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Overseer   Listen
noun
Overseer  n.  One who oversees; a superintendent; a supervisor; as, an overseer of a mill; specifically, one or certain public officers; as, an overseer of the poor; an overseer of highways.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overseer" Quotes from Famous Books



... women and wretched, half-witted girls and children squatted like toads in the green fields outside the ploughed ones, digging greens in company with grazing cows, and looked up with unexpected flashes of human life when footsteps drew near. There was a thrifty Overseer in the poorhouse, and the village paupers, unless they were actually crippled and past labor, found small repose in the bosom of the town. They grubbed as hard for their lodging and daily bread of charity, with its bitterest of sauces, as ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... young Spaniard; so that the Hardys began to be in quite an inhabited country. It is true that most of the houses would be six miles off; but that is close, on the pampas. There was a talk, too, of the native overseer of the land between Canterbury and the Jamiesons selling his ground in plots of a mile square. This would make the country comparatively thickly populated. Indeed, with the exception of Mr. Mercer, who had taken up a four-league plot, the ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... has never been so generally efficient as before the civil war, in the South, under the overseer's whip; yet every negro who, to-day, has character enough to save up and buy a mule and an acre of ground, tills it with a consistent and permanent effectiveness of which slave labor is never capable. In the one case, moreover, there is the average economic result, ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... of oatmeal from his mill, the minister suspected from some cause or other that he had got short weight or measure. The worthy miller was rather nettled at being thus impeached by his spiritual overseer, and that same night proceeded to the manse with the necessary articles required for determining the accuracy of the minister's suspicions. When this was done, it was found there remained something to the good, instead of a deficiency; this the ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... sale as an expert farm overseer, was bought by a prosperous proprietor whose properties are situated in the southwestern part of Britain and there, near Ischalis, he has settled down to the management of a large estate; large at least for that part of the world. He was giving excellent satisfaction in his dealings with the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... therein, a very old man, whom he acquainted with his case and that which had betided him. The Shaykh grieved for him with sore grieving, when he heard his tale and set food before him. He ate of it and the old man said to him, "Tarry here with me, so I may make thee my overseer[FN152] and factor over a farm I have here, and thou shalt have of me five dirhams a day." Answered the merchant, "Allah make fair thy reward, and requite thee with His boons and bounties." So he abode in this employ, till he had sowed and reaped and threshed and winnowed, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... demands of Metz, in a weak voice. The questioner is a typical miner. Death has placed its irrevocable stamp upon him; he has served his three years in the pits; has been transferred to the breakers when the signs of failing strength are perceived by the mine overseer. In another year he will be in the hands of the mortuary vulture; his last week's earnings will go to pay for the hard earned grave that is ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... Tur, the overseer of the houses, says through his god Tmu: O thou wax one[5] who takest thy victims captive and destroyest them, who preyest upon the weak and helpless, may I never be thy victim; may I never suffer collapse before thee. May the venom never enter my limbs, which are as those of the god ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... "Them's my overseer and his man, I guess," said Rawbon, with composure, and he smiled again as he observed how effectually he had checked the gleam of joy that had lightened ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... to be done, tho the work be to little or no purpose. According to the quantity of the work, so he will appoint the People of one County or of two to come in: and the Governor of the said County or Counties to be Overseer of the Work. At such times the Soldiers must lay by their Swords, and work among the People. These works are either digging down Hills, and carrying the Earth to fill up Valleys; thus to enlarge his Court, which standeth between two Hills, (a more uneven and unhandsom spot ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... Vincent Wingfield turned on his heel, and followed by Dan, a negro lad of some eighteen years old, he walked off toward the house, leaving Jonas Pearson, the overseer of the Orangery estate, looking after him with an evil expression ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... vrau owned a farm, on a volcanic plateau extending for miles into the rocky kopjes. Her overseer, learning that garnets are often found associated with diamonds, and noticing some garnets in one of the small streams that coursed through the valley, concluded to do a little prospecting on his own account. Sinking ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... most respectable merchants and manufacturers of to-day make merchandise of white men, women, and children, whose slavery is none the less slavery because they are driven by the fear of starvation instead of the overseer's lash. Perhaps two hundred years from now our descendants will see the criminality of our industrial system to-day, as clearly as we see the wrong in that of our forefathers. The utmost piety was ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... of that he launched out into a long account of what he had experienced in the meantime. "A while ago you were telling me about the National Gallery and the 'Isle of the Blessed.' Well, while you were away, there was something going on here, too. It was our overseer Pink and the gardener's wife. Of course, I had to dismiss Pink, but it went against the grain to do it. It is very unfortunate that such affairs almost always occur in the harvest season. And Pink was otherwise an uncommonly ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... engaged in general engineering, is a bomb shop staffed by women, which is now sending 3,000 bombs a week to the trenches. Women are also doing gun-breech work of the most delicate and responsible kind under the guidance of a skilled overseer. One of the women at this work was formerly a charwoman. She has never yet broken a tool. All over the works, indeed, the labour of women and unskilled men is being utilised in the same scientific ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... work in clearing the bed of the Thames about two miles below Barking Creek. In the vessel wherein they work there is a room abaft in which they are to sleep, and in the forecastle a kind of cabin for the overseer.' Ib. p. 254, there is an admirable paper, very likely by Bentham, on the punishment of convicts, which Johnson might have ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... to friends, families and servants, before he came to the real business on his mind. His bequests, besides money, included, "unto Betsey Hart, my housekeeper, my gold sleeve buttons," and "unto Adam Shields, my faithful overseer, my gold watch," and "unto Gawn Irwin, who now lives with me, my shoe-buckles and knee-buckles." Adam Shields married Betsey Hart. They were both Scotch—probably from whatever part of Scotland the Randalls ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... Jersey, has a population of ten thousand. Absolute prohibition is the law of that community. One constable, who is also overseer of the poor, is sufficient to maintain public order. In 1875, his annual report says: "We have practically no debt. * * * The police expenses of Vineland amount to seventy-five dollars a year, the sum paid to me, and our poor ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... their errand, the Overseer of the Waiting Chamber came to the door of the lane that takes you into the Judgment Hall, wherefore the Dissenters ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... character was such that he always successfully resisted any attempts at enslavement or even compulsory service. The negro, on the other hand, is not above such work, but merely is lazy and needs the impulse of actual hunger or the orders of an overseer. We are, of course, speaking of the mass of the people, in their natural state, before any enlightenment gained by contact with more civilized races. The whole question is discussed on its broadest lines by Mr. Meredith Townsend in his luminous ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... of the methods of early American judges compared with the summing up of Judge Rodgers—Old Kye, as he was called—in an action for wrongful dismissal brought before him by an overseer. "The jury," said his honour, "will take notice that this Court is well acquainted with the nature of the case. When this Court first started in the world it followed the business of overseering, and if there is a business which this Court understands, it's hosses, mules, and niggers; though ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... at once agreed to, and as he was overseer of the wood-cutters, and could not leave his work, Johann Schmidt, in whose hut the man had died, was chosen as the best man to go; whilst Wilhelm should return to his home, and then take the child to ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous

... branding at Kaburie for six months, Mr Gerrard," said Kate, who added that there were now only Mrs Tallis's overseer, and one black boy stockman on the station, who did nothing more than muster the cattle occasionally ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... government.[106] It adopted the Northern system of dividing counties into townships,[107] with a justice of the peace exercising his authority only within his township. Other elective offices introduced at this time were county supervisors, a county clerk, collector, assessor, overseer of the poor, and overseer of roads. All these officials—some serving the township and others the county—were salaried, and greatly increased the size of the governmental apparatus formerly centered in the county court. The Board of county supervisors was the ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... in the ooze and the drip Like a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip; But beware the false footstep,—the stumble that brings A deadlier lash than the overseer swings. Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread, As the straight steady stroke of that hammershaped head; Whether slave, or proud planter, who braves that dull crest, Woe to him who ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... was apt to induce a disagreeable sense of guilt. In the case of Mrs. Gurley, familiarity had never been known to breed contempt. She was possessed of what was little short of genius, for ruling through fear; and no more fitting overseer could have been set at the head of these half-hundred girls, of all ages and degrees: gentle and common; ruly and unruly, children hardly out of the nursery, and girls well over the brink of womanhood, whose ripe, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... Chicago. I have already written how Joseph obtained employment in a large furniture factory, and by indomitable energy and close attention to business, worked his way up from a simple laborer to be the overseer of the entire works. I now have more good news for you, news which your kind heart will be ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... the gum-tree's shade (Sing hey for a lilting lay, sing hey!) For the work was done and the cheques were paid. (Sing ho for the ballad of a backblock day!) The overseer rode in at three, But his horse pulled back and would not gee, And the stockman said, "We're up a tree!" (Sing, di-dum, wattle-gum, Johnny-cake for tea. For a lilting ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis

... was interested in him because he was a painter," he told me. "We don't get many painters in the islands, and I was sorry for him because he was such a bad one. I gave him his first job. I had a plantation on the peninsula, and I wanted a white overseer. You never get any work out of the natives unless you have a white man over them. I said to him: 'You'll have plenty of time for painting, and you can earn a bit of money.' I knew he was starving, but ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... you are right, Mr Sandys, in not despising the warning given by the overseer," said Ellen. "I will tell my father what you have said to me, and ask him to speak to you on the subject, and he will probably examine Rob Kerlie. It will surely be wise to be on our guard, even should the negroes not really be meditating ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... town pump"; that "a gloom hath been cast over the entire community by the bone-felon upon Mr. Shaikspur's left thumb"; that "our immortal Shakespeere hath well discharged the onerous offices of road-overseer for the year past"; that "our sweete friend, Will Shakespear, will go fishing for trouts to-morrow with his good gossip, Ben Jonson, that hath come to be his guest a little season"; that "Master W. Shackspur hath a barrow that upon the slaughtering ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... his perimeter march to survey the countryside. And the bits of activity he spied upon began to puzzle him. Aunt Marianna's supervision of the colt's schooling had been the beginning. And he had seen her later, riding out with Rafe, the overseer, to make the daily rounds, a duty which had never been undertaken at Red Springs by any ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... lives at the farm where my overseer is, and the next time Mr. Benson is due here, I'll see that Jake accompanies him. If both sides are mutually attracted, the dog shall stay to give you scouts something to ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... of superior intelligence, and both of them writers of verses. William, the poet's father, having for a brief period served as a midshipman, emigrated to the island of Grenada, where he first acted as the overseer of an estate, but was afterwards appointed to a situation in the Customs at St George's, and became the proprietor and editor of a newspaper, called the St George's Chronicle. In the year 1795, he was slain when bravely heading an encounter with a body of French insurgents. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... private assemblies or conventicles with the doors shut; that nothing should be construed to exempt them from the payment of tithes or other parochial duties: that, in case of being chosen into the office of constable, churchwarden, overseer, &c. and of scrupling to take the oaths annexed to such offices, they should be allowed to execute the employment by deputy: that the preachers and teachers in congregations of dissenting protestants who should take the oaths, subscribe ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... besides Mr. Hammond who thought me improved and who liked me. Tom Salyers never let an evening pass without dropping into our house on his way home from the store, where he was a sort of overseer or salesman,—never failed to bring in its season the earliest wild-flower or the freshest fruit,—had thoroughly searched Catlettsburg for books to please me,—nay, had once sent an indefinite order to a Cincinnati bookseller to put up twenty dollars' worth of the best books for a lady, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... him fatal—exploring expedition. Also, she resented having all the bachelors 'dumped down'—as she phrased it—on her, while the 'Ladyship's swell staff' was spared the trouble. At present the Bachelors' Quarters was fairly full. Mr Ninnis, store-keeper and overseer in the owner's absence, abode there permanently, and just now, there were Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, and a young man from Breeza Downs—a combined cattle and sheep station about fifty miles distant—who had come to help ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... Dragon's blood in Kan Wong's veins. The pick and shovel irked his hands as he swung them; his palms began to itch for the weapons that the soldiers bore. Now and then he came upon a gun where it had dropped from its owner's useless hands. He studied its mechanism, even asking the Foreign Devil overseer how it was worked, and, being shown, he remembered and practised its use whenever opportunity offered. He took to talking with his fellow-workers, some of whom had themselves fought with the rebels ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... conspires with the rebels, and has a quantity of arms concealed in a swamp; our soldiers go and find the arms; the master reclaims the slave; the slave is given up; the master ties him to his horse, drags him along eleven miles to his house, lashes him to a tree, and, with the assistance of his overseer, whips him three hours—three mortal hours; then the negro dies. That black man served the Union; Slavery attempts to destroy the Union; the Union surrenders the black man to Slavery, and he is whipped to death—touch it not! Let ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... been completed I was, in accordance with the Martian system of scientifically determining one's rightful vocation, assigned as overseer to a section of one of the main canals supplying water from the North Polar cap to an impounding reservoir near the city of Urid, the place of ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon

... memory was still cherished? Apparently, David's disposition of affairs was prompted partly by consideration for Mephibosheth, partly by affection for Jonathan, and partly by policy. So Ziba, who had not been present, is sent for, and installed as overseer of the estate, to work it for his new master's benefit, while the owner is to remain at Jerusalem in David's establishment. It was prudent to keep Mephibosheth at hand. The best way to weaken a pretender's claims was to make a pensioner of him, and the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Her father is the Independent minister. He is a gentleman, though his salary is less than we give our overseer. And he is a great scholar. So is Lucy. She finished her course at college this summer, and with high honors. Bless you, Tyrrel, she knows far more than I do about everything but warps and looms and such like. I admire a clever woman, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... The overseer and accountant of these voyages shall have everything in charge, and they shall set down and keep in their books an account of what is laden in merchandise, and what is carried on the return trip of the ships. They shall be chosen from persons who are well approved, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... shrubs, that one knows not how the change might be made with advantage. The house is low, and pleasant for the climate; the orchard, kitchen garden, and grass fields behind, delightful; and the whole is surrounded by beautiful views. The Padre Jose, who is the chaplain, is also the overseer of the estate; a combination of offices that I find is ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... of this final victory reached Rome Csar was appointed dictator for ten years, and a thanksgiving lasting forty days was decreed. He was also endowed with a newly created office-that of Overseer of Public Morals (Prfectus Morum). Temples and statues were dedicated to his honor; a golden chair was assigned for his use when he sat in the senate; the month Quintilis was renamed after him Julius (July); and other ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... distribute the land among the peasants, each of these receiving as much as he and his family could cultivate. The peasant obtained also the seed, but this he was obliged to return to the state after the ingathering of the harvest. The power of the overseer went farther; it was he who determined what crops the husbandman might sow and who fixed day by day the price of every salable commodity in the district. As the state reserved to itself the right to buy all agricultural produce, it was bound in return to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... dropped again. "The overseer being aboard, Phyllis and I, to be clear of him, were allowed free run of the roofs, and I being the captain's son it was so natural to see us ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... man now—he had aged quickly with his outdoor life; but always he refused to let Ishmael pension him off, and though as overseer he had a wage passing any paid in the county, and though he lived comfortably enough in his little cottage chosen by himself, with a tidy body who came in from the village every day to attend to his wants, he still showed all the premature ageing of the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... first time Tom hesitated; and he answered, with an uneasy expression and a furtive glancing about of his keen hazel eye, that he had been an overseer ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... consisted of two huts, mud-walled and thatched with snow grass. One of these contained the general kitchen and sleeping room for the station hands, the other was the residence of the squatter and his overseer. Behind these there were a wool shed for clipping and pressing the wool, with sheep yards attached, a stockyard for cattle, and a fenced in paddock in which a few station hacks ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... your supper yet, Pomp, you black rascal?" inquired the overseer, witnessing the preparations for cooking ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... ancestors had conquered it from England, and he couldn't help having a little sympathy for those Filipinos who had been bought from a country that didn't own them, by a country that had no use for them, and wished it could get rid of them honorably, without hurting the political party that was acting as overseer over them. He didn't want to seem disloyal to a country that he loved and had fought to preserve, but when he thought of those poor, ignorant people, trying to learn what freedom meant, and what there was in it for them, ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... I remember all connected with my boyhood there, I trust there will be few or none to sneer or blame. The flouring-mill, or mill for grinding grain, and the saw-mill were united under the same roof; and it was the business of father to give his attention, as overseer, not only to the mills, but to his planting interest. He employed a North Carolina Scotchman—that is, a man descended of Scotch parents, but born in North Carolina—to superintend his saw-mill, who had all the industry, saving propensities, and superstitions of his ancestry. He was ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... his feet thereagainst, rounding his shoulders in the most attractive and engaging manner, as you see men do, and proceeded to develop his idea. I was called off at the moment, and did not return for an hour or two. As I did so I heard Dr. Rutherford say, "All right! Blow the horn;" and the overseer down ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... voyages. Mr. Milman dined with us and told me a great many interesting things about his island, and afterwards the gentlemen had some good games of whist. I have at last heard the real story of the opals, for Mr. Milman's overseer was the first to bring in a piece of opal off the Blackall station on the Listowel Downs, in 1869. The beautiful fragment stood on the mantelpiece for several years before it was thought of any value, but at the time of the great ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... has yet escaped this tyranny. The OVERSEER, however, has demanded her hand; but I shall be in time ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... are lauded. The actor was not born in Cornwall, but in Somerset; his mother, however, was a Cornish woman named Behenna, and one of his aunts was Mrs. Penberthy, wife of Captain Isaac Penberthy, whose captaincy of course referred to his position as overseer of mines here at Halsetown. Hither Irving was brought in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... the contents are the tallies or cleft sticks upon which the accounts were formerly kept, the stick being notched according to the amount of money advanced, one part being given to the creditor, and the other to the debtor. The same plan is used in the present day by the hop-pickers in Kent, the overseer having one stick, while the picker keeps the other, and notches it each time a basket is emptied. Beneath this Toll House is the ancient Gaol or House of Correction. Up to the present century this gaol was as defective as that of prisons generally. Under the ground is an apartment ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... know? It's father's sister who married a mill-overseer at Wakely. And they're very kind to me. Only they're dreadfully pious too—not like father—I don't mean that. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was met in the same cautious manner by a dark-skinned human being, the character of whose garments was something between those of a sailor and a West India planter. This was Sambo, Thorwald's major-domo, clerk, overseer, and right-hand man. Sambo was not his proper name; but his master, regarding him as being the embodiment of all the excellent qualities that could by any possibility exist in the person of a South ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... a POOR-HOUSE, usually having a farm annexed, and in it paupers are received and cared for at the public expense. A. PAUPER is a poor person who has no means of living and is supported in a public or charitable institution. (For OVERSEER OF THE POOR, see ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox

... maimed soldiers, who had each a convenient room, and received an allowance of 5l. a year from the exchequer. It was removed in 1735, and eight almshouses rebuilt in St. Anne's Lane, bearing the inscription "Wool-staple Pensioners, 1741." In 1628, in the Overseer's books of St. Margaret's is rated in the Wool-staple ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various

... annis, about three pieces (of two hundred and forty, or two hundred and fifty bottles each). The vineyards of first quality are all worked by their proprietors. Those of the second, rent for three hundred livres the journal: those of third, at two hundred livres. They employ a kind of overseer at four or five hundred livres the year, finding him lodging and drink: but he feeds himself. He superintends and directs, though he is expected to work but little. If the proprietor has a garden, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... billet in the New Hebrides on a screw of eight pounds a month. Then I tried my luck as independent trader, went broke, took a mate's billet on a recruiter down to Tanna and over to Fiji, got a job as overseer on a German plantation back of Apia, and finally settled down ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... must be employed upon it. For instance, even in getting in hay, in the summer season, the farmer has to exercise all his judgment and discretion to avoid getting it wet by the summer showers, and yet to secure it in good time, and with proper dispatch. A cotton planter may hire an overseer to see to the getting in of his cotton, and he can easily tell by the result, whether he has been faithful or not. But hay can not be got in well, without the activity, and energy, and good judgment, which can come only from the presence ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott

... race, but all outward signs of the institution have been removed. 'The whip is lost, the handcuff broken,' the whipping post destroyed, and the cotton gins broken down. At the 'great house' you find, instead of the master and overseer, the superintendent and school teacher. In the field, the cotton tasks are comparatively small, but the garden patch in the rear of the cabin is large, well fenced in and well cultivated. If you see few indications of positive happiness, you find no appearances of overburdened ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... her seat with a scream of anger and poor Rinkitink would doubtless have been given a terrible beating had not the slave driver returned at this moment and attracted the woman's attention. The overseer had brought with him all of the women slaves from Pingaree, who had been loaded down with chains and were so weak and ill they could scarcely walk, much less work in ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... brother-in-law. Praying and desiring the same mine executors to be good unto my son Gregory, and to all other my poor friends and kinsfolk and servants aforenamed in this my testament. And of this my present testament and last will I make Roger More mine overseer; unto whom and also to every of the other mine executors I give and bequeath L6 13s. 4d. for their pains to be taken in the execution of this my last will and testament, over and above such legacies as ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... Because thou hast sent in thine own name a letter to Sephaniah, son of Maaseiah, the priest,(508) saying, [26] The Lord hath appointed thee priest, instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be overseer in the House of the Lord for every man that is raving and takes on himself to be a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks and in the collar. 27. Now therefore why hast thou not curbed Jeremiah of Anathoth, who takes on ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing the small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to prevent this. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... I had a political friend introduce a bill during a meeting of the state legislature, which made it mandatory for the road overseer to plant nut trees along the right of way all over the state; but like many meritorious bills, it was pigeon-holed until the next meeting of the legislature. It seemed an impossibility to resurrect this and an exceptionally ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... audience with Senor Montijo on business of the utmost importance; and his demand was enforced by the utterance of a password which secured his prompt admission, Don Hermoso being at the moment engaged in his office, where he was completing with his overseer the final arrangements to ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... opened wide at the mention of this vast sum, and he wondered to himself if he should ever be the owner of such a valuable piece of property. Although he had begun as a chore-boy, his ambition was by no means limited to his becoming in due time a foreman like Johnston, or even an overseer like Alec Stewart. He allowed his imagination to carry him forward to a day of still greater things, when he should be his own master, and have foremen and overseers under him. This slow sailing down the river was very favourable to day dreaming, and Frank could indulge himself ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... occasion seen to be so transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants disgust. The whole thing is a wonderful novelty to them as well as to observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. Today they are raising points of order and questions of privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It is easier and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result. It means escape and defense from old oppressors. It means ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... in the second division twelve months in the first grade, before he can be indentured to any trade. These two divisions are under the charge of twenty-five teachers and twenty-five guards. At half-past six o'clock the cells are all unlocked, every one reports himself to the overseer, and then goes to the lavatories; at seven, after parading, they are marched to the school rooms to join in the religious exercises for half an hour; at half-past seven, they have breakfast, and at ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... willing and obedient people. They mostly lived in tents. Government had furnished lumber to erect a few temporary buildings. An old dilapidated farmhouse, and a few log- huts formerly occupied by the overseer and slaves, were the homes of Captain Gordon and Surgeon Ransom, with their families, who seemed to enjoy camp life as well as any I had seen. They had in charge four companies of soldiers. Their hospital assumed an air of neatness ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... we yet know, quite correct in describing ants as having "neither guide, overseer, nor ruler." The so-called queens are really mothers. Nevertheless it is true, and it is curious, that the working ants and bees always turn their heads towards the queen. It seems as if the sight of her gives them pleasure. On one occasion, while moving some ants ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... "That's the overseer. Better go up and see him when you've rested and eaten. My name's Tom Dalton; they call me Tomas, of course. What's ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... I say to you that this stone had never parallel in the history of the world. It seems that this overseer in the Golconda mines got possession of it in some fashion, and escaped to Europe, hiding the stone about his person. It has been shown in different parts of Europe, but no one yet has been able to meet the price of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... minds of the children, and the family physician to look after their health. Then there are the superintendent of accounts, the secretary, the dworezki— he who has charge of the whole establishment, the valets of the lord, the valets of the lady, the overseer of the children, the footmen, the buffetshik or butler, the table-decker, the head groom, the coachman and postilions of the lord, the coachman and ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... bully, and broke his wife's heart within four years after she married him. Amona was his cook. Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) manager of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades. How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don't know. He certainly paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have got another berth from other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he wanted it. And, although Armitage was always painfully civil to ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... a servant to bring him in; sending a second in search of the overseer; while a third was ordered to assemble all the house-servants. "I will sift this matter to the bottom, and child or servant, the guilty one shall suffer for it," exclaimed the old gentleman, pacing angrily ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... in about two hours, the one that I called the good-natured overseer came to tell Mrs. Dawson to have me in readiness to go to London on the morning after the morrow with my new ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... Mr. E.S. Moffat, who has novelized the play directly from its text, with the exception of that portion which appeared as a short story under the same title several years ago, treating of Virgie in the overseer's cabin, and the endorsing of her pass ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... that was an old and too familiar story. Reflecting on what had passed in the counting-house,—and my conclusion now shows me how fast I was growing older,—I put on my hat at once, and set out to find the overseer deputed to make a private remonstrance with my father's son. I suppose that my action was also hastened by a disinclination to lie still, awaiting an unpleasant and ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... the education and training of the youth of the lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his change of condition ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... The overseer raised the whip he held, to make a flick at Nic as he lay soundly asleep; but Pete stepped forward to save his companion, and in bending over him received the slight cut himself without flinching, though the lash made him feel as if ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... of the kitchen, a courier de vin (who took the charge of carrying provisions for the king when he went to the chase), a sutler of court, a conductor of the sumpter- horse, a lackey of the chariot, a captain of the mules, an overseer of roasts, a chair-bearer, a palmer (to provide ananches for Easter), a valet of the firewood, a paillassier of the Scotch guard, a yeoman of the mouth, and a hundred more for whose offices we ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... sweating system, the sweater is, most emphatically, both the slave-master and slave-driver; and no Georgia overseer was ever more cruel than some of these sweater ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... one of the Council, and a member of the English gentry. Not only did he sympathize with the people in their fear and hatred of the Indians, but he had a personal grievance, since they had plundered his outer plantation and killed his overseer. So when several of his neighbors urged him to cross the James to visit the men in ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... I am overseer And bound to seet provided for by pattent. For as the sunn, when lesser plannets sleep, Holds his continued progresse on and keepes A watchful eye over the world, so kings (When meaner subjects have their revillings And sports about them) move in a restless herde; ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... one intended for their residence was so dirty as to be scarcely habitable; the stock-yards required repair; and, worse than all, the books were so badly kept that it was almost impossible to ascertain the number and state of the stock, either of cattle, sheep, or horses, or of the stores. The overseer was absent—gone to a distant run—so they took possession of the books, which had been left carelessly out, with the intention of verifying them with the actual state of things. Having made the necessary ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... and how's Philip, and how's Grannie? I'm getting on tremendous. They're calling me Captain now—Capt'n Pete. Sort of overseer at the Diamond Mines outside Kimberley. Regular gentleman's life and no mistake. Nothing to do but sit under a monstrous big umbrella, with a paper in your fist, like a chairman, while twenty Kaffirs ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... Shatrak said. When that seemed not to convey any meaning to Erskyll, he elaborated: "We have a lot of dirty-necked working slaves. Over every dozen of them is an overseer with a big whip and a stungun. Over every couple of overseers there is a guard with a submachine gun. Over them is a supervisor, who doesn't need a gun because he can grab a handphone and call for troops. Over the supervisors, there are higher supervisors. Everybody has it just enough better than ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper

... have developed the quality called prejudice to a powerful and even menacing degree. But these prejudices will always be found to fortify the main position of the woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat within small compass but on all sides. On the one or two points on which she really misunderstands the man's position, it is almost entirely in order to preserve her own. The two points on which woman, actually and of herself, is most tenacious may be roughly ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... soup-kitchen, they could not help her, and she tried other grocers and bread-shops. In all the poor woman called on eight, and the only one who did not decline to supply food without payment was for some reason bankrupt and out of stock. Eventually a local overseer was persuaded to see the man, and he ordered his removal to the workhouse, where, after considerable hardship, he ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... for four and five hundred dollars for the lives of the men it wasted in the mine—yes, more than sits by—he stands at the door of justice and drives the widows and children into a settlement like an overseer. And he and Joe Calvin have some sort of real estate partnership—Oh—I know it's dishonest, though I don't know how. But it branches so secretly into the law and it all reaches down into politics. And the whole order here, father—Daniel Sands ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... request during the night to vacate the best quarters for the post-traveler, especially if he happened to wear the regulation brass button. To secure us against this inconvenience, and to gain some special attention, a letter was obtained from the overseer of the Turkestan post and telegraph district. This proved advantageous on many occasions, and once, at Auli-eta, was even necessary. We were surveyed with suspicious glances as soon as we entered the station-house, and when we ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... present a trait common to mankind. We know from experience in our own country that the negro-driver on a Southern plantation—a slave selected from slaves—is often more tyrannical in the use of authority than the overseer or owner. We know that there are hard and unfeeling overseers on many plantations, where the owner is comparatively mild and humane. So far as he knows any thing of the details of his own affairs, his natural disposition accords ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... hers might question the motive which had set the painter such a model. Imagination suggested that some elfin godmother must have prescribed the task as a condition of her future favor. At all events, the malicious sprite now acting as overseer felt a sense of triumph in this captive boy, perched against the wall, and condemned, like herself, to reproduce the past and bring out in fresh colors the staring eyes and mummied cheeks which would otherwise soon be lost to memory. She certainly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... many prostituted pens, and venal politicians! It hath a small beginning, but a giant's growth and strength. When we make the monster we make our master, who haunts us at all hours, and shakes his whip of scorpions for ever in our sight. The slave hath no overseer so severe. Faustus, when he signed the bond with blood, did not secure a doom more terrific. But when we are young we must enjoy ourselves. True; and there are few things more gloomy than the recollection ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... forester and seemed to act as overseer. He gave the signal to stop work as the strangers (mother and Lotty) approached. The women hid their tools under the dry heather until the next day, and then strapped on the big baskets they carried on their backs, without which ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... Narrative, he relates two instances of murderous cruelty,—in one of which a planter deliberately shot a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten within his lordly domain in quest of fish; and in the other, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody scourging. Mr. DOUGLASS states that in neither of these instances was any thing done by way of legal arrest or judicial ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... brotherhood of the Santa Misericordia of the city of Manila is composed of the members of the most prominent families of Manila. They have their overseer, twelve deputies, and a secretary, who form their executive board, besides other officers for their necessary transaction of business. They were established in imitation of the one which was erected in Lisboa, in the year 1498, by the most serene queen of Portugal—Dona ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... continue ten years and no longer, during the time when marriage is fruitful. But if any continue without children up to this time, let them take counsel with their kindred and with the women holding the office of overseer and be divorced for their mutual benefit. If, however, any dispute arises about what is proper and for the interest of either party, they shall choose ten of the guardians of the law and abide by their permission ...
