquestionable talent in arts and letters to illiteracy and clumsy inefficiency. This wide diversity in human capacity is one of the outstanding features of human nature, recorded again and again in history and ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... national solidarity to choose its business men from among the brains of the community. In Germany any man of conspicuous intellectual capacity may be picked out, roughly speaking, and assigned to the direction of a particular industry. In England we achieve inefficiency by the contrary process, and are only willing to regard a man as capable and revere him as an "expert" if he happens to have been occupied exclusively for a certain number of years in the narrow routine of a particular subject. ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... it settled into the blow—a fact that the Cap'n's shipmates did not realize, and which he was too disgusted by their general inefficiency to explain to them. In his crippled condition, in the gathering night, he figured that it would be impossible for him to make Portland harbor, the only accessible refuge. The one chance was to ride it out, and this he set himself to do, grimly silent, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... he gave one a sense of power and intensity of purpose. There was a kind of slow-burning fire in him—a hatred of the enemy which was not weakened in him by any mercy, and a consuming rage, as it appeared to me, against inefficiency in high places, injustice of which he may have felt himself to be the victim, and restrictions upon his liberty of command. A bitter irony was often in his laughter when discussing politicians at home, and the wider ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... national catastrophes, like the blunders and miscalculations that have characterized the conduct of the war in South Africa, have always resulted in making the most uncomfortable revelations concerning the inefficiency of more than one important department ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... Graham broke up her boardinghouse, Markland, her daughter's husband, was discharged from his situation as clerk, on account of inefficiency. For six months previous, the time he had been married, he had paid no boarding, thus adding himself as a dead weight to the already overburdened family. As he had no house to which he could take Ellen, he very naturally felt himself authorized to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... business man thunders his protest at us against the inefficiency of the man with only the knowledge-stored brain. He says: We must have men that can will to do, and then do something, not merely men that can think of things "'twere good to do." Our public schools ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... Indeed he looked rather pained; he was remembering General Punnit's story: military inefficiency, even military imperfection, was for him no smiling matter. Beaumaroy did not appear ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... such a rush that she felt she must throw herself upon that broad white bed and sob herself sick. But she sat still, holding her hands tightly clenched, and choking back the tears. She had work to do and she must be ready for that work. To give way in private meant inefficiency in public to-morrow. School-teaching was a new, untried field of labour for her, and if she went to bed and cried herself to sleep, as she wanted to do, she would have a headache for to-morrow and ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... positions which fall to the Filipinos on account of the trouble and annoyance these cause them places at the head of the people the most stupid and incapable men, those who submit to everything, those who can endure all the caprices and exactions of the curate and of the officials. With this inefficiency in the lower spheres of power and ignorance and indifference in the upper, with the frequent changes and the eternal apprenticeships, with great fear and many administrative obstacles, with a voiceless people that has neither initiative nor cohesion, with employees who nearly all strive to ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... appointment to the London embassy, merely because he teased her into it at the Duchess's house. She added, however, that it was at a time of perfect peace with the English; that the Ministry knew the inefficiency of M. d'Adhemar as well as she did, and that he could do ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sagacious and matured arrangements are of little avail; that no one is present when he is wanted, and that nothing occurs as it was foreseen. Nor should we forget that the principal cause of all these mischances might perhaps be recognised in the inefficiency of the third person whom the parents of Tancred had, with so much solicitude and at so great an expense, secured to him as a companion and counsellor in his travels. It cannot be denied that if the theological attainments of the Rev. Mr. Bernard ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Delatour gates and fences presently came in view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the prevailing inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp to shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber. Their places were taken on the veranda by two negro servants, two girls respectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, who remained silently staring. As Mr. Bowers had accepted the widow's ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... features in that the patient wet and soiled, in addition to occasional spells when she lay with her head raised. But she spoke and acted fairly freely (even while soiling). By her replies she showed a considerable intellectual inefficiency, although, like Anna G., her orientation was not seriously disturbed. Here ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Church, nay, upon religion itself. That a protest against a certain class of the clergy might be the result of a close observation of the causes that bring ecclesiastical Christianity into disrepute could find no admission to Mr. Gresley's mind. Yet a protest against the ignorance or inefficiency of some of our soldiers he would have