"Insolvent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Religion, where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so little can as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature, and man's Gullibility not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of war quite broken; I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but exhausted; and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut your and each other's throat,—then were it not well could you, as if by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagulated water, or mere imagination of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the property of their master; for afterwards it is assumed that he may sell them, not as an ordinary right, but as the special penalty incurred by an insolvent debtor. A king, in ancient times and oriental regions, entered into pecuniary transactions with his servants on a great scale. One man, who owes all to the personal favour of the sovereign, is the governor of a wealthy province. Bound by no written law, and living ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... "If such do occur, the man of honor dies when he cannot fulfil his word. But you—you do not wish to die. Oh no! You wish to break your word in order to live pleasantly. You wish to profit by your breach of promise. You wish to declare yourselves insolvent and cheat your creditors of their ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... mind, of a lofty aim, of a quiet conscience, of a filled and satisfied and therefore calmed heart; he that has the treasure of salvation; he that has the boundless wealth of God—-he has the bullion, while the poor rich people that have the material good have the scrip of an insolvent company, which is worth no more than the paper on which it is written. There are two currencies—one solid metal, the other worthless paper. The one is 'true riches,' and the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... securities, by the payment of one pound a year each, and if each had given security for 500l., it is obvious that two in each year might become defaulters to that amount, four to half the amount, and so on, without rendering the guarantee fund insolvent. If it be tolerably well ascertained that the instances of dishonesty (yearly) among such persons amount to one in five hundred, this club would continue to exist, subject to being in debt in a bad year, to an amount which it would be able to discharge ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... rather than of actual prosperity, he had added a wife and family to his cares, but the dawn was speedily overcast. Everything retrograded with him towards the verge of the miry Slough of Despond, which yawns for insolvent debtors; and after catching at each twig, and experiencing the protracted agony of feeling them one by one elude his grasp, he actually sunk into the miry pit whence he had been extricated by the professional ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... immediately left his father's shop, and set up business for himself in the same neighbourhood, where he continued for two or three years, living, as it was supposed, upon the produce of his matrimonial connexion. At length, however, it was discovered that he was insolvent, and bankruptcy became the consequence. Here he remained till affairs were arranged, and then returned to London with his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by democracies which ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absolute insolvency—he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim of those processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultures were hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manor saw-mill going night and day; for by the strangest good luck Jean Jacques received an order for M. Mornay's new ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a national bankrupt law I still regard as very desirable. The Constitution having given to Congress jurisdiction of this subject, it should be exercised and uniform rules provided for the administration of the affairs of insolvent debtors. The inconveniences resulting from the occasional and temporary exercise of this power by Congress and from the conflicting State codes of insolvency which come into force intermediately should be removed by the enactment of a simple, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... to be dead—what would happen? You would leave debts, for, although you are solvent, you are only solvent because you have the knack of always putting your hand on money, and death would automatically make you insolvent. You are one of those brave, jolly fellows who live up to their income. It is true that, in deference to fashion, you are now insured, but for a trifling and inadequate sum which would not yield the hundredth part of your present income. It is true that there is your business. But your business ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men who busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had little or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to become insolvent. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... object—the acquisition of languages. Andrew had been sent to the grammar-school in our town, where he gained the rudiments of education, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek; and where he might, possibly, have become well-educated, had he not—his father dying insolvent—been taken from school, and, much to his grief, apprenticed to the trade he was ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... been upset; but the trustees of Mrs. Walter Scott would probably also have felt bound to resist this, and leave to unsettle could only have been obtained on the humiliating and even slightly disgraceful plea that the granter, being practically insolvent at the time, was acting beyond his rights. It seems to have been proposed by the Bank of Scotland, during the negotiations for the arrangement which followed, that this should be done; and the reasons which dictated Scott's refusal would have equally, no doubt, prevented him from ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack, and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a felonious drysalter returned from exile, an hospital stump-turner, a decayed staymaker, a bankrupt printer, or insolvent debtor, released by act of parliament. I do not pretend to administer medicines without the least tincture of letters, or suborn wretches to perjure themselves in false affidavits of cures that were never performed; nor ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Judgment-day. Mohammed who enjoined mercy to debtors while in the flesh (chapt. ii. 280, etc.) said "Allah covereth all faults except debt; that is to say, there will be punishment therefor." Also "A martyr shall be pardoned every fault but debt." On one occasion he refused to pray for a Moslem who died insolvent. Such harshness is a curious contrast with the leniency which advised the creditor to remit debts by way of alms. And practically this mild view of indebtedness renders it highly unadvisable to oblige a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... elections; continued the Duty-Commissioners Act for four years; altered certain parts of the Newcastle-District administration of justice Bill; made provision for the further appointment of parish and town officers; relieved insolvent debtors, by an Act which enabled a debtor in prison to receive five shillings weekly from his creditor during his detention, if the prisoner were not worth five pounds, worthlessness being, in this instance, to a man's advantage; ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... they pronounced the banker's heart diseased. A week after this sudden and awful visitation, all that remained of Abraham Allcraft was committed to the dust, and Michael discovered, to his surprise and horror, that his father had died an insolvent and a beggar. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... servitude for intermarriage with a negro. If freemen, in a political sense, were subjects of these cruel and degrading oppressions, what must have been the lot of their brethren in bondage? It is also true, that degrading conditions were sometimes assigned to white men, but never as members of a caste. Insolvent debtors, to indicate the worst of them, are compelled to make satisfaction by servitude; but that was borrowed from a kindred, and still less rational, principle of the common law. This act of 1726, however, remained in force, till it was repealed by the Emancipating ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... sense of public duty would again be the attributes of royalty. In this session, too, it conferred a boon upon Ireland, which earned little gratitude, by the consolidation of the British and Irish exchequers. Ireland was virtually insolvent before this measure was passed. With the union of the exchequers the union of the countries was completed. The administration, discredited by its financial policy, was strengthened in June by the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... belligerent independent transcendent competent insistent consistent convalescent correspondent corpulent dependent despondent expedient impertinent inclement insolvent intermittent prevalent superintendent recipient proficient efficient eminent excellent fraudulent latent opulent ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... is insolvent may institute one of his slaves heir in his will, conferring freedom on him at the same time, so that he may become free and his sole and necessary heir, provided no one else takes as heir under the will, either because no one else was instituted at all, ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... a letter comes to hand Astin' how I'd like to dicker fer some Illinois land— "The feller that had owned it," it went ahead to state, "Had jest deceased, insolvent, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... in 1864, so that his notoriety was great. Schenck, while Minister in London, posed as director of a mining company, and borrowed from the promoters of the scheme the money with which he bought his shares. When the company proved insolvent, and perhaps fraudulent, Grant was forced to recall him. Critics who saw dishonesty or low ethical standards in these men were ready to see in the carnival of the Reconstruction Governments ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... the heaviest losers, was elected to the chair, but beyond making a statement which told them nothing, he could do little. When he informed them that Lord Highcliffe had died practically insolvent, a murmur arose, a deep guttural murmur which was something between a hiss and a groan, and it was while this unpleasant sound was filling the room that ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... was about this time that the enclosures of the plantation rose to view. The estate had formerly belonged to a gentleman of opulence and taste, who had bestowed some considerable attention to the adornment of his grounds. Having died insolvent, it had been purchased, at a bargain, by Legree, who used it, as he did everything else, merely as an implement for money-making. The place had that ragged, forlorn appearance, which is always produced by the evidence that the care of the former owner has ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... may gorge themselves with the provincial luxuries and wealth? No doubt you heard in what way our friend the philosopher gave the place of praetorian prefect to one who but three days before was a bankrupt,—insolvent, by G—, and a beggar. Be not you content: that same gentleman is now as rich as a prefect should be; and has been so, I tell you, any time these three days. And how, I pray you, how—how, my good sir? How but out of the bowels of the provinces, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... children when Pompey's name was identified with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching question—Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... directed against Lord Redesdale's Insolvent Debtors Act, was presented by Romilly in the House of Commons, November 11, 1813, and by Lord Holland in the House ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... If the cattle were as good as represented they were certainly a bargain, as the brand was offered straight through at four dollars and a half a head. It was represented that nothing had been sold from the brand in a number of years, the estate was insolvent, and the trustee was anxious to sell the entire stock outright. I was impressed with the opportunity, and early in the winter George Edwards and I rode down to look the situation over. By riding around the range a few days we were able to get a good idea of the stock, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... only was Earl St. George Erne the heir of his cousin, but that some three years previously he had lent that cousin a sum of money sufficient to cover much more than the whole value of The Rim, taking in payment only promissory notes, whose indorser was since insolvent. This sum—as Mr. Erne the elder had been already unfortunate in several rash speculations—had been applied towards lifting a heavy mortgage, and instituting improvements that would enable the farm soon to repay the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... title. Not unfrequently, the applicant changed his choice, and migrated from one spot to another. The governor often permitted the issue of rations and implements a second time, to enable indolent or insolvent settlers to till a second heritage.[165] Trade was, however, more agreeable to many emancipists than agriculture. The officers located near them were willing to purchase their petty farms: thus the small holdings were bought ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... was peopled by Puritans from the Nansemond country, vexed with the paltry persecutions of Governor Berkeley, and later by fugitives from the bloody revenge which he delighted to inflict on those who had been involved in the righteous rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon. These had been joined by insolvent debtors not a few. Adventurers from New England settled on the Cape Fear River for a lumber trade, and kept the various plantations in communication with the rest of the world by their coasting craft plying ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... about it, instead of being invested in plain, business, practical hands—if it hoarded when it ought to spend—if it got by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress you very much by my indignation. If its managers could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds—or by "Tom,"—if its treasurer had run away with the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. But I have no such chance. Just as a nation is happy ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... asked Carrigan to come to the office at two o'clock, stating that the company was insolvent and but enough money remained to square accounts with the contractor. Pat had cast a shrewd glance at Lee and nodded. This was during the morning. Afterward the engineer had gone for a visit to the dam, the ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... seems to have been Peter Apple, of Pickaway county, who at the time of his appointment held a county office, was postmaster, and a justice of the peace. He was a leading man, of high character and standing, and supposed to be of considerable wealth. In 1817 he became embarrassed and insolvent, and was removed from his position as deputy. His bonds proved worthless, and the whole loss and liability fell upon my father. This, with other losses occurring through the failure of other deputies, was the most unfortunate event of his life. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation negroes never failed to receive his bounty or good will. During the sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took care of his wife and ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... to lend it. To others I lost large sums on credit, under promises to pay them on a future day. When the day arrived and found me unable to meet my engagements, I was induced to give bills to my creditors for other and distant days. Again those days came, and again they found me insolvent. I will not, I need not, go through all the miserable details of the difficulties in which I was entangled, of the humiliating excuses I had to make, and the more humiliating threats and reproaches I had to endure. It is enough to say that, with desperate ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... his old friend, Mr. Sheridan, had been honoured with extraordinary attention in his own country, by having had an exception made in his favour in an Irish Act of Parliament concerning insolvent debtors[1140]. 