— Laws • Plato

... to Sardis, he leisurely examined the temples and the offerings which they contained, and in the temple of the mother of the gods, he found a bronze female figure called the Water-carrier, about two cubits high, which he himself, when overseer of the water supply of Athens, had made out of the fines imposed upon those who took ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... the Dignity of the Farmer Of Buying a Farm Of the Duties of the Owner Of Laying out the Farm Of Stocking the Farm Of the Duties of the Overseer Of the Duties of the Housekeeper Of the Hands Of Draining Of Preparing the Seed Bed Of Manure Of Soil Improvement Of Forage Crops Of Planting Of Pastures Of Feeding Live Stock Of the Care of Live Stock Of Cakes and ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... god Khnemu, who was supposed to control the springs of the Nile, which were asserted by the sages to be situated between two great rocks on the Island of Elephantine. The Legend sets forth that the Viceroy of Nubia, in the reign of Tcheser, was a nobleman called Meter, who was also the overseer of all the temple properties in the South. His residence was in Abu, or Elephantine, and in the eighteenth year of his reign the king sent him a despatch in which it was written thus: "This is to inform thee that misery hath laid hold upon me as I sit upon the great throne, and I grieve for ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... there was nothing now but a bed of hard, cracked mud. Some stations were altogether deserted, and shepherds had often to drive their flocks long distances to water. Joseph Rudge had lately been made overseer, and it was his duty to ride round the country in all directions to search for water-holes. It was sad to watch the water get less and less in a hole, and to know that in a few days it would dry up and that ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... Kurchuk, the King of Zurb, married this Chuldun princess, Darith, from the country over beyond the Black Sea, and made her his queen, over the heads of about a dozen daughters of the local nobility, whom he'd married previously. Then he brought in this Chuldun scribe, Labdurg, and made him Overseer of the Kingdom—roughly, prime minister. There was a lot of dissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as though he was going to have a revolution on his hands, but he brought in about five thousand Chuldun mercenaries, all archers—these ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper

... to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour—which is true—the economists only prove that man really produces most when he works in freedom, when he has a certain choice in his occupations, when he has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when he sees his work bringing in a profit to him and to others who work like him, but bringing in little to idlers. Nothing else can be deducted from their argumentation, and this ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... the yard overseer, passing the rack, saw that the man was working with furious energy. He was even reaching out his rake to capture floating stuff ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... about they could not be clearly discerned. The main thing that struck the eye was the inmates of the Chia mansion standing about, on the left and right, disposed in their proper order. Chia Ching was overseer of the sacrifices. Chia She played the part of assistant. Chia Chen presented the cups for libations. Chia Lien and Chia Tsung offered up the strips of paper. Pao-y held the incense. Chia Ch'ang ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... Jacquemin, general overseer of the Baroness's parties in the Rue Murillo, did not confess himself inferior to any one as an epicure. He would taste the wines, with the air of a connoisseur, holding his glass up to the light, while the liquor caressed his palate, and ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... sadly slow The bier moves winding from the vale below: There lie the happy dead, from trouble free, And the glad parish pays the frugal fee: No more, O Death! thy victim starts to hear Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer; No more the farmer claims his humble bow, Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou! Now to the church behold the mourners come, Sedately torpid and devoutly dumb; The village children now their games suspend, To see the bier that bears their ancient friend: For he was one in all ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe

... the overseer; or, as you call him, the viewer. I was the youngest, and the blame was all laid upon me. The man, who had only swooned, recovered; but I was thrashed and thrashed for the neglect of another person, till ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... bargain was soon made, and young Joseph, casting backward a farewell look of sad reproach, was carried away, and sold by the Midianites to the Ishmaelites, of whom Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard, bought him for a servant. God blessed the youth, and he was soon made overseer of the officer's household. But Potiphar's wife was a vile woman, and because Joseph was nobly true to God and virtue, made a false report of him, and ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... family. The surroundings were still country-like. Cambridge Common was as yet only a treeless pasture, and the house had not been materially changed from its original shape and plan. Judge Fay was a jolly gentleman of the old school. A judge of probate for a dozen years, an overseer of Harvard College, and a pillar of Christ Church, he was withal fond of a well-turned story and a lover of good hunting, as well as much given to hospitality. Miss Maria Denny Fay, whose memory is now perpetuated in a Radcliffe scholarship, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... familiar instance in this country. Scott's "Antiquary" shows that a similar service was not unknown in Scotland. In "Notes and Queries," ten years ago (Vol. II., Sec. 2, 1856, pp. 83, 204), Alexander Andrews says: "It was by no means unusual for females to serve the office of overseer in small rural parishes," and a communication in the same publication (First Series, Vol. II., p. 383) speaks of a curious entry in the Harleian Miscellany (MS. 980, fol. 153): "The Countess of Richmond, mother to Henry VII., was a Justice of the Peace. Mr. Atturney ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... was a manufacturer; and one day a work- man in his mills, a practical joker, set a man who applied for work, in the overseer's absence, to pour a bucket of [15] water every ten minutes on the regulator. When my brother returned and saw it, he said to the jester, "You must pay that man." Some people try to tend folks, as if they should steer the regulator of mankind. God makes us pay ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... both their popularity and their fees; a bishop must possess great tact as well as energy to impose on both bodies of this clergy, if not an intimate union, at least mutual aid and a collaboration without conflict.—As to the nuns,[5254] he is their ordinary, the sole arbiter, overseer and ruler over all these cloistered lives; he receives their vows, and renders them free of them; it is he who, after due inquiry and examination, authorizes each entrance into the community or ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Priest, of whom it was prophesied that he should be Pharaoh and sweep the Greeks from Egypt. And then the people feared to stand longer in doubt, but brought boats, not knowing what might be meant by the man's words. But there was one amongst them—a farmer and an overseer of canals—who was a kinsman of my mother's and had been present when she prophesied; and he turned and ran swiftly for three parts of an hour, till he came to where I lay in the house that is without the north wall of the great Temple. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... the overseer that this was the "Trotting Cob," this was the ghost he had been warned against, and a very substantial, life-like ghost it was too. He wondered as he stood there that any man ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... erected in 1723 by Samuel Morris, a Quaker of Welsh descent, who was a justice of the peace in Whitemarsh and an overseer of Plymouth Meeting. Morris built it expecting to marry a young Englishwoman to whom he had become affianced while on a visit to England with his mother, Susanna Heath, who was a prominent minister among the Friends. The wedding did not occur, however, ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins

... to take a journey into Thessaly, to see to the proper working of some silver mines in which he had a share, and Thessaly, as everybody knows, is the home of all magic. So when Apuleius arrived at the town of Hypata, where dwelt the man Milo, overseer of his mines, he was prepared to believe that all ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... Appointed Surveyor for County of Salop Superintends erection of new gaol Interview with John Howard His studies in science and literature Poetical exercises Fall of St. Chad's Church, Shrewsburg Discovery of the Roman city of Uriconium Overseer of felons Mrs. Jordan at Shrewsbury Telford's indifference to music Politics, Paine's 'Rights of Man' ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... majority of our professional "nigger-drivers" were from the North. This is no reflection on the character of the Northern people—these fellows were simply the feculent scum, the excrementitious offscourings of civilization. And now I remember that a second-cousin of mine in Kentucky has an overseer from Ohio named Otis. A very thrifty and choleric man was my cousin, and considering a yaller nigger less valuable than a black one, he threatened to subject his overseer to a surgical operation if another half-breed pickaninny ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... been prepared for us at the hacienda, by the wife of the capitaz, or overseer, who, with her husband, seemed to be well pleased with this visit from Don Juan, and to be confident of receiving a pleasant answer from the good-humored old gentleman whenever they addressed him. The dinner was served up about ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... continued, noting and by no means displeased by Frank's scrutiny, "I had heard ye were home, Mr. Ravenel, and came early to see you with a purpose—two purposes, I might say. First, I wanted to talk to you concerning Patrick Dulany, the overseer whom I got for your mother last year. Ye've not ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... replied Charity, "in Proverbs, sixth chapter, sixth, seventh, and eighth verses, which read as follows: 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provided her meat in summer, and gathereth her food ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... pity was she drawn to him. While both were sitting on a rustic seat, Near the tall mansion where the planter dwelt, A drunken overseer came straggling past, And seeing in the dusk a female form, Swayed up to her, and caught her by the arm, And with an insult, strove to drag her on. Ruth spoke not; but the negro, with one grasp Upon the white man, caused ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... and deal with me personally for everything. General Saxton notices the same thing with the people on the plantations as regards himself. I suppose this proceeds partly from the old habit of appealing to the master against the overseer. Kind words would cost the master nothing, and he could easily put off any non-fulfilment upon the overseer. Moreover, the negroes have acquired such constitutional distrust of white people, that it is perhaps as much as they can do to trust more than one person at a tune. Meanwhile this constant ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... able, to reimburse him some of his charges: That from henceforward he expected his word should be a law to me in all things: That I must maintain a parish-watch against thieves and robbers, and give salaries to an overseer, a constable, and others, all of his own choosing, whom he would send from time to time to be spies upon me: That to enable me the better in supporting these expenses, my tenants shall be obliged to carry all their goods cross the river ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... dollars a week. Yet in Massachusetts Miss Patricia Lord's three-hundred-acre farm was one of the prides of the state. In ordinary times she was accustomed to employing from twenty-five to fifty men, although always Miss Patricia acted as her own overseer. ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... the chief personages of the community: the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his wife the levatrice (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the parocco of the little church across the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... official class was still to be found in the acres of Italy. It was not, however, the wealth of the moderate homestead which was to be won from a careful tillage of the fields; it was the wealth which, as we shall soon see, was associated with the slave-capitalist, the overseer, a foreign method of cultivation on the model of the grand plantation-systems of the East, and a belief in the superior value of pasturage to tillage which was to turn many a populous and fertile plain into a wilderness of danger ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... up recruits for insurrection. Over those of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made them join in the revolt as one man. They met him monthly at a place called Bulkley's Farm, selected because the black overseer on that plantation was one of the initiated, and because the farm was accessible by water, thus enabling them to elude the patrol. There they prepared cartridges and pikes, and had primitive banquets, which assumed ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... shining. The leaves of gram have been plucked from the plants; I think much on Dadaria, but she does not come. The love of a stranger is as a dream; think not of him, beloved, he cannot be yours. Twelve has struck and it is thirteen time (past the time of labour); oh, overseer, let your poor labourers go. The betel-leaf is pressed in the mouth (and gives pleasure); attractive eyes delight the heart. Catechu, areca and black cloves; my heart's secret troubles me in my dreams. The Nerbudda came and swept away the rubbish (from the works); fly away, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... he's goin' to stop drinkin', but he only stops long enough to catch his breath. Cy's tellin' himself fairy yarns and he hopes he believes 'em. Man alive! can't you SEE? Ain't he gettin' more foolish over the young one every day? Don't she boss him round like the overseer on a cranberry swamp? Don't he look more contented than he has sence he got off the cars? I tell you, Bailey, that child fills a place in Whit's life that's been runnin' to seed and needed weedin'. Nothin' could fill it better—unless 'twas ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... unacknowledged offspring of her white master, being sent away from the old homestead to be sold. The proud Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins will assert itself as she resists with all the power of her being the attempts of the overseer to ply lash to her fair skin, and for this she must be sold "Way down Souf." I see her now as she comes down from the "Great House," chained to twelve others, to be carried to Lumpkin's jail in Richmond ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... Furniture and Bedding; but the most acceptable part of their Booty, was Two small Caggs of Powder, of Eight Pound Weight each, and near Two Hundred of Lead. They also brought with 'em the Heads of the Overseer, and the Distiller belonging to Littleton's Plantation, both white Men, whom they met separately ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... something white and sweet, and he rubbed her head in exactly the right spot. When she had won his confidence, he told her many things about himself and the College. Once he had been at another place, a college older than this by a long time but not so famous. The Overseer of this one had written him to come and teach there, at a better salary. He explained to her what this meant—money for the support of his mother, and in a few years the study in Europe of which he dreamed, and for which he worked and saved, and beside this the growing up with a new ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... makes a supplement to his former meal. At two his labour re-commences, and he prosecutes it till dark, sometimes visited by his master, but always exposed to the menaces, blows and scourges either of a white overseer, or a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... are," said Rycroft, "here lies the gold." He pointed to the bed of the creek. "Here is our overseer's hut, and he has engaged men for our purpose. This is our hut, Ogilvie. I hope you don't ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... meeting Frederick Douglass, the colored orator, in that little cottage in the hills. "'I never saw my father,' Douglass said one day—his father was a white man—'and I remember little of my mother except that once she tried to keep an overseer from whipping me, and the lash cut across her own face, and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... and drove till they reached the fields. Here was a beautiful meadow, beyond it a grove like the Garden of Paradise. When the overseer of the fields saw them, he came ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... Many burrows have been altogether exterminated. At the awakening of summer, the mother found herself alone. She left her empty house and went off in search of a dwelling where there were cradles to defend, a guard to mount. But those fortunate nests already have their overseer, the foundress, who, jealous of her rights, gives her unemployed neighbour a cold reception. One sentry is enough; two would merely ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... Junior. The Senior receives her orders from the Captain and transmits them not only to 3, 5 and 7, but to Junior as well. The Senior and ranking Patrol officer keeps an eye on the Junior and her rear rank. The Captain, of course, is the general overseer, but the Senior has charge of all routine troop duties, superintends camp details and is virtually a first Lieutenant to the Captain. The Junior is a second Lieutenant and assists the Senior in ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... full-blooded, good natured young fellow, with red hair, who worked in the blacksmith's shop, and worked well. His overseer was a negro—this often happens in Atlanta Penitentiary. The heat in the forge room during summer was intense, and the red haired boy used to get rush of blood to the head, and finally asked a high official for leave to step out in the open air occasionally ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... said, "and I'm going to get one. My uncle's overseer died of the plague and my uncle was too old and too set in his ways to get another, so he acted as his own overseer for the last four years of his life. I must know of my own knowledge just how the place ought to be managed or I can never detect and forestall unnecessary ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... hatred of that institution had been growing and gathering force. Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Longfellow, and others, had written the lyrics of liberty; the graphic pen of Mrs. Stowe, in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' had painted the cruelties of the overseer and the slaveholder; but the acts of slaveholders themselves did more to promote the growth of anti-slavery than all other causes. The persecutions of Abolitionists in the South; the harshness and cruelty attending the execution of the fugitive ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... some one to tell him tales. Fitead's daughter, who was only 11, undertook to amuse the king with tales, and was assisted in private by the sage Abou'melek. After a perfect success, Hudjadge married Moradbak, and at her recommendation, Aboumelek was appointed overseer of the whole empire.—Comte ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... delicate, I am wont to be affected as if I were listening to some celestial melody; a feeling of pity, childish and insensate, comes over me at times. The other day the children of my father's overseer stole a nest full of young sparrows, and on seeing the little birds, not yet fledged, torn thus violently from their tender mother, I felt a sudden pang of anguish, and I confess I could not restrain my tears. A few days before this, a peasant had brought in from the fields ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... sigh, so that the poor betrayed lover had not even the right to complain. Driven to despair, he determined to leave Paris, and as Grand Combe seemed too near in his frenzied longing for flight, he asked and obtained an appointment as overseer on the Suez Canal at Ismailia. He went away without knowing, or caring to know aught of, Desiree's love; and yet, when he went to bid her farewell, the dear little cripple looked up into his face with her shy, pretty eyes, in which ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... nature, that he would fain sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private friendship, to a broad, sunshiny, fair-weather-and-foul friendship for his race; who loves men, not as a philosopher, with philanthropy, nor as an overseer of the poor, with charity, but by a necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs and horses; and standing at his open door from morning till night, would fain see more and more of them come along the highway, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... unfortunate slave does not come into the field exactly at the appointed time, if, drooping with sickness or fatigue, he appears to work unwillingly, or if the bundle of grass that he has been collecting, appears too small in the eye of the overseer, he is equally sure of experiencing the whip. This instrument erases the skin, and cuts out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke; and is so frequently applied, that the smack of it is all day long in the ears of those, who are in the vicinity of the plantations. This ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... continued to exercise his office as a faithful pastor over the flock to whom he was appointed overseer, until the time that several of his faithful brethren were deposed and ejected by the bishops, at which time the bishop of Down threatening Mr. Blair with a prosecution against him, Mr. Cunningham and some others; to whom Mr. Blair said, "Ye may do with me and some others as you please, but ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie



Words linked to "Overseer" :   oversee, school superintendent



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