seen without difficulty might be the outcome, not of hatred of the army, but of a realization of its vast national importance, and of a desire ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot buy the ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... territory. There they were cocks of the walk. What the end might be he could not pretend to vaticinate, but "El Pretendiente" would never reign in Madrid. The conflict might last for months—might last for years; but the Carlists owed the vitality they had as much to the divisions and inefficiency of their adversaries as to their own strength. There would be no important engagements—to dignify them by the epithet—until the organization of the insurrectionary forces was regularized, and they had a stronger artillery and an adequate ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... American child, and ultimately prove less efficient as industrial units. For the time they may add to the family income, but they react upon adult labor by lowering the wage of the head of the family, and they make it impossible for the child when grown to earn a high wage, because of inefficiency. The associations and influences of the street are morally degrading, and in the associations of the workroom and the factory yard the whole tone of the life ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... this calamity, the Sierra Leone Company had to lament the inefficiency of its superintendants, their want of unanimity, and various other disasters and unforeseen difficulties which operated to augment the charge in their establishment, and diminish its funds; and with every deference to the benevolent ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... said, as Lord Raglan has been given to understand, in private letters, of the inefficiency of the officers of the Staff, he considers it to be due to your Majesty, and a simple act of justice to those individuals, to assure your Majesty that he has every reason to be satisfied with their exertions, their indefatigable ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... convey to us no very exalted idea of the composition of the British army in those days. The service had sunk into contempt. The withering influence of a corrupt patronage had demoralized the officers; successive defeats, incurred through the inefficiency of courtly generals, had depressed the spirit of the soldiery, and, were it not for the proof shown upon the bloody fields of La Feldt and Fontenoy, we might almost suppose that English manhood had become ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa—this ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Englanders in 1745 (Colonies, sec. 127) it had been strongly fortified. An English force under Amherst and Wolfe reduced it after a brief siege in 1758. The attack through Lake George failed in consequence of the inefficiency of the English commander, Abercrombie, but the English penetrated across Lake Ontario and took Niagara. Nov. 25, 1758, Fort Duquesne was occupied by the English, and the spot was named Pittsburg, after the great minister. For the first time the tide ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... light infantry posted in front of the British right wing, soon drove it from its ground. While rapidly pursuing the flying enemy, Woodford's brigade,[70] which was on the right of this wing, was arrested by a heavy fire from Chew's house, directed against its right flank. The inefficiency of musketry against troops thus sheltered being instantly perceived, the brigade was drawn off to the left by its commanding officer, and the field-pieces attached to it were ordered up to play on the house, but were too light to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... who next received Beethoven's devotion, had been one of his pupils, and had once been rapped over the knuckles by him for inefficiency. Twelve years later, in 1806, pupil and teacher were actually engaged,—secretly, to be sure, but with full knowledge and consent of her brother. Yet after four years of varying conditions the match was broken off, and the composer again forced to take ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... stoppage or inefficiency by applying dust mixed with grease to the face of the armature so that it will ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... reserves. Yet this increased revenue has not eased economic hardships, which include double-digit unemployment and inflation - inflation climbed to 26% as of June 2008. The economy has seen only moderate growth. Iran's educated population, economic inefficiency and insufficient investment - both foreign and domestic - have prompted an increasing number of Iranians to seek employment overseas, resulting in ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... unaccustomed to the rules of the Court and did not know the mode of procedure when in the presence of Her Majesty. Many foolish suggestions were made by these generals. During one of the conversations Her Majesty remarked on the inefficiency of the navy and referred to the fact that we had no trained naval officers. One of the generals replied that we had more men in China than in any other country, and as for ships, why we had dozens of river boats and China merchant boats, which could be used in case of war. Her ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... the utmost stress on what has been stated, as a failure on the part of a master and mistress is most grievous and lamentable. I have seen schools, where little or nothing has been done, because of the inefficiency of the teachers. Moral and religious qualifications are confessedly of the first importance, but those which are mental are to be highly estimated. I differ with a gentleman who has written on this subject, when he says, that any clever ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... attacks. At times, the cause being intangible, it may be necessary to change the whole life and metabolism of the patient, as so often necessary in hysteria, neurasthenia, gout, intestinal fermentation and kidney inefficiency. Besides a rearrangement of the diet and measures for causing proper activity of the bowels, massage, exercise and hydrotherapy should lie utilized toward the end of improving the nutrition of ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... will be on its own soil, only requiring to be redistributed to its peace occupations. Our Army will have to be fetched home, firstly, over Continental railways, probably battered into a condition of much inefficiency, and then in ships, of which the supply will be very short. The process will be very slow and very costly. Our Overseas Army will have to be sent back to distant Dominions, and the Army of our American Allies will have to be ferried back over ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... with Marian that it was a melancholy case, but the others were too triumphant to be compassionate; and Gerald amused Agnes half the morning with ludicrous stories of her inefficiency. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... inaccuracy, of weakness, ye muddle-heads. Submit yourselves to the rules of business, as men do, by which alone you can make God's business succeed; for He has never said that He will give His success and His blessing to inefficiency, ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... the mother and ourselves to one another when we encountered her alone in the office. They were all thoroughly kind and nice, and they were supported with surpassing intelligence and ability by the chico, a radiant boy of ten, who united in himself the functions which the amiable inefficiency of the porters and ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... most of the forms that are at all closely related to it. Sometimes, indeed, as in the case of the extinct giants of South America, they vanished without any considerable rivals, victims of pestilence, famine, or, it may be, of that cumulative inefficiency that comes of a too undisputed life. So that the analogy of geology, at anyrate, is against this too acceptable view of man's certain tenure of the earth for the next few million years ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Office Officials had given more attention to buttons and braids and caps than to business-like organisations of fighting efficiency. The administration was, as it always had been, a chaos of muddle. The higher ranks were rotten with inefficiency, and the lower, aggravated and bewildered by change after change, had come to look upon soldiering as a sort of game, the rules of which were being ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... is a severely moral mood. For when I reflect upon the difference between what books have to offer and what even relatively earnest readers take the trouble to accept from them, I am appalled (or should be appalled, did I not know that the world is moving) by the sheer inefficiency, the bland, complacent failure of the earnest reader. I am like yourself, the spectacle of inefficiency ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... to remark on the inefficiency of our laws in bringing to the bar of public justice, persons committing capital offences. Under the present mode, a man has nothing more to do than to leave the state, or step over to Texas, or some ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and whilst you pique Nature against you, you do unwisely to trust to duty. In this futile scheme of polity, the state nurses in its bosom, for the present, a source of weakness, perplexity, counteraction, inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin. In short, I see nothing in the executive force (I cannot call it authority) that has even an appearance of vigor, or that has the smallest degree of just correspondence ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... through Bleecker street, on his way home, at two o'clock in the morning, was knocked down and robbed of his watch and money. He was struck with such violence by the highwayman that his jaw was permanently injured. He was very eloquent in his complaints of the inefficiency of a police system which left one of the principal streets of the city so unguarded, and was loud in his demands for the punishment of his assailant, and the recovery of the property stolen from him. The best Detectives in the force were put ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... will act in directing the work of removing the conditions which so sadly handicap girlhood today we cannot say. It may be that vocational schools built and maintained by the State, not by charity, will be one strong hand laid upon the inefficiency and ignorance that handicap. It may be that the Welfare teacher whose salary and rank shall equal that of the teacher of Greek, Ancient History or arithmetic will be another hand laid upon the shoulder of the girl limited by the lack of friendship and protection. ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... been granted to particular individuals and corporations, and great evils existed in the levying of them, whence the motion for inquiry. It was opposed both on the general merits of the measure, and on the inefficiency of the particular mode of inquiry proposed; but the motion was carried, and a select committee ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... river below their parent-source: considering the singular rapidity of the great body of water in the Santa Cruz, and that no still reaches occur in any part, this example is a most striking one, of the inefficiency of rivers ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... aware that all these constitutional enactments are not likely to obtain much credit in England. It is not only that grand phrases fail to convince us, but that they carry to our senses almost an assurance of their own inefficiency. When we hear that a people have declared their intention of being henceforward better than their neighbors, and going upon a new theory that shall lead them direct to a terrestrial paradise, we button up our pockets and lock up our spoons. And that is what we have done very much ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... own way, and of it you can learn only what we choose to tell you. We will not let you know whether your country is winning the fight or is in danger, whether we have blundered and the soldiers are starving, whether they gave their lives gloriously or through our lack of preparation or inefficiency are dying of neglected wounds." And if you answer that you will send with the army men to write letters home and tell you, not the plans for the future and the secrets of the army, but what are already accomplished facts, the army makes reply: "No, ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... friend;—and some of them, no doubt, had whispered that this bringing home of Sir Marmaduke was part of the payment made by the Colonel for the smiles of the Governor's daughter. But no one alluded openly to the inefficiency of the evidence given. No one asked why a Governor so incompetent had been sent to them. No one suggested that a job had been done. There are certain things of which opposition members of Parliament complain loudly;—and ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... honest man we wished to put in office, nor to have these alien nations attempting to put into power dishonest and inefficient men as their own tools. That is China's problem at present: not only must she contend against the inherent weakness and dishonesty, the inefficiency and graft of her own people, but she must contend against unseen, suave enemies, who under diplomatic disguise are intriguing to bring the nation under ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... after she had been North several weeks, "I have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living. I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the weakness and inefficiency of women." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... coffee, without change of clothes, and without any shelter whatever." From this admission of the commanding general it is clear that the wrecking of the army was not due primarily to uncontrollable climatic conditions, but rather to lack of foresight, mismanagement, and inefficiency. This conclusion is supported and greatly strengthened by the record of another body of men, in a different branch of the service, which spent more time in Cuba than the Fifth Army-Corps spent there, which was subjected to nearly all the local and climatic influences that are said ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... Natural Products Manufacturing Corporation, of Spread Eagle Springs, N.J. That the structure is itself an imposing one may well be imagined in view of the vast productive energy expended within its walls; and the feebleness and inefficiency of the productive operations of Nature are never so fully realized as after a visit to this marvellous factory, and a comparison of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... that in silence for a minute or two. "They talk about the inefficiency of the army," he exclaimed, "but I've been four years in two armies and I'll say that if what we've found out at Hickory Hill is a fair sample of civilian efficiency, I'll take the army way every time. There are days when I feel as if I'd ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... that the more men killed and wounded, the more brilliant and brave had been its work. This assumption is absolutely fallacious. Heavy losses may be the result of great bravery with splendid work. On the other hand, they may be the result of cowardice or inefficiency. Suppose, under trying circumstances, officers lose their heads and fail to properly handle their men, or if the latter prove cowardly and incapable of being moved with promptness to meet the exigency, great ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... times, Anna, when your work has startled me. Ill-drawn, without method or sense of proportion, you have put wonderful things on to canvas, have drawn them out of yourself, notwithstanding your mechanical inefficiency. God knows how you did it. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Inefficiency be damned," broke in Andrews, jumping up and stretching himself. He opened the window. "The heating's too damned efficient.... I think we're ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... in reefing topsails, the men were sometimes half an hour on the yard, endeavoring in vain to do a work which his own obstinacy or ignorance rendered impracticable, and he, all the while, cursing and swearing at the crew for their inefficiency, in a style which would have done credit to the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... bribes, in a province where Mr. Hastings says that agent had the power of committing such enormities, and which nobody doubts his disposition to commit,—he leaves him, I say, in such a state of inefficiency, that these iniquities could be concealed (though every one true) from the person appointed there to inspect his conduct! What, then, could be his business there? Was it only to receive such sums of money as Debi Sing might put into his hands, and which might have been easily sent to Calcutta? ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... could assure Mrs. Brown of the inefficiency of hair-dye as an internal application, she had darted from ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... his menage anything but comfortable. His only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he feared that, with no one to look after her and attend to her, her health and life might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother's inefficiency. He had taken her with him on a tour to Vermont, and had persuaded his cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with him to his southern residence; and they are now returning on this boat, where we have introduced them ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... determine. It is one of the rhetorical exaggerations which have impaired the utility of the Question Romaine, that M. About, in his remarkable work, always treats the malaria as if it was solely due to the inefficiency of the Papal Government, and would disappear with the deposition of the Pope. This unphilosophical view is generally adopted by liberal opponents of the Papacy, who lay the malaria to its doors, while Papal advocates, on the contrary, always treat the malaria as a mysterious scourge which ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... increments to L172 for men and L140 for women. Two-thirds of the primary school teachers of Ireland have a salary of less than 30s. a week. The average payment to head teachers is in Scotland 75 per cent. and in England 48 per cent. higher than in Ireland. The general state of inefficiency of education in Ireland may be gathered from the fact that the Census of 1901 showed that of persons over five years of age no less than 13.7 per cent. could neither read nor write, the percentage of illiteracy being in the four provinces, 11.3 in Leinster, 12.5 in Ulster, 14 in ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... by his own refusal; and it is asserted, on the authority of Pope, that his acceptance now was owing only to the influence of his wife. Even if there is no ground, as there probably is not, for the allegation of Addison's inefficiency in the details of business, his unfitness for such an office in such circumstances was undeniable and glaring. It was impossible that a government, whose secretary of state could not open his lips in debate, should long face an opposition headed by Robert Walpole. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... American citizen refuses to pay attention to civic affairs, contenting himself with a general growl at the tax rate, and the character and inefficiency of public officials. He seldom takes the trouble necessary to form the Government to suit ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... neighbours, the doctor—a peppery disappointed man, struggling with a wide-strewn country practice mainly prolific of bad debts, conscious of his own inefficiency and perpetually smarting under imagined injuries and slights—was the very last person to exercise a mollifying influence upon Sawyer in his existing angry humour. The latter recounted and enlarged upon the insults he had just now suffered. His hearer fanned the flame of indignation with ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ignominiously laid low. Instead of rising with the dawn, primed for battle in club committee, business conclave, or family council, she lay on her back in a darkened room, a prisoner to pain. The only vent she had for her pent-up energy was in hourly tirades against her daughters for their inefficiency, the nurses for their incompetency, the doctors for their lack of skill, and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Sundays we went from church to church to get strength for our souls, and found only weakness and disappointment. Immune from ridicule and satire, the sacred inefficiency of our pulpit had waxed and grown and taken possession of the churches. And one thought came to me as I listened. There should be a number of exits to every Christian church, plainly marked: 'To be used in case ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... Inefficiency! Ineptitude garbed as woman! Must I then teach thee the elements of thy business? Hast thou not observed the pump? Go to it, and draw water. Cause the water to flow into buckets. Carry these buckets—need I go on? Will not ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... guards in the bank would only start more talk, and that it also would be essential to hire old Ike Jones to sit in front of the vault and play all night on his trombone to keep awake any two men picked from Egypt. While Britt was expressing his opinion of inefficiency and expense, the Prophet was furnishing this obbligato outside, "'He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Francesco Nori, a most intimate friend of the Medici, either from some previous hatred or for having endeavored to render assistance to Giuliano; and not content with these murders, he ran in pursuit of Lorenzo, intending, by his own promptitude, to make up for the weakness and inefficiency of the others; but finding he had taken refuge in ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... a proper sense of her public duties, a due appreciation of the extent of Dick's wickedness, and a full knowledge of her own inefficiency as a scourger. She looked down and debated anxiously with herself, carefully avoiding Dick's eye, and Dick watched her all the time, but did not speak a word or ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... XVI., a mere boy, began to reign, the whole French administrative body was corrupt, self-seeking, and in the hands of lawyers, a class that dominated almost every phase of government. In general, inefficiency, idleness, and dishonesty had obtained a ruling place in the governing body; the few honest men who had a minor share in the administration either fell into a sort of disheartened acquiescence or lost their fortunes ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... boats successfully got away. In the case of the remaining boats, some were successfully lowered but later met with some unavoidable accident, and some were not successfully launched (such as Nos. 1, 5, and 17) for entirely explainable reasons which should not be charged to inefficiency on the part ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... committee took a mass of testimony, disclosing abuses and frauds of a startling character, covering over 1,000 printed pages. The majority of the committee, Messrs. Bocock, Groesbeck and Ready, submitted a report condemning the glaring abuses proven, and, while reporting the inefficiency and incompetency of subordinate officers and employees, yet declared that nothing had been proven which impeached the personal or official integrity of the Secretary of the Navy. They proposed the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... atheism," they have denounced it as "the gospel of everlasting bellyful,"[1] and as "the coming slavery."[2] They have stated that Socialism means to abolish religion, that it "would try to put laziness, thriftlessness, and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift, and efficiency, that it would strive to break up not merely private property, but, what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... number of these is still so limited that their judgment has little weight; and the hostile conductor—in presence of the public who would pitilessly hiss a vocal accident of a good singer—reigns, with all the calm of a bad conscience, in his baseness and inefficiency. Fortunately, I here attack an exception; for the malevolent orchestral conductor—whether ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... of the increase of, 1 in the manufacturing districts, 6 increase of, by strikes, 8 by infant labour, 9 inefficiency of the proposed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... into individual lack of intelligence and irresponsibilities. The opposite is our current path—an attempt to regulate and control away all dangers. But this overcontrol results in institutionalized violence and cruelty, inefficiency that is not checked or exposed by the bright light of a better way. As Churchill said, 'democracy is the worst form of government there is—except for all the others.' What he meant is that we must accept that this is an imperfect ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly towards her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first, fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... given to Faith and Hope was followed by Charity. The task of relieving human pain was fairly undertaken. Sickness and insanity were better cared for; torture was abolished, punishment lightened. In these matters the government rather followed than led the popular aspirations. In its general inefficiency, it came halting behind the good intentions ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... hinder them. The great trench, on which so much labor had been expended, was, therefore, not only useless as a defence to Artaxerxes, but it was a positive encouragement to Cyrus and his men, for it revealed the inefficiency and the cowardice of the Persians. The whole army now moved rapidly forward, confident of an easy victory, many even supposing that Artaxerxes would make no stand at all, but abandon his capital to them. The Great King, however, was not so hopelessly pusillanimous as that; for, when Cyrus reached ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... the government in making the interests of the officers and men identical with the interests of the state, which gives bounties and premiums even in addition to the full value of the prizes; whilst the insignificance and inefficiency of the navies of governments which adopt opposite principles, sufficiently indicate whether such liberality, or the want of it, is the best ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... army. He had seen some service, having been present at the memorable siege of Gibraltar, that excited first the astonishment and then the ridicule of all Europe—astonishment at the immensity of the armament prepared, and ridicule on account of its inefficiency, in wasting years before the place without doing any thing. An advanced party commanded by Don Gaspar, then a captain, had the good fortune to get soundly thrashed by a sallying detachment from the garrison; and the king of Spain ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... point and are well known to differ widely. The commission can neither reconcile nor change these variant opinions resting on conviction, nor will it be authorized to decide the difference. Under these impressions of the inefficiency of such a commission was the inquiry made in the letter of the undersigned of 5th March, 1836, as to the manner in which the report of the commission, as proposed to be constituted and instructed by Her Majesty's Government, was expected to lead to an ultimate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... wound, but as Sally took hold of his hand before beginning her task, she was startled to discover that he was suffering from a fever through neglect of his injury. This made her the more determined. Although appreciating her own inefficiency and disliking the work, there was nothing to be done at present but to go ahead with her own simple first-aid treatment. She had a bottle of antiseptic and ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... ardently and increasingly felt scientific aspiration of his life—an aspiration which he hardly dared to expect or to see realized." A little later, however, Sir William, always cautious and canny, began to discover the inherent defects of the primitive battery, as to disintegration, inefficiency, costliness, etc., and though offered tempting inducements, declined to lend his name to its financial introduction. Nevertheless, he accepted the principle as valuable, and put the battery to ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... functions which by common consensus of opinion are conceded to each individual. In a very real sense, therefore, they must be won or created by each for himself. The individual or the group, which through ignorance or inefficiency or thriftlessness or racial discrimination is incapacitated for measuring up to the demands of an aggressive and virile democracy, will inevitably find these inalienable and unalterable rights merely a name so far as they are concerned. Actual social status ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... edge of the country. Grubless, spiritless, with a lust for home in their hearts, they had been staked by the P. C. Company to cut wood for its steamers, with the promise at the end of a passage home. Disregarding the possibilities of the ice-run, they had fittingly demonstrated their inefficiency by their choice of the island on which they located. Montana Kid, though possessing little knowledge of the break-up of a great river, looked about him dubiously, and cast yearning glances at the distant bank where the towering bluffs promised immunity ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... much fun and jollity over the reversal of the usual order of things, and we carried out our programme to the farthest; while our gentlemen displayed a degree of inefficiency and helplessness which would have disgraced a six-year-old girl with ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... that suggested an architect vindictively devoted to the discomfort of the servant class. If so, he had overreached himself and defeated his end, for no servant would stay in them unless for exceptional wages or exceptional tolerance of inefficiency or exceptional freedom in repartee. Every storey in the house was from twelve to fifteen feet high (which would have been cool and pleasant in a hot climate), and the stairs went steeply up, to end at last in attics too inaccessible for occupation. The ceilings had vast plaster ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... things, and therefore the complaint so often made by young artists that they have not within their reach materials, or subjects enough for their fancy, is utterly groundless, and the sign only of their own blindness and inefficiency; for there is that to be seen in every street and lane of every city, that to be felt and found in every human heart and countenance, that to be loved in every road-side weed and moss-grown wall, which in the hands of faithful ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... no mention of the sufferings which they must have undergone from lack of food and supplies of all kinds. He purposely puts the best face on it, and bears his troubles stoically. But young as he was, he marvelled at the inefficiency and lack of coordination of the high command. Once when a despatch was received by the General during dinner, from their ally, Austria, he tossed it aside unopened with the remark, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Arab was thrusting his hand here and there in the load on the donkey's back and finally drew out a goatskin bag. Hillyard, like other Englishmen, had been brought up in a creed which included the inefficiency of all Postmasters-general. A blight fell upon such persons, withering their qualities and shrivelling them into the meanest caricatures of bureaucrats. It could not be that the postal service was now to reveal resource and become the servant of romance. Yet the Arab drew forth a sealed ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... ammunition and other military stores was permitted. It was seldom that these officers were guilty of cowardice upon the field of battle, but they were often in the wrong place, fighting as common soldiers when they should have been directing others. Above all was their inefficiency marked in their inability to keep their men in the ranks. Absenteeism grew under them to a monstrous evil, and every poltroon and laggard found a way of escape. Hence the frequent phenomenon that regiments, which on the books of the commissary appeared ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in plenty on the outer worlds, but one other essential was lacking ... oxygen. Coal on Mars, for instance, had to burned under synthetic air pressures, like the old carburetor. The result was inefficiency. A lot of coal burned, not ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... but solely of innate capacity. And the reason the Socialist desires this is, because he believes, rightly or wrongly, that many inefficient men are, at present, only artificially protected from betraying their inefficiency; and that many efficient men are only artificially prevented from showing their efficiency; and that the fair start he proposes would not result in keeping all men on a dead level, but would simply put those in command who had a genuine right to ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... dwell upon the proof of the inefficiency of regulations, as to the Middle Passage. His honourable friend, Mr. Wilberforce, had shown, that, however the mortality might have been lessened in some ships by the regulations of Sir William Dolben, yet, wherever a contagious disorder ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... boat built from the wreckage, and well named the Hope, he was given the use of the Cumberland, a mere barge of only twenty-nine tons, in which to carry himself and part of his shipwrecked company to England. Compelled by the leaky condition of the crazy little craft, and the inefficiency of the pumps, to put into Mauritius, then a French possession, he was detained as a prisoner by the French governor, General Decaen, for six ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... principally caused by bad physical habits, so are mental ills and inefficiency chiefly due to various bad mental habits, which are allowed to fasten themselves upon us. These will be briefly discussed so as to focus attention upon them, for the first thing necessary for the correction of a bad habit is to recognize ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... there?" roared Kie Wicks. And as the man turned he recognized the little professor whom he had met at Judge Breckenridge's ranch the previous day. Kie laughed to himself. Here was one man he need never fear. Inefficiency and irresponsibility were stamped upon ever line of the little ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... is a farmer—a man with honest, sincere views of life. Bereft of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source, comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his respect and eventually wins his love. A bright and delicate romance, revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and survives the censure ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... United States of America, and never was there a more satiric misnomer. If the States chose to obey the requisitions of the Congress, they obeyed them; but as a rule they did not. There was no power in the land to enforce obedience; and they hated each other. As the Congress had demonstrated its inefficiency to the most inactive in public affairs, the contempt of the States is hardly to be wondered at. It is not too much to say that troops were recruited by Washington's influence alone, and kept from mutiny by his immortal magnetism. The finances of the Revolution ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the Commission gave a luncheon to Wilbur J. Carr, Consul in Europe with headquarters in Washington. Some very plain talk was in evidence as to the inefficiency of some of the American consuls. Consul Carr delivered a very forceful address. He had been in the consular service for nearly a quarter of a century and is working, with much success, to better ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... SIMON'S case with added instances the Government found an unexpected champion in Mr. HEALY. He was amazed to hear the late HOME SECRETARY—"one of the Ministers who made the War"—gloating over the inefficiency of the War Office at a moment when round Verdun was raging a battle in which the fate of Paris, and perhaps of London, was involved. Why had he not imitated the monumental silence of Mr. BURNS? Instead, he, the suppressor of obscure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various |