'Thus to be singled out (said he) by a legislature, as an object of publick consideration and kindness, is a proof of ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... telling of Mr. Royal's having formed one of those quadroon alliances so common in New Orleans; of his having died insolvent; and of his two handsome octoroon daughters having been claimed ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... heads. I am sure that the marriage of Monsieur Lucien to Madame Jouberthon was the only cause of this disagreement. The Emperor disapproved of this union because the lady's reputation was somewhat doubtful, and she was also divorced from her husband, who had become insolvent, and had fled to America. This insolvency, and the divorce especially, offended Napoleon deeply, who always felt a great ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... material furnished by "material men," have already been noted. It may be broadly stated that the presumption is that such claims are everywhere a preferred debt to be paid out of the estate of the insolvent, living or dead, in preference to all claims ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that 'her family' had decided that Mr. Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would set him free, she ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... more surprising. Mr. Dutton was leaving the firm. Though his father had died insolvent, and he had had to struggle for himself in early life, he was connected with wealthy people, and change and death among these had brought him a fair share of riches. An uncle who had emigrated to Australia at the time of the great break up had ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... patriotic,—this being the best he could get—is it probable that his application would be rejected? or that the officer would do more than inquire whether the bank then paid specie, without troubling his head to ascertain whether it merely made a show of paying it, and whether it would not be insolvent in a month. Let it not be said, that if doubts were entertained of the solidity of the bank, its paper might be immediately converted into specie; for, in the first place, the bank may be some hundreds of miles distant; ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... for you to pay the bill, you having no money, and receiving no greater income than 22 shillings per week, all of which was necessary to the maintenance of yourself and family. We regret again to call to your notice the Statute of 16 Eliz., entitled, "Concerning the Imprisonment of Insolvent Debtors," which we trust you will not oblige us to invoke in aid of our suffering client's rights. To be lenient and merciful is his inclination, and we are happy to communicate to you this most favorable tender for an acquittance of his claim. You shall render to us an order ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... her a position, a good education. Learning that she was heiress to a considerable property left by a grandfather, the society took active steps in France to secure to her her rights. Unfortunately, the agent who had possession of the estate became insolvent after having squandered the property, and it was impossible to recover it. The society continued to care for the young girl up to the day of her marriage to a young man enjoying a regular salary of $1,200, and worthy of her in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... Deschap. None. If, without the sum Which Beauseant offers for thy hand, this day Sinks to the west—to-morrow brings our ruin! And hundreds, mingled in that ruin, curse The bankrupt merchant! and the insolvent herd We feasted and made merry cry in scorn, "How pride has fallen!—Lo, the bankrupt merchant!" My ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... action went against me—I had not a penny to defend it. Solomonson proved my wife's debt, and seized my two thousand pounds. As for the detainer against me, I was obliged to go through the court for the relief of insolvent debtors. I passed through it, and came out a beggar. But fancy the malice of that wicked Stiffelkind: he appeared in court as my creditor for 3L., with sixteen years' interest at five per cent, for a PAIR OF TOP-BOOTS. The old thief produced them in court, and told the whole story—Lord Cornwallis, ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of a better, my master and I had to cook and sleep, was one of the most miserable tumble-down erections I ever saw inhabited. It had formed part of an ancient set of offices that had been condemned about fourteen years before; but the proprietor of the place becoming insolvent, it had been spared, in lack of a better, to accommodate the servants who wrought on the farm; and it had now become not only a comfortless, but also a very unsafe dwelling. It would have formed no bad subject, with ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... controls, and in some cases substantially owns, and by its money supports some of the leading presses of the country is now more clearly established. Editors to whom it loaned extravagant sums in 1831 and 1832, on unusual time and nominal security, have since turned out to be insolvent, and to others apparently in no better condition accommodations still more extravagant, on terms more unusual, and some without any security, have also been ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... philosophy, albeit but a poor brand of each. We are invited to occupy ourselves only with spiritual cash, because the universe is spiritually insolvent. The immediately gratifying feelings are the only feelings that the world can guarantee. Omar Khayyam is a philosopher-poet, because his immediate delight in "youth's sweet-scented manuscript" is part of a consciousness that ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... treacherously with me as he had done, after causing the death of eight persons, including the American who was drowned, and all the misfortunes which befel my wife; in short, after dissipating the whole of the effects I had intrusted with him, proved insolvent; and, for my part, I judged it unnecessary to augment the losses I had already sustained by having to support him ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the road was depreciated and borne down on the Exchange until the road became insolvent. All my money was in the road, and when the crisis came I found myself stranded. The King of the Rail Road Trust, Jacob L. Vosbeck, bought up the stock and then raised it to even a higher figure than it ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterward. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various kinds had befallen her; a bank broke—an investment failed—she went into a small business and became insolvent—then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... underneath. But he carefully preserves the note itself, for, thus mutilated, it will show, if necessary, that he had not received anything, and that, through patriotism, he had undoubtedly wished to force a contribution from a merchant, but, finding him insolvent, had humanely canceled the written obligation.[33116]—Such are the precautions taken in this business. Others, less shrewd, rob more openly, among others the mayor, the seven members of the military commission surnamed "the seven mortal sins," and especially their president, Lacombe, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... customers of a bank never exactly coincide and many payments are made among the customers of a single bank, requiring only bookkeeping transfers. A fractional reserve is therefore ordinarily fully adequate, altho with any less than a 100 per cent reserve any bank would be insolvent if all of its demand obligations were presented at the same instant. Such a contingency is made impossible by business custom and public opinion especially among the larger customers of banks, but the panic of small depositors often brings about ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... he became subject to the law, and tidings reached him that the sheriff would seize the Maid. On most occasions the sheriff is bound to keep such intentions secret, seeing that property is movable, and that an insolvent debtor will not always await the officers of justice. But with the poor Maid there was no need of such secrecy. There was but a mile or so of water on which she could ply, and she was forbidden by the nature of her properties to make any way upon land, The sheriff's ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... authority to receive payment, but in trades in which it is customary for him to do so, if the buyer pays the seller's broker, and is then sued by the seller for the price by reason of the broker having become insolvent or absconded, he may set up the payment to the broker as a defence to the action by the broker's principal. Brokers may render themselves liable for damages in tort for the conversion of the goods at the suit of the true owner if they negotiate a sale of the goods for a selling principal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Company insolvent?" he asked. "You say that the bank closed its doors this morning? Have you any idea of its condition? Looted? Is it entirely cleaned out? Is there no chance for depositors? I wish to inquire about the trust funds, bonds and other investments ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... York for letters of introduction that would be useful in London, she was too impatient to await their arrival. Thus she came to secure the services of Lady Willow, the widow of Sir Debenham Willow, who had died abroad, insolvent, some years before, mourned by the creditors he ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... sweeping. When England went to war with both France and Spain, the condition of Ireland was well-nigh desperate. The country was almost denuded of regular troops; steps had indeed been taken for the establishment of a militia, and arms had actually been purchased; but in the hopelessly insolvent condition of the Irish Exchequer, it was impossible to do anything further. And a French invasion might arrive at any moment. At this crisis the country gentlemen came forward. They formed their tenants and dependants into regiments of volunteers, of ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... joined a commercial undertaking, for which he constantly draws bills which, as they fall due, threaten both his honor and his fortune, since they stamp him as a trader, and in default of payment may lead to his being declared insolvent; that these debts, which are owing to stationers, printers, lithographers, and print-colorists, who have supplied the materials for his publication, called A Picturesque History of China, now coming out in parts, are so heavy that these tradesmen have requested the petitioner to apply for a ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... know, of course, that such a person, though not uncommon in novels, very rarely occurs in real life; and if he occur at all, it is with his ideal perfections very much toned down. In actual life, such a hero would become known in the Insolvent Court, and would frequently appear before the police magistrates. He would eventually become a billiard-marker; and might ultimately be hanged, with general approval. If the man, in his unclipped proportions, did actually exist, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... building. Depositors withdraw, securities tumble, investigation and legal expenses begin, your financial associates get frightened or ashamed and desert you. Nothing is so squeamish or so retiring and nervous as money. Time will show that I was not insolvent at the time. The books will show a few technically illegal things, but so would the books or the affairs of any great bank, especially at this time, if quickly examined. I was doing no more than all were doing, but they wanted to get me ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... it turned out. The great corn-firm had been insolvent for years; and after speculating desperately, and to a frightful extent, with a view to recover themselves, had failed to an enormous amount—their assets, comparatively speaking, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... every passing day. Thus the class formerly most stable has become the most restless one. It consists to-day of a few remnants of a past time, and a number of people eager to make fortunes, industrial Micawbers and speculators of whom one may amass a fortune, while ninety-nine become insolvent, and more than half of the ninety-nine live ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... wiser for his wealth? What if thy rental I inform, and draw An inventory new to set thee right? Where is thy treasure? Gold says, 'Not in me!' And not in me, the diamond. Gold is poor, Indies insolvent-. Seek it in thyself, Seek in thy naked self, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... his story—to give one example out of a score—he had been obliged to apply for the benefit of the Insolvent Act, in Philadelphia, owing to losses he had sustained by lending money to distressed compatriots, and eleemosynary outcasts, and had been opposed in the Court of Insolvency by Colonel John Stille, Jr. and Mr. Henry McIlvaine, who threatened him with a prosecution ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Last, but not least, is the Sultan of Turkey, who has a large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for his harem, and it ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... in beginning exploration was the want of money; and this, of course, even the Prince Minister of Finance could not coin. Egypt, the fertile, the wealthy, the progressive, was, indeed, at the time all but insolvent. At the suggestion of foreigners, "profitable investments," which yielded literally nothing, had been freely made for many a year, and the sole results were money difficulties and debt. The European ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. The condemned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in Newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the Marshalsea Prison. [Better. But this is past, in a better age, and the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... statement, which is more exact, and agrees with the epitaph, is, that the subscription was not sufficient to extricate King Theodore from his difficulties, and that he was released from gaol as an insolvent debtor. However that may be, he died soon afterwards. Former writers have stated that he was buried in an obscure corner, among the paupers, in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Westminster, but they ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... scrapes, out of which his father's money had in one way or another released him; but that source of safety had now failed. Old Rollet, having been too busy with the affairs of the nation to attend to his business, had died insolvent, leaving his son with nothing but his own wits to help him out of future difficulties; and it was not long before their exercise was ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... to be unable to pay his debts. Although the terms "bankruptcy" and "insolvency" are sometimes used indiscriminately, they have in legal and commercial usage distinct significations. When a person's financial liabilities are greater than his means of meeting them, he is said to be "insolvent"; but he may nevertheless be able to carry on his business affairs by means of credit, paying old debts by incurring new ones, and he may even, if fortunate, regain a position of solvency without his creditors ever being aware ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... to advance money upon appearances, sir, I should be insolvent in a fortnight. But stay," he cried uneasily, as I flung back my chair, "stay, sir. Is there no one of your province in the town ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reality of his position—and that was Ruin. He was without hope and without resource. His debts were vast; his patrimony was a fable; and the mysterious inheritance of his wife had been tampered with. The elder Ferrars had left an insolvent estate; he had supported his son liberally, but latterly from his son's own resources. The father had made himself the principal trustee of the son's marriage settlement. His colleague, a relative of the heiress, had died, and care was taken that no one should be substituted ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... free on board | afranke sur sxipon | afrahn'keh soor (f.o.b.) | | sheep'ohn freightage | frajta prezo | frahy'tah preh'zo guarantee, a | garantio | garahntee'o imports | importoj | impohr'toy insolvent | nesolventa | nehsolvehn'ta insurance policy | asekura poliso | ahsehkoor'ah polee'so — premium | asekura premio | ahsehkoor'ah prehmee'oh insure, to | asekuri | ahsehkoo'ree introduction ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... were the legacy of an era of speculation, a considerable part of the population, especially of the farmer class, was demanding measures of relief which threatened the security of contracts. "Laws suspending the collection of debts, insolvent laws, instalment laws, tender laws, and other expedients of a like nature, were familiarly adopted or ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... Insidious insida. Insight elsciado. Insignificant sensignifa. Insincere nesincera. Insinuate proponeti. Insipid sengusta. Insist insisti. Insnare allogi, kapti. Insobriety malsobreco. Insolent insultema. Insoluble nesolvebla. Insolvent nepagokapabla. Insomnia sendormo. Insomuch tial ke. Inspect ekzameni. Inspector inspektoro. Inspiration inspiro. Inspiration (breath) enspiro. Inspire enspiri. Inspire inspiri. Instalment partpago. Install logxigi. Instance ekzemplodoni. Instance ekzemplo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... for an investigation of Mr. Clinton's affairs, and the estate was pronounced insolvent, and all was offered for sale. At first Henriette could scarcely believe the assertion, but when she became convinced of its truth, she nerved her mind to meet the trial, relying upon that God "who tempers the wind to the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... England, He was an eminent Christian, An energetic and merciful Statesman, And a still more eminent and merciful Judge. During his three years' tenure of office He abolished the ancient method of conveying land, The time-honoured institution of the Insolvent's Court, And The Eternity of Punishment. Toward the close of his early career, In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, He dismissed Hell with costs, And took away from the Orthodox members of the Church of England Their last hope of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... thoroughfare, part street, and part lane, running from Mint Street, through a variety of turnings, and along the brink of a deep kennel, skirted by a number of petty and neglected gardens in the direction of Saint George's Fields. The neighbouring houses were tenanted by the lowest order of insolvent traders, thieves, mendicants, and other worthless and nefarious characters, who fled thither to escape from their creditors, or to avoid the punishment due to their different offenses; for we may observe that the Old Mint, although it had been divested of some of its privileges as a sanctuary by ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... German lottery, and a cream-coloured pony, as if my whole life had not been one continued lottery, with every day a blank; and as to horses, I had eleven in my stables already. Perhaps she thought twelve would read better in my schedule, when I, next week, surrendered as insolvent. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... community in dependence by means of advances at enormous usury. The law of debt, framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, was the host horrible that has ever been known among men. The liberty and even the life of the insolvent were at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. Children often became slaves in consequence of the misfortunes of their parents. The debtor was imprisoned, not in a public jail under the care of impartial public functionaries, but in a private workhouse belonging to the creditor. Frightful stories ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grand clothes. It is a pity that grand clothes were not always greatly given to him, for he never appeared quite able to pay for them. Although he became deeply involved in debt, he never cultivated luxurious or unworthy delights. His pleasures were of the simplest. His insolvent condition was due, true enough, to pleasure and his foremost luxury—the luxury of ceaseless charities that he could as ill afford as a coach-and-four. He was one of the hearts not meant to draw near the gates of heaven ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... all citizens invested with honourable functions, either at court, in the army, in the church, or in the magistracy, should be suspended whenever they should be legally sued by a creditor, and that they should be unremittingly deprived of their rank whenever they should be declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Baptists," sometimes the "Hard-shell Baptists," having, as is usually the case with hard cases, hard names. I use the expression "once known," since, if I mistake not, the order has, in these latter days, deceased; dying of sheer decrepitude, with no weeping mourners around it, being intestate and insolvent, and is now to be numbered with the things that were—an old man's tale, the blunder of an hour.[3] That so broad and warm and genial a nature as that of our hero should have gone for refuge and spiritual comfort to a creed so narrow, cold, and gloomy, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... in a most ample sense. There are slaves by birth and others by conquest, such as prisoners of war, insolvent debtors, and those seized by piratical expeditions to other islands. A creole friend of mine was one of these last. He had commenced clearing an estate for cane-growing on the Negros coast, when he was seized and carried ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... time of Homer; Alexander sold the inhabitants of Thebes, and the Spartans reduced the entire population of Helos to servitude, so that Helot came to be synonymous with slave, while one of the laws inscribed on the Twelve Tables of Rome gave a creditor the right to sell an insolvent debtor into slavery to satisfy his claim. Wealthy Romans frequently possessed slaves, over whose lives and fortunes the owners were ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... enough at freighting to keep himself and his crew in provisions for a week Felipe would anchor the navy and hang about the little telegraph office, looking like one of the chorus of an insolvent comic opera troupe besieging the manager's den. A hope for orders from the capital was always in his heart. That his services as admiral had never been called into requirement hurt his pride and patriotism. At every call he would inquire, gravely and expectantly, for despatches. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... is done, and done at once, by the policy-holders, each and every one of the largest companies may become insolvent; that is, they may not be able to meet the engagements of their policies, because of waste of funds, tremendous falling off of new business, tremendous cost of new business, and the nature of the new business—so-called "graveyard business"; for I am credibly informed ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... again remind you!) the produce of the fair Aurora von Konigsmark, Sister of the Konigsmark who vanished instantaneously from the light of day at Hanover long since, and has never reappeared more. It was in search of him that Aurora, who was indeed a shining creature (terribly insolvent all her life, whose charms even Charles XII. durst not front), came to Dresden; and,—in this Comte de Saxe, men see the result. Tall enough, restless enough; most eupeptic, brisk, with a great deal of wild faculty,—running to waste, nearly all. There, with his black arched eyebrows, black ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... probable return of the Marquis and the coming of a new Marchioness and a new Lord Popenjoy. Occasion had been taken to give some details of the Germain family, and public allusion had even been made to the marriage of Lord George. These are days in which, should your wife's grandfather have ever been insolvent, some newspaper, in its catering for the public, will think it proper to recall the fact. The Dean's parentage had been alluded to, and the late Tallowax will, and the Tallowax property generally. It ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... father's example. He in his turn became the friend of the Regent, and to repair his shattered fortunes he engaged, at the advice of Lau, in those disastrous financial enterprises that paved the way for the Revolution. He failed completely in his ventures, left Paris insolvent, and took refuge in the Chateau de Chamondrin, where he hoped to escape the wrath of his creditors. But they complained to the king, and brought such influence to bear upon him that Louis XV., the Well-beloved, who had just ascended the throne, informed the Marquis de Chamondrin that he would ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... was dispossessed and laughed out of court when he made his demand for some preposterous compensation; the owner of the discredited Dass patents makes his last appearance upon the scroll of history as the insolvent proprietor of a paper called The Cry for Justice, in which he duns the world for a hundred million pounds. That was the ingenuous Dass's idea of justice, that he ought to be paid about five million pounds annually because he had annexed the selvage of one of Holsten's ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... landlords to reside at home. A coercion act is opposed, while Sir Francis Hopkins, a resident and admirable landlord, is fired at at his own hall door, and for what? because, six years ago, he dispossessed an insolvent tenant, "forgiving his arrears, and paying him his own valuation for his interest;" while the life of Sir David Roche is attempted, because "he refused to assist a tenant to turn out his brother's widow while her husband lay on his bed of death, hardly allowing the body to get cold, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... without difficulty or question. Fifty guineas here or there did not signify to their client, whilst to us—well, really, let a lawyer be as kind and disinterested as he will, fifty guineas disbursed upon the suit of an utterly insolvent, or persistently insolvent, client means something eminently disagreeable ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... to be made in a given time. In both cases, the situation of the adventurer is exactly the same. If he succeeds, he may secure an independency. If he is unsuccessful, his person and services are at the disposal of another; for in Africa, not only the effects of the insolvent, but even the insolvent himself, are sold to satisfy the lawful demands of ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... During the same year Arkansas invested this money in a bank, entitled 'The Real Estate Bank of Arkansas;' and of which the State was the great stockholder. In 1839, this Bank, having loaned out these funds to the citizens of Arkansas, became absolutely and totally insolvent, and has never been able to pay one cent on the dollar to any of its creditors. In 1839, the State of Arkansas failed to pay the interest on its bonds, and from that day to this has never paid one dollar either of interest or principal on any ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... one worthy act;—setting fire to its old home and self; and going up in flames and volcanic explosions, in a truly memorable and important manner. A very fit termination, as I thankfully feel, for such a Century. Century spendthrift, fraudulent-bankrupt; gone at length utterly insolvent, without real MONEY of performance in its pocket, and the shops declining to take hypocrisies and speciosities any farther:—what could the poor Century do, but at length admit, "Well, it is so. I am a swindler-century, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... matter regardin' your father we spoke of the other day, I find, through Doc Carey's helpin' an' some other ways, that your father, Mr. Tank Shirley, was accidentally drowned in Clover Creek, Ohio, some years ago. So far as I can find out, he died insolvent. If I discover anything ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... thousand dollars, by means of judicious payments to confidential creditors, his wife and daughter saw all THEY most prized taken away, and the town was filled with the magnitude of their sacrifices, and with the handsome manner in which both submitted to make them. By this ingenious device, the insolvent not only preserved his character, by no means an unusual circumstance in New York, however, but he preserved about half of his bona fide estate also; his creditors, as was ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... the newspaper office in which young Greeley was learning his trade became insolvent, and Greeley, then in his twentieth year, was released from his indentures. He tramped from office to office as a journeyman printer, and his father having removed to the then "new country of western ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Then gently, lovingly, with look intense, He leaned towards us— "Is this common sense? No person in his rightful mind will try To run his business so, lest by-and-by The thing collapses, smirching his good name, And he, insolvent, face ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... attended with many novel circumstances, not only in the political sphere, but in the circle of money transactions. Among others, it shows that a government may be in a state of insolvency and a nation rich. So far as the fact is confined to the late Government of France, it was insolvent; because the nation would no longer support its extravagance, and therefore it could no longer support itself—but with respect to the nation all the means existed. A government may be said to be insolvent every time it applies to the nation to discharge its ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... satisfaction of his sovereign and of the nation. But while prosperity seemed to smile with increasing brilliancy, adversity was hovering near. In 1826, Archibald Constable and Company, the famous publishers of his works, became insolvent, involving in their bankruptcy the printing firm of the Messrs Ballantyne, of which Sir Walter was a partner. The liabilities amounted to the vast sum of L102,000, for which Sir Walter was individually responsible. To a mind less balanced by native intrepidity and fortified by principle, the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... part of which was eight or ten feet below the uppermost. This should have given some alarm to the commissioners appointed to manage the reservoir; and the danger was actually pointed out, and insisted upon so long ago as 1844. But the commission became insolvent, and went into Chancery; so nothing was done. A sort of safety-valve is provided in such works, exactly of the same nature as the waste-pipe of a common cistern. It consists of a hollow tower of masonry rising within the embankment, in connection with a sluice-passage, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... a judge of the Insolvent Court, noticing a witness kiss his thumb instead of the Testament, after rebuking him said, "You may think to desave God, sir, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... born about 1767. He was clerk in the office of Bordin, procureur of Chatelet. In 1798 he lent one hundred crowns in gold to Monegod his life-long friend. This sum not being repaid, M. Alain found himself almost insolvent, and was obliged to take an insignificant position at the Mont-de-Piete. In addition to this he kept the books of Cesar Birotteau, the well-known perfumer. Monegod became wealthy in 1816, and he forced M. Alain to accept a hundred ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... as, coupled with the small number of freemen on whom it exclusively fell, crushed every attempt at productive industry. It was the same thing as if all the farmers on each estate were to be bound to make up, annually, the same amount of rent to their landlord, no matter how many of them had become insolvent. We know how long the agriculture of Britain, in a period of declining prices and frequent disaster, would exist under such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... girls in every circle, married to men not by any means insolvent, who have unlimited credit, but never any money of their own. They have carriages but no car fare; fine stationery, monogrammed and blazoned with a coat of arms, but not by any chance a ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... of the Surface school was one day heard to boast that from his continually breaking his promises made to his creditors, they must imagine him to have been brought up in a court:—"Yes," replied a byestander, "the Insolvent's Court." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... strangers, for a gratuity, by the servants of the Duke of Hamilton, who is hereditary keeper of the Palace. It may be mentioned, before dismissing this subject, that the precincts of these interesting edifices were formerly a sanctuary of criminals, and can yet afford refuge to insolvent debtors. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... must be ruined. You are the only person I can think of, of her acquaintance, and can, perhaps, if not yourself, recommend the person most likely to influence her. Shelley had engaged to clear him of all demands, and he has gone down to the deep insolvent. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the way thro' the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... doing this was to withdraw the heavy deposits made by the Government; and to this course the President fully committed himself as soon as the results of the election were known. He was impelled, further, by the conviction—notwithstanding unimpeachable evidence to the contrary—that the Bank was insolvent, and by his indignation at the refusal of Biddle and his associates to accept the electoral verdict as final. "Biddle shan't have the public money to break down the public administration with. It's settled. My mind's made up." So the President declared ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... suppose that he has no lien on the house for the work that he has done, or that he has lost his lien by reason of not having filed it in time, as the law requires. Afterward he goes to the executor and demands payment for the repairs that he has made. Let us suppose that the estate is insolvent and cannot pay all of its debts in full. At the time of making this contract neither party supposed this would happen. But, unhappily, debts have come to light so large and numerous that there is not property enough to pay all the creditors everything that is due ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... and tenant. It is a very common practice in Ireland to fix a rent for a tenant and to reduce that rent on the tenant executing certain improvements. No improving tenant, or one who pays his rent, is ever disturbed in possession of his farm—it is only the insolvent one that is put out, and by the time the landlord can obtain possession of the farm it is always in a most delapidated condition. An ejectment for non-payment of rent cannot be brought till a clear year's rent is due, and usually the tenant owes ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... have been the dupe of a clever comedian,' I said to Bordin, 'so much the worse for him, not for me. But tell me what to do.' 'You must try to get from him a written acknowledgment; for a debtor, however, insolvent he may be, may become solvent, and then he will pay.' Thereupon Bordin took from a tin box a case on which I saw the name of Mongenod; he showed me three receipts of a hundred francs each. 'The next time he comes I shall have him admitted, and I shall make him add the interest and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... losses at present sustained. If these were shortened to 6, 9, and 12 months, and ware-houses provided by Government sufficient to receive the goods offered in deposit for security and for debenture, and if the right of the United States to a priority of payment out of the estates of its insolvent debtors were more effectually secured, this evil would in a great measure be obviated. An authority to construct such houses is therefore, with the proposed alteration of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... prison, because one person refuses to sign my certificate. I have long outlived all my friends from whom I could expect the least countenance or favour. I am grown old in confinement, and lay my account with ending my days in jail, as the mercy of the legislature in favour of insolvent debtors is never extended to uncertified bankrupts taken in execution. By dint of industry and the most rigid economy, I make shift to live independent in this retreat. To this scene my faculty of subsisting, as well as my body, is peculiarly confined. Had I an opportunity to escape, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and currencies in this Earth have as good as ceased for ever and ever! God is great; all Lies do now, as from the first, travel incessantly towards Chaos, and there at length lodge! In some parts of Ireland (the Western "insolvent Unions," some twenty-seven of them in all), within a trifle of one half of the whole population are on Poor-Law rations (furnished by the British Government, L1,100 a week furnished here, L1,300 there, L800 there); the houses stand roofless, the lands ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Earl of Albemarle. An amiable prodigal who filled various great offices, through the favour of Lady Yarmouth, who died insolvent.-D. [He married. in 1723, Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of Charles, first Duke of Richmond, and, whilst ambassador to the French court, died suddenly ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... magistrate easily detected him in flagrant lies. He declared at first that he had paid the hundred thousand livres with his own money but when reminded of his various bankruptcies, the claims of his creditors, and the judgments obtained against him as an insolvent debtor, he made a complete volte-face, and declared he had borrowed the money from an advocate named Duclos, to whom he had given a bond in presence of a notary. In spite of all his protestations, the magistrate committed him to solitary confinement ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... statesmanship, it should be remembered, is imperfect—has failed in obtaining good results at all commensurate with its generally good intentions. Failure, however, is none the less failure because its causes admit of analysis. It is no defence to bankruptcy that an insolvent can, when brought before the Court, lucidly explain the errors which resulted in disastrous speculations. The failure of English statesmanship, explain it as you will, has produced the one last and greatest evil which misgovernment can cause. It has created hostility to the law in the minds ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... part of the town, it is enough to say that the landlords of some of the houses tenanted by working men without work, by dangerous characters, and by the very poor employed in unhealthy toil, dare not demand their rents, and can find no bailiffs bold enough to evict insolvent lodgers. At the present time speculating builders, who are fast changing the aspect of this corner of Paris, and covering the waste ground lying between the Rue d'Amsterdam and the Rue Faubourg-du-Roule, will no doubt alter the character of the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... women many rights and privileges not before possessed. Dower but not curtesy obtains. If there are no lineal descendants, and the estate is solvent, the widow takes one-half of the real estate for life, but if the estate is insolvent, one-third only. If there are lineal descendants, then the dower right is one-third, whether the estate is solvent or not. If a husband die without a will, his widow, if there are no children, is entitled ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... week. The people of this mighty city were pressed by the heaviest of afflictions. The emperor, under false expectations, was tempted into making engagements which he could not keep; the Government, at a period which otherwise and for many years to come was one of awful crisis, became partially insolvent; the shepherd was dishonoured, the flocks were ruined; and had that Persian armament which about ten years later laid siege to Constantinople then stood at her gates, the Cross would have been trampled on by ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent [this is a mistake, see ante, i. 95, n. 3]; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage; ... however, she always retained her affection for them. While they [Mr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough Square, her son, ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... testimony to his integrity, and stated the unavoidable misfortunes that had crushed him down;—or the delicate and prettily dressed lady, who had been bred in affluence, but was suddenly thrown upon the perilous charities of the world by the death of an indulgent, but secretly insolvent father, or the commercial catastrophe and simultaneous suicide of the best of husbands;—or the gifted, but unsuccessful author, appealing to my fraternal sympathies, generously rejoicing in some small prosperities which he was kind enough to term my own triumphs in the field ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that when your father started in life he had not much capital, and began business in a small way. But he did very well until there came a time of commercial depression, and a man who owed him a considerable sum of money died insolvent. Then your father found that he was so much embarrassed that he thought the wisest and most honourable course would be to divide what he had amongst his creditors at once. He gave up everything to them, and was hesitating what he should do for a living. Just at that ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... author of the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, 1785, p. 25, says:—'Mrs. Porter's husband died insolvent, but her settlement was secured. She brought her second husband about seven or eight hundred pounds, a great part of which was expended in fitting up a house for a boarding-school.' That she had some money can be almost ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Marion. She had talent, and she had, besides—as the manager beside her had divined—one live play in her. But he doubted whether she had more than one. She looked insolvent, a dweller in the past, crippled by an acute memory. No doubt it was this self-regarding memory which had resulted in the play. It was obviously a personal experience, and as she was rich enough to share the risk of producing ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... their employers, and perfect readiness to do anything not likely to be found out, for a pot of beer. They get low wages, live low, and work accordingly. It was round Aylesbury, that for many years, the influence of the insolvent Duke ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... due time returned from their mission with the doleful intelligence that the late Captain St. Leger had died insolvent, so far as his foreign wealth was concerned. They swore in open court, for Mr. Temple summoned them to appear and obliged them to take oath, that they received not sufficient from the assets to defray the ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... nature of Australian conditions made Rory all the more reluctant to tear himself away from his present asylum—though its shelter seemed to resemble the shadow of a great deficit in an insolvent land. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... to all the policies which they have in force. This means that they must retain or keep invested a sum equal to about two-thirds of all the premiums paid on all existing policies. The moment they part with any portion of this reserve for any purpose whatsoever, they are declared insolvent and wound up by a receiver. In other words, the corporation is d——d if it does and the policy holder is d——d if it doesn't. That the latter gets the sulphur bath goes without saying. The four largest old system companies doing business in New York had, on Jan. 1, 1893, ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the house, Mr. Paul was the most liked and most respected. He paid well and punctually, while the others hung back for a long time, if indeed they did not vanish insolvent. Besides which he acted as a sort of walking advertisement for the establishment, inasmuch as his father was a senator. And when a stranger would inquire: "Who on earth is that little chap who ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... use paper; all other Indians write on the leaves of trees. They have a vast number of slaves, and, the debtor who is insolvent is everywhere adjudged to be the property of his creditor. The numbers of these people and nations exceeds belief. Their armies consist of a million ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... there came a letter telling me that a man of whose name I had never heard had been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a legacy of three thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant relative of my own who had died peacefully and utterly insolvent eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir and representative, and I put the revolver back into ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... Robert Wilson[75] came—the former at five, as usual—the latter at three, as appointed. R[obert] W[ilson] frankly said that R.P.G.'s case was quite desperate, that he was insolvent, and that any attempt to save him at present would be just so much cash thrown away. God knows, at this moment I have none to throw away uselessly. For poor Gillies there was a melancholy mixture of pathos and affectation in his statement, which really affected me; while ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... fleeced, stripped; bereft, bereaved; reduced; homeless. in want &c. n.; needy, necessitous, distressed, pinched, straitened; put to one's shifts, put to one's last shifts; unable to keep the wolf from the door, unable to make both ends meet; embarrassed, under hatches; involved &c. (in debt) 806; insolvent &c. (not paying) 808. Adv. in forma pauperis[Lat]. Phr. zonam perdidit[Lat]; "a penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree" [Lady Nairne]; a pobreza no hay verguenza[Sp]; "he that is down can fall no lower" [Butler]; poca roba poco ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of Bankruptcy. The people of Massachusetts, a commercial and manufacturing State from the beginning, have always desired a Bankrupt law. They were large dealers with other States and with other countries. Insolvent debtors in Massachusetts could not get discharge from their debts contracted in such dealings. The Massachusetts creditors having debts against insolvents in other States found that their debtors under the laws of those States either got ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... letters! Some that please and some that bore, Some that threaten prison fetters (Metaphorically, fetters Such as bind insolvent ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... clearing-house committee for aid, which was given. Soon it was noted that the Knickerbocker Trust Company was in a precarious condition, and the directors, following the example of the other bank, appealed to the same committee. The investigation of the committee showed the company insolvent and aid was refused. When the facts became known, a run on the bank began and it was compelled to close its doors. The lack of confidence in other financial institutions was ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... sensational. It appeared that Van Horne, the office partner, who managed the finances, had shot himself as the culmination of a series of fraudulent hypothecations of securities and misrepresentations to which it was claimed that Williams was not a party. The firm had been hopelessly insolvent for months, and had been forced to the wall at last by a futile effort on the part of Van Horne to redeem the situation by a final speculation on a large scale. It had failed owing to the continuation of the state of dry rot in the stock market, and ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... mother, myself. [Examines farther] Aha! Here something's slipped up! Listen here, Lazar! "Year so-and-so, twelfth day of September, according to the decision of the Commerce Court, the merchant Fedot Seliverstov Pleshkov, of the first guild, was declared an insolvent debtor, in consequence of which—" What's the use of explaining? Everybody knows the consequences. There you are, Fedot Seliverstov! What a grandee he was, and he's gone to smash! But say, Lazar, doesn't he owe ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky |
