"Insolvent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sunday itself, he anticipated, without, however, any very firm grounds for such an assumption, would be a day of brief but grateful respite; a day on which he might venture to claim much the same immunity as was enjoyed in former days by the insolvent; a day, in short, which would glide slowly by with the rather drowsy solemnity peculiar to the British sabbath as observed by ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... and the cancelling of all debts due to them by the landlords and the farmers, was in some measure owing to the general bankruptcy which the succession of bad seasons had brought about. Men found themselves hopelessly insolvent, and there was no other way of cancelling their obligations than by getting rid of their creditors. So when the king announced that all the Jews should be transported out of the realm, you may be sure that there were very ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... L300 to L400 by that time, early in November, he 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
... 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 inferred ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... himself invited to take charge of the Electric Light Company at a time when it was insolvent and in disgrace with the people, and he took the Corporation in hand on the specific understanding that he should be allowed to put his soul into it, that he should be allowed his own way for three years—in believing in people, and in inventing ways of getting believed ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... England 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 ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... of Cambay alone 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 Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... ago, when his own life fell to pieces. I had been associated with magazines for some time, and knew how little that was really good found its way into the plainer people's homes. At Mac's suggestion I bought an insolvent monthly, and began to remodel it. 'You've got the home-and-children bug; well, do something for other people's'—was the way Mac put it to me. Later we started the two other magazines, always keeping before us our aim of giving the average home the best ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... partial payments 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 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for a safe refuge from his numerous creditors, being, as were so many of his fellow-countrymen, deeply in debt, in spite of the repartimiento of Indians which had been allotted to him. Unfortunately for Balboa a law had been passed forbidding any vessels bound for the mainland taking insolvent debtors on board, but his ingenuity was equal to this emergency, for he had himself rolled in an empty barrel to the vessel which was to carry Encisco to Darien. The chief of the expedition had no choice ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... in!" said Austria afterwards: but they had not such luck. It was at this point, according to Valori, that the King burst forth into audible ejaculations of a lamentable nature. There is no getting over, then, even to Brandenburg, and in an insolvent condition. Not open insolvency and bankrupt disgrace; no, ruin, and an Austrian jail, is the one outlook. "O MON DIEU, O God, it is too much (C'EN EST TROP)!" with other the like snatches of lamentation; [Valori, i. 104.] which are not inconceivable in a young man, sleepless ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... if he did not die insolvent. At his death, a subscription was got up for the support of his wife and daughter. Churchill was imprisoned for debt, occasioned by his dissoluteness and extravagance,—Cowper characterizing him as "spendthrift alike of money and of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... much Money, he would not for his Right-hand set a Gentleman into the hands of a Bailiff. The Information carrying such an honest Face with it, cannot fail of being received with due Gratitude. The Insolvent is now obliged to look to himself, and instead of stealing to Chelsea or Kensington for a little Air, is forced to confine himself to bad Punch and worse Wine at some blind Hedge Coffee-house or Tavern within the Verge ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... little edified by his talk, and greatly relieved as to Honeyman's fate. The tradesmen of Honeyman's body were appeased; and as for Mr. Moss, when he found that the curate had no effects, and must go before the Insolvent Court, unless Moss chose to take the composition which we were empowered to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and parted with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman's signature. Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive's untimely indignation, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will take you)—Ver. 334. At Rome, insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors till their ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... or to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had, moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as this was a point on which the government was naturally sensitive, some tolerable excuse was furnished for the lesson which ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... easy," returned John in his free manner. "Get the whitewash brush to work. The insolvent court has its friendly doors ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... elsewhere. But, when they arm themselves with these circumstances, they forget two things: first, that the causes of the malady were anterior to emancipation; next, that the cure has come from emancipation itself. Before emancipation, Jamaica was insolvent, her plantations were mortgaged beyond their value, and its planting was threatened in other ways far more than now. Do you know what has since happened? Difficulties which appeared insoluble have been resolved; to-day, the cape is doubled, and ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... debt—a ticket in a 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)
... 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 to Boston. Dissatisfied companies from Barbadoes ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... 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 ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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, ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... a few days before word came that he was dead. It then came out that Mr. Blackwell had allowed him to run up a debt of nearly seven hundred pounds for printing. It also came out that Mr. Townsend was insolvent. He had been in difficulties for years, and he had used the money he had received for my books to prevent his creditors from making him a bankrupt. His journey to Scotland was his last shift, and failing in that, he had taken opiates, it was said, to such an extent, as to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... legislation to bring the estates into closer connection, and to equalize the laws for both. Nor do the provisions of the decemviral code, with which we are acquainted, show that enlightened regard to natural justice which characterized jurisprudence in its subsequent development. It allowed insolvent debtors to be treated with great cruelty; they could be imprisoned for sixty days, loaded with chains, and then might be sold into foreign slavery. It sanctioned a barbarous retaliation—an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Raphael, the hero, was saved from committing suicide, after ruining himself, by an accident which forms the thread of the story. Possibly, during the bankruptcy proceedings, there may have been a fit of despair which urged the insolvent printer to end his own troubles in the Seine. If so, it was of short duration. A fortnight after he had quitted the Rue des Marais, the letter he wrote to General de Pommereul showed him ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... in 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 expenses of ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... they now do for fifty years, and in the mean time suffer the cost of the spirits to accumulate by simple interest only, the whole town, at the end of the term, could not pay their rum bills. It can be no consolation that all other towns would be alike insolvent. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Counsellor. I am in the greatest embarrassment myself; I have to redeem large notes in the course of a few days, and unless I can do so I am lost, my whole family is ruined, and my reputation gone; then I must declare myself insolvent, and suffer people to call me an impostor and villain, who incurs debts without knowing wherewith to pay them. Sir, I shall never suffer this, and therefore I must have my money, and I will not leave this room until you have paid my ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... hospital, and, at the time of his resignation, the treasury is empty, save 450,000 francs, half of which he puts in his pocket. What an administration!—In the presence of this debtor, evidently becoming insolvent, all people, far and near, interested in his business, consult together with alarm, and debtors are innumerable, consisting of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, employees, lenders of every kind and degree, and, in the front rank, the capitalists, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... these, however, would have been nothing when compared with Sir Walter's means, had all his bills on Constable been duly honoured, and had not the printing firm of Ballantyne and Co. been so deeply involved with Constable's house that it necessarily became insolvent when he stopped. Taken altogether, I believe that Sir Walter earned during his own lifetime at least 140,000l. by his literary work alone, probably more; while even on his land and building combined he did not apparently spend more than half that sum. Then he had a certain income, about 1000l. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... transactions will be closely scrutinized, and the utmost good faith must plainly appear, but where no fraudulent intention is shown they will be upheld if based upon an adequate consideration. If a conveyance is made by the husband to the wife when the husband is largely indebted and insolvent, such conveyance is presumptively fraudulent, but a conveyance to a wife in payment of a valid claim, even though made at a time when the husband is largely indebted to others, will not be considered fraudulent the wife ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... La Salle was insolvent. Tonty had long served without pay. Douay says that he made the stay of the party at the fort very agreeable, and speaks of him, with some apparent compunction, as "ce brave Gentilhomme, toujours inseparablement attache aux interets ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... a hopeless insolvent," he said. "I am security, sole security, for those men over at Kilkeel, whom I promised and guaranteed to safeguard. That I am bound to do ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... died in childhood. All the rest attained mature ages, and of these William was the eldest. This might give him some advantage in his father's regard; but in a question of pecuniary provision precedency amongst the children of an insolvent is nearly nominal. For the present John Shakspeare could do little for his son; and, under these circumstances, perhaps the father of Anne Hathaway would come forward to assist the new-married couple. This condition of dependency would furnish matter ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... 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
... with temporary truce, His vulgar insult, and her keen abuse; And as their spirits wasted in the strife, Both took the Griffin's ready aid of life; But she with greater prudence—Harry tried More powerful aid, and in the trial died; Yet drew down vengeance: in no distant time, Th' insolvent Griffin struck his wings sublime; - Forth from her palace walk'd th' ejected queen, And show'd to frowning fate a look serene; Gay spite of time, though poor, yet well attired, Kind without love, and vain if ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... 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 ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... The insolvent debtor, who in the majority of cases had studied his pleasures more than his constitution, was perhaps an even less desirable recruit than his cousin the emancipated convict. In his letters to the Navy Board, Capt. Aston, R.N., relates how, immediately after the passing of the later Act ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... his estate, and as soon as practicable was going through the courts as an insolvent. The personal estate allowed him from the debris of his wealth he intended to settle on his aunts, and he hoped it might be sufficient to support them. Himself, he had the same prospects as the boundary-riders on ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... considerable business difficulties. The causes of said difficulties were bad trade, unfair competition, and price-cutting at home and abroad, especially in Germany, and the modern spirit of unrest among the working-classes making it impossible for an employer to be master on his own works. I was not insolvent, but I needed capital, the life-blood of industry. In justice to myself I ought to explain that my visit to South Africa was very carefully planned and thought out. I had a good reason to believe that a lot of business in door-furniture could be done there, and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher.... Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... they are the very first to object to measures which would render it possible for 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... er better, 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, leavin' chance to speculate,"— ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... seaboard was insulted, their capital destroyed. Their annual exports were reduced from L22,000,000 to L1,500,000. Three thousand of their vessels were captured. Two-thirds of their commercial class became insolvent A vast war-tax was incurred, and the very existence of the Union imperilled by the menaced secession of the New England States. The "right of search" and the rights of neutrals—the ostensible but not the real causes of the war—were not even mentioned in the treaty of peace. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... wife; all his belongings and his inherited property should belong to his creditors, and he should administer his affairs in their interests under supervision; he should still carry on his business, signing always 'So-and-so, insolvent,' until the whole debt is paid off. If bankrupt, he should be condemned, as formerly, to the pillory on the Place de la Bourse, and exposed for two hours, wearing a green cap. His property and that of his wife, and all his rights of every kind should be handed over to his creditors, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... their outlook for the country. However, Slovakia's fiscal position remains weak; inflation and unemployment remain high; and the government is only now addressing the structural problems inherited from the MECIAR period, such as large inefficient enterprises, an insolvent banking sector and high inter-company debts, and declining tax and social support payments. Furthermore, the government faces considerable public discontent over the government's austerity package, persistent high unemployment - which ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... 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 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... leg. In order to make it appear for a few months longer, I have recently been obliged to go to a money-lender, who has left me, instead of the classical stuffed crocodile, a trained horse which he had just taken from an insolvent circus. I mounted the noble animal to go to the Bois, but at the Place de la Concorde he began to waltz around it, and I was obliged to get rid of this dancing quadruped at a considerable loss. So your contribution to La Guepe would have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... traders on the Coast; payment 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 ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... possibility of such a thing. Was not here a debt of the State of Arkansas of half a million of dollars? Had not the general government assumed that debt? Had they not employed trust-money? If Arkansas should declare herself insolvent to-morrow, Congress must pay that debt; they had ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... purpose of these organisations is to create credit as a means of introducing capital into the agricultural industry. They perform the apparent miracle of giving solvency to a community composed almost entirely of insolvent individuals. The constitution of these bodies, which can, of course, be described only in broad outline here, is somewhat startling. They have no subscribed capital, but every member is liable for the entire debts of the association. Consequently ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... 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 had ever ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... could not tell. Again, when this debt was paid, would he be able to fulfil his engagements? Bankruptcy stared him in the face. A Sauvallier bankrupt? An officer of the Legion of Honour, a judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, insolvent? Never! ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... insolvent Israelite who [18th January, 1810] threw himself from the top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of Monument-yard informed the writer that he happened to be standing at his door talking to a neighbour, and looking up at the top of the pillar, exclaimed, "Why, here's the ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... flood of demands for debts due here and there came in upon him, and not having where with to meet them, he was thrown into jail, and obtained his freedom only by availing himself of the law made and provided for the benefit of Insolvent Debtors. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... 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
... nothing to procrastinate the crash; and, when it came, when prying eyes began to be applied to every joint of his behaviour, two questions could not fail to be addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent. Where is Mr Joseph Finsbury? and how about your visit to the bank? Questions, how easy to put!—ye gods, how impossible to answer! The man to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and—eh! what was this?—possibly to the gallows. Morris was trying ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... 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 ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and found himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing. Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit, and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the insolvent laws, to keep ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... 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
... monetary need of the 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 ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... man has as much right to fail in business as he has to get sick and die. In most cases it is more honourable to fail than to go on. Every insolvent is not necessarily a scoundrel. The greatest crime is to fail rich. John Bonner & Co., as brokers, had loaned money on deposited collaterals, and then borrowed still larger sums on the same collaterals. Their ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... 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 ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... 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 wholesale proofs ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... prisons, and had bestowed on them full discretionary powers to adjust all differences between prisoners and their creditors, to compound debts, and to give liberty to such debtors as they found honest and insolvent. From the uncertain and undefined nature of the English constitution, doubts sprang up in many, that this commission was contrary to law; and it was represented in that light to James. He forbore, therefore, renewing the commission, till the fifteenth of his reign; when complaints rose ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... bear a still further sorrow to-day," said Mr. Ness. "On the part of Mr. Johnson and myself I have a very painful duty to perform to you as well as to her. Mr. Wilkins has died insolvent. I grieve to say there is no hope of your ever receiving ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of the bonds was highly advantageous to the State, and in accordance with the injunctions of the charter, reflecting the highest credit on the Commissioners, and bringing timely aid to an embarrassed community.' In little more than two years, however, the Mississippi Bank became totally insolvent, having lost the entire five millions invested in it by the State. Immediately on this having transpired, the Governor of the State sent a message to the Legislature recommending them to repudiate (this was the first time the word was used) their obligations, being founded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... drab-suited companion; but, on the whole, thinks that it would be an excellent world if the common people would adopt this harmless form of religion, which tolerates other opinions and does not give any leverage to kings, insolvent aristocrats, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... insolvent. The landlord locked up the hall with all the belongings of the troupe nor would he release the goods until the rent was paid in full. Harrison was appealed to. He sneered at the impecunious minstrels and taunted them by saying: "Now go get your stuff out. If you all hadn't been so peart ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... 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 ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... 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 ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... that year over-speculation produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826 Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'[596] In 1828 all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.[597] ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... into partnership by Matthew Boulton in 1762, devoting himself principally to the foreign agencies. Many of the branches of trade in which he was connected proved failures, and he died insolvent in 1782, while Boulton breasted the storm, and secured fortune by means of his steam engines. He did not, however, forget his ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... has the general supervision of the banks of the State, and reports their condition annually to the Legislature, issues circulating notes to banks on their depositing securities, holding their stocks and mortgage securities, and when a bank proves insolvent sells them and redeems ...
— Civil Government for Common Schools • Henry C. Northam
... exhausted the patience which she had fancied inexhaustible? She was not ignorant of the fact that her husband had disposed of his immense fortune in a way that would enable him to say and prove that he was insolvent whenever occasion required; and if he found courage to apply for a legal separation, what could she hope to obtain from the courts? A bare living, almost nothing. In such a case, how could she exist? She would be compelled to spend her last years in ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... once a fine property, has in their hands sunk below zero, and they built New Tipperary on land to which they had no title; so that the money was completely thrown away. Almost every Board of Guardians in the country is insolvent, except in those cases where the Government has kicked out the Poor Law Guardians elected by the Parish, and restored solvency by sending down paid men to run the concern for a couple of years. This has been done in several ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... 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 ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... with color and action, the background of which is the rather motley life of colonial Georgia, or rather of the time during which Georgia was being established as a colony for insolvent debtors through the efforts of General Oglethorpe. The suspicions and uneasiness existing in the midst of the heterogeneous population attracted to the new colony, the constant state of alarm from the threatened incursions by the Spanish from the South and the presence ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... its goings 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 ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fell without warning, and a typewritten notice informed the Poet that the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation required the tiny, thread-bare chambers in Stafford's Inn, where he had lived unobtrusively for seven happy, insolvent years. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... not be sold for slaves. Parents might sell their children; but they did not on that account entirely lose the right of citizens, for, when freed from slavery, they were called ingenui and libertini. The same was the case with insolvent debtors, who were given ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... Commercial bubbles burst, and high-pressure boilers blow up, and mountebanks of all descriptions flourish on public credulity. Everywhere there are wars and rumours of wars. The Peace Society has wound up its affairs in the Insolvent Court of Prophecy. A great tribulation is coming on the earth, and Apollyon in person is to be perpetual dictator all the nations. There is, to be sure, one piece of news your line, but it will be no news to you. There is a meeting of the Pantopragmatic Society, under the presidency of ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... established there by his father. The firm prospered for a time, but an injudicious extension of credit led to its suspension. So it happened that Goodyear in 1834, when he became interested in rubber, was an insolvent debtor, liable, under the laws of the time, to imprisonment. Soon afterward, indeed, he was lodged in the ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... invested with lieutenancies or great senatorial appointments, that they 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 ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... foundation for another great commonwealth with a unique history. New Jersey was given jointly to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley, and in 1673, Lord Berkeley sold his share, illy-defined as the "southwestern part," to a Quaker named Edward Byllinge. Byllinge soon became insolvent, and his property was taken over by William Penn and two others, as trustees, and the seeds sown for one of the most interesting ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... which abuses the English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor is termed be-blah. Meranggau is the condition of a married woman who remains as a pledge for a debt in the house of the creditor of her husband. If any attempt should be made upon her person the proof of it annuls the debt; but should she bring an accusation of that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond 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 little grandchildren, and ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... Vestris went bankrupt at last. Management after management tried its fortunes in the doomed little house, but without success. Desperate adventurers seized upon it as a last resource, or chose it as a place wherein to consummate their ruin. The Olympic was contiguous to the Insolvent Debtors' Court, in Portugal Street, and from the paint-pots of the Olympic scene-room to the whitewash of the commercial tribunal there was but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... which left no room to hope for any abatement, had exhausted another minute or two of the time already so precious. The merchant hurriedly counted out the ten dollars, which Amos deliberately inspected, to see that they belonged to no insolvent bank, and then deposited them in his pocket. Having thus made quite sure of his reward, he dexterously opened the lock, and placed the merchant in possession of his property, in time to save his credit ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... there are several inns or taverns either mentioned incidentally, or figure more or less prominently, such as the new public-house opposite the Fleet, the "Fox Under the Hill," Sarjeants' Inn Coffee House, the public-house, opposite the Insolvent Debtors' Court, the Horn Coffee House in the Doctors' Commons and the "Spaniards," Hampstead Heath. Of these the "Fox Under the Hill," casually referred to by Mr. Roker as the spot where Tom Martin "whopped the ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... 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, inexpensive, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... 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, or because ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... tailors being generally acknowledged, it is almost needless to state, that the faintest indication of seediness will be fatal to your reputation; and as a presentation at the Insolvent Court is equally fashionable with that of St. James, any squeamishness respecting your inability to pay could only be looked upon as a want of moral courage upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the register of a tax-gatherer, the catalogue of an auctioneer. Nay, some catalogues are far more interesting, and more alive with meaning. 'But him followed fifty black ships!'—'But him follow seventy black ships!' Faugh! We could make a more readable poem out of an Insolvent's Balance Sheet. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... warnings that she had better not do so, on taxing man with dishonesty for withholding from her financial control over the revenues of the State, she has only herself to blame if she is told very bluntly that her claim to such control is barred by the fact that she is, as a citizen insolvent. The taxes paid by women would cover only a, very small proportion of the establishment charges of the State which would properly be assigned to them. It falls to man ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... of the Hinkle theory had failed, and then Miss Milray devolved upon the belief that he had run his tailor's bill or his shoemaker's. "They are delightful, those Russians, but they're born insolvent. I don't believe he's drowned himself. How," she broke off to ask, in a burlesque whisper, "is-the-old-tabby?" She laughed, for answer to her own question, and then with another sudden diversion she demanded of a look in Clementina's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... there are many. One man marries a rich heiress: another quacks: another opens a tabernacle, and wheedles himself into old women's wills. But perhaps the best way of all is to go into trade, break, take the benefit of the Insolvent Act, and in short get famously ruined; in which ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... refused to be a party to such deception. She borrowed some figures of speech suggested by the work she was doing in the bank and declared that her loyalty was not insolvent and that she would not make any composition with ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... 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
... nearly wreck a perfectly good theater 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 ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... a family as any in the county of Somerset. He had a Cornish pedigree which carried the Pendennises back to the time of the Druids. He had had a piece of University education, and might have pursued that career with honour, but in his second year at Oxford his father died insolvent, and he was obliged to betake himself to the trade which he always detested. For some time he had a hard struggle with poverty, but his manners were so gentleman-like and soothing that he was called ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... shall think it necessary to hand over any [insolvent] persons to those who have become security for them, assume that right with confidence, because that will most effectually relieve my mind when I shall learn that this matter has been finally disposed of by you[734]. For if I were present you might give me ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... mechanics and other hidalgos were, exempt—had been able to earn and to lay by enough to offer the monarch fifty millions of dollars to purchase themselves out of semi-slavery into manhood, and yet found their offer rejected by an almost insolvent king. Nothing could exceed the idleness and the frivolity of the upper classes, as depicted by contemporary and not unfriendly observers. The nobles were as idle and as ignorant as their inferiors. They were not given to tournays ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Palethorp, the landlord, had a visage harsh and ill-favored, and he insisted on my discharging my debt. At this very early age, without having put in for my share of the gifts of fortune, I found myself in the state of an insolvent debtor. The demand harassed me so mercilessly that I could hold out no longer: the door being open, I took to my heels; and as the way was too plain to be missed, I ran home as fast as they could carry me. The scene of the terrors of Mr. Palethorp's name and visitation, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... delusion than that which afterwards identified the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp in St. Paul's as Duke Humphrey's. But the strange error was accepted, and the aisle in which the said tomb lay was commonly known as "Duke Humphrey's Walk," and it was a favourite resort of insolvent debtors and beggars, who loitered about it dinnerless and in hope of alms. And thus arose the phrase of "Dining with Duke Humphrey," i.e., going without; a phrase, it will be seen, founded on a strange blunder. The real grave is on the south side ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... justice. The gentlemen of the bar being barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those functions as in England) are no more removed from their clients than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors are, from theirs. The jury are quite at home, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances will permit. The witness is so little elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a stranger ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... and once I rode a butcher's horse. A bloke worked me out of one billet, and I worked myself out of the other. I didn't know when I was well off. Then the banks went bust, and my last boss went insolvent, and one of his partners went into Darlinghurst for suicide, and the other went into Gladesville for being mad; and one day the bailiff seized the cart and horse with me in it and a load of timber. So I went home and helped mother and the kids to live on one meal a day for ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... retribution overtaking the perpetrator of 'the most heartless frauds on an unprecedented scale.' I don't understand these things much, but it appears that he had juggled with accounts, cooked balance sheets, had gathered in deposits months after he ought to have known himself to be hopelessly insolvent, and done enough of other things, highly reprehensible in the eyes of the law, to earn for himself seven years' penal servitude. The sentence making its way outside met with a good reception. A small mob composed mainly of people who themselves did not look particularly clever and scrupulous, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... him; yet joining with the accusers against Scipio's brother Lucius, he succeeded in obtaining a sentence against him, which condemned him to the payment of a large sum of money to the state; and being insolvent, and in danger of being thrown into jail, he was, by the interposition of the tribunes of the people, with much ado dismissed. It is also said of Cato, that when he met a certain youth, who had effected ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... embarked in other and less profitable speculations. At any rate, 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 ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the mortgageable value of which she and Ralph had been living for some time. Ralph Wotchett also had expectations. By profession he was an architect, but perhaps because of his expectations, he had always had bad luck. The involutions of the reasons why his clients died, became insolvent, abandoned their projects, or otherwise failed to come up to the scratch were followed by him alone in the full of their maze-like windings. The house they inhabited, indeed, was one of those he had designed for ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... 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 more before it is brought, and he has always ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... 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 ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... early autumn, when the Indians are about to leave for their hunting grounds, much business is done, but little in the way of barter. At that season the Indians procure their outfit for the winter. Being usually insolvent, owing to the leisurely time spent upon the tribal camping grounds, they receive the necessary supplies on credit. The amount of credit, or "advances," given to each Indian seldom exceeds one third of the value of his average ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... yielding a dividend far exceeding the interest on the loan, and which stock had been pledged for the redemption of the loan, was diverted to the building of a railroad, which never did or could yield a single dollar, and the company soon became insolvent. By another clause of this act of 1839, the Planters' Bank, which, by the loan act, was made responsible (together with the State) for the payment of these bonds, was released from the obligation to make ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... settlement of that province had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labour, 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 for. The sight of their miserable ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... not slaves, 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
... he should provide for his family. Men of honor need no such reminder, though they may be bothered by the question: "How much can I afford?" On that point, sufficient to say that it is not more blessed to be insolvent and worried about debts from being overloaded with insurance than for any other reason. Many retired officers supplement their pay by selling insurance. When a young service officer wants insurance counsel, he will find that they are disposed to deal sympathetically ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves - which they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Law of the Twelve Tables, codified in short, rude, and trenchant sentences—a legislation severe and rude like the semi-barbarous people for whom it was made. It punished the sorcerer who by magical words blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him, but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps or chains of fifteen pounds weight; ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... coalition of the Nucingens. If a speculator blows his brains out, if a stockbroker bolts, if a lawyer makes off with the fortune of a hundred families—which is far worse than killing a man—if a banker is insolvent, all these catastrophes are forgotten in Paris in few months, and buried under the oceanic surges ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... of; caravanseras of; slaves at, 10. Houses; government, 11. Revenue of, 12. Moors pay no duty at, but negroes do, 14. Subject to Housa, 14. Army of; subsidies; administration of justice at; punishments, 15. Good police of, 16. Insolvent debtors at; slaves entitled to freedom at; property, succession to and distribution of; rational treatment of slaves at; wills not written, 18. Laws of inheritance; marriage; rape; adultery, 19. Trade and articles sold at, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... teacher; one of the ugliest countenances he had that need be exhibited—enough, as we say, to spean weans. The man was always extremely precise in the quality of everything about him; his dress, accommodations, and everything else. He became insolvent, poor man, and, for some reason or other, I attended the meeting of those concerned in his affairs. Instead of ordinary accommodations for writing, each of the persons present was equipped with a large sheet of drawing-paper and a swan's quill. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... "Most men are insolvent to the other sex. Woman's noble tradition is to give more than she gets, and let us off the reckoning, quite well knowing it beyond our feeble powers ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... distributions of grain made to the Roman people, rendered the cultivation of grain in Italy still more unprofitable: it then became absolutely impossible for the little proprietors to maintain themselves in the neighbourhood of Rome; they became insolvent, and their patrimonies were sold to the rich. Gradually the abandonment of agriculture extended from one district to another. The true country of the Romans—central Italy—had scarcely achieved the conquest of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... written to New 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 ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... maintained by fifty in a cave," in the days of Ahab and Jezebel, 1 Kings 18:4; which circumstance rendered it highly fit that the prophet Elisha should provide her a remedy, and enable her to redeem herself and her sons from the fear of that slavery which insolvent debtors were liable to by the law of Moses, Leviticus 25:39; Matthew 18:25; which he did accordingly, with God's help, at ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... which had been for some time in contemplation, of settling the south-eastern frontier of Carolina, between the rivers Savannah and Alatamaha,[1] suggested to Oglethorpe that it could be effected by procuring the liberation of insolvent debtors, and uniting with them such other persons in reduced circumstances as might be collected elsewhere, and inducing them to emigrate ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... very poor persons, individually—in the commercial sense of the term—insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has been somewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called 'the capitalization of their honesty and industry.' The way in which this is done is remarkably ingenious. The credit society is organized in the usual ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... every one, Guly, I would give poor Blanche's history, or what I know of it; but to you I am certain I can do so safely. To begin then at the beginning: She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest bankers in this city, who died several yeas ago insolvent, and left his wife and child destitute. Of course, their former friends cut them, all except a very few; and they took a suite of rooms in the Third Municipality, and removed thither with their ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... 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
... who, having nothing to lose, surrendered himself to his creditors, was a director of more than twenty lines. A third was Provisional Committeeman to fifteen. A fourth, who commenced life as a printer, who became insolvent in 1832 and a bankrupt in 1837, who had negotiated partnerships, who had arranged embarrassed affairs, who had collected debts, and turned his attention to anything, did not disdain, also, to be a Railway promoter, a Railway director, or to spell his name ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... 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 wife and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... a good deal better than hunting up the poor widows of insolvent merchants," said Mr. Jones to himself, as he walked the length of his store once or twice, rubbing his hands every now and then with irrepressible glee. "If I'd been led off by Smith on that fool's errand, just see what I would have lost. Operations ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... 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 Moslem friend with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... poetical partners should bankrupts be made; If from dealings too large, we plunge deeply in debt, And Whereas issue out in the Muses Gazette; We'll on you our assigns for Certificates call; Though insolvent, we're honest, ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... buttermilk is better than their neighbours' bordeaux. I repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, "Drunk and Disorderly," so should any commission on pensions accept as valid grounds for a pension, "Insolvent and ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... it. I know of no stranger power than that by which men can ignore unwelcome questions; and I know of nothing more tragical than the fact that they choose to exercise the power. What would you think of a man who never took stock because he knew that he was insolvent, and yet did not want to know it? And what do you think of yourselves if, knowing that the thought of passing into that solemn eternity is anything but a cheering one, and that you have to pass thither, you never turn your head to look at ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... text—for any one will do." 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 ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... one of 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 ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... been 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 Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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
... a four years' redemptioner to pay transportation expanses. Such servants were continually running away, which may have aided in abolishing the system. Paupers and criminals were fewest in New England. All the colonies imprisoned insolvent criminals, though dirt and damp made each prison a hell. All felonies were awarded capital punishment, and many minor crimes incurred barbarous penalties. Whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were in frequent use. So late as 1760 women ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews |
