"Scarcity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ned, "and we always managed to pull through, somehow or other. We will again, as sure as anything, even if I can't tell you just how it's going to happen. Besides a scarcity of food, we have to face a water famine, you ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... heretofore brought to New York from Richmond and Liverpool. Lead, in like manner, was procured under additional disadvantages. These attempts of the enemy to frustrate the design, were vain and impotent. All the obstacles were surmounted. Scarcity of the necessary woods and metals were overcome by strenuous exertions; and all the blockading squadron could achieve, was not a disappointment in the undertaking, but merely an ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... without notes or explanation. He makes no mention of the translator, but probably borrowed the article from Witsen, without acknowledgment. The present edition is taken from Astleys collection, and is enriched by several notes and elucidations, by Mr John Reinhold Forster; who, while he regrets the scarcity of Witsens valuable work in Dutch, forgets to inform us of the existence of this tract in Thevenot, or in the collection of Astley. This journey throws some light on the interior part of Tartary, or Central Asia; and is therefore an important addition to our scanty ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... Italy there are two other scenic details that strike the American as being most curious—one is the amazing prevalence of family washing, and the other is the amazing scarcity of birdlife. To himself the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Department at the post was in a very bad condition, destitute of nearly everything that was necessary for the comfort of the troops. There was great scarcity of ordnance stores, but, happily, an ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... conjugal union of a male with one female only. We have seen that monogamy was coequal with civilization, and that most probably the majority of the males had but one wife, even among polygamic nations. Universal polygamy is practically impossible, the scarcity of females and the poverty of the males forbidding it. The excess of females is not so great in any country as to allow to each male more than one wife, except the male portion is depleted by long and disastrous wars. Monogamy has done more for the elevation of the female ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Sutlej, under Sir Hugh Gough, was advancing on them. After a trying march of 150 miles, with little rest, and a scarcity of water, on the afternoon of the 18th of December the information was received by the British army that the Sikhs were advancing on Moodkee, which they had just reached. The troops immediately got under arms, the horse artillery ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... curtains drawn up to let in the light of God's blessed sun, and an ever-open door with a great chair in full view, holding out its time-worn arms, as if to invite and welcome in the weary passer-by. The birds are always remembered here in their times of scarcity, and so in token of their gratitude, they gather in the trees and carol out sweet and merry songs by ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... course, at that moment he was out of reach, being in the army that was blockading us. Not that we should ever have found out that we were blockaded, if we could have got any letters from any one, except for the scarcity of firewood. My mother wanted much to get to our own Queen, but the approaches to the Louvre were watched lest she should communicate with the Regent; and we were cut off from her till M. Darpent gave his word for us, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... last harvest I am persuaded they will export much more. At the beginning of the century some of these Colonies imported corn from the Mother Country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, [Footnote: 19] had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... With the growing scarcity of foodstuffs that has become a world-wide feature of the last few years, the wheatgrower is one of the most important necessities in civilisation. He has prospered in the past, but the future holds still greater and richer prospects. ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... Vera Cruz, imprisoning the greater part of the population in a church, the exploration of California, and the operations against the French and English settlers upon the Mexican Gulf coast. The last years of the century were disturbed by serious rioting and tumult in the capital, due to scarcity of food and the inundation ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the King was insensible to the scarcity which prevailed, for in the first place he had seen nothing of it, and, in the second, he had been told that all the reports which had reached him were falsehoods, and that they were in no respect true. Old Maintenon invented this plan ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... and pupil? Though may-be it cannot be taught, anyhow. At any rate, we need to clearly understand the distinction between oratory and elocution. Under the latter art, including some of high order, there is indeed no scarcity in the United States, preachers, lawyers, actors, lecturers, &c. With all, there seem to be few ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the English. A heavy snow had fallen and the weather was intensely cold; but on December 19, the English reached the fort and, by reason of their scarcity of provisions, resolved to attack at once. The New Englanders were unacquainted with the situation of the Indians, and, but for an Indian who betrayed his countrymen, there is little probability that the English would have effected anything against the fort. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... the Bank of England, Mr. Charles Montague,—made in 1700 Baron and by George I., Earl of Halifax, then (in 1695) Chancellor of the Exchequer,—restored the silver currency to a just standard. The process of recoinage caused for a time scarcity of coin and stoppage of trade. The paper of the Bank of England fell to 20 per cent. discount. Montague then collected and paid public debts from taxes imposed for the purpose and invented (in 1696), to relieve the want ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... relation between environment and organism. Let us take the case of a civil-servant whose environment is a district in India. It is a region subject to occasional and prolonged droughts resulting in periodical famines. When such a period of scarcity arises, he proceeds immediately to adjust himself to this external change. Having the power of locomotion, he may remove himself to a more fertile district, or, possessing the means of purchase, he may add to his old environment by importation the "external relations" necessary to continued ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... There were hotels, rooming-houses, boarding-houses, stores, dwellings, saloons—and others which for many reasons need not be mentioned. But they were pulsating with life, electric, eager, expectant. Taking advantage of the scarcity of buildings, an enterprising citizen had erected tents in rows on the street line, for whose shelter he charged enormously—and did a ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... by birth, and highly honored under the preceding reign, had persisted in residing near the palace at Waipio, in spite of the insults to which the nearness of the court exposed them. One day when they were hungry, after a long scarcity of food, they said to one of their attendants: "Go to the palace of Hakau. Tell his Majesty that the two old chiefs are hungry, and demand of him, in our name, food, fish, and awa."[14] The attendant went at once to the king to fulfill his mission. Hakau ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... river Guayra, where their only shelter was the foliage of the trees. The beds, the lint for binding up wounds, the surgical instruments, the medicines and all the objects of immediate necessity were buried beneath the ruins, and for the first few days there was a scarcity of everything, even of food. Water was also very scarce inside the town, as the shock had broken up the conduits of the fountains and the upheaval had blocked the springs that fed them. In order to get water it was necessary ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... occupation of Khartoum, the war correspondents had no longer any pretext for remaining in the country. There were no questions raised by the military to excuse their ruling. No more was heard about the difficulties of transport, the scarcity of provisions, and everything being required for the soldiers. Had not the keen Greek sutlers, as usual, followed the army in shoals, managing somehow to convey themselves and their goods to the front? We had not been two days encamped at Omdurman before some of ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... There was no scarcity of eatables, which were discussed amid a running fire of conversation upon every kind of topic; and then came the "bowl," a composition of various strong and spicy ingredients, of which Carl had the secret, and which finally was lighted, and ladled into the glasses whilst the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... was covered for three months with ice. In 1179, In the most moderate zones, the earth was covered with several feet of snow. In 1209, in France the depth of snow and the bitter cold caused such a scarcity of fodder that most of the cattle perished in that country. In 1249, the Baltic Sea between Russia, Norway and Sweden remained frozen for many months, and communication was kept up by sleighs. In 1339, there was such a terrific winter in England, that vast numbers of ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... delicate animals have lived long enough in captivity to permit study of the same individual through a course of years, and the scarcity of observations made upon them in a wild state is remarkable. That irregularity in the process would not be without analogy, is shown by the case of the Indian sambur deer, of which there is evidence from such authority as that king of sportsmen, Sir Samuel Baker, and others, that the shedding ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... fencing to a small lake, where wild ducks squatted up, and there ran into him, after a fair although not a very fast day's sport: a more honest hunting, yet courageous dashing pack we never rode to. The scarcity of villages, the general sparseness of the population, the few roads, and those almost all turf-bordered, and on a level with the fields, the great size of the enclosures, the prevalence of light arable land, the nuisance of flocks of sheep, and yet a good scenting country, are the special ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... the school-master made known his vocation, and his desire to find employment. To obtain a qualified school-master in those days, and in such a place, was no easy business. This scarcity of supply precluded close investigation of fitness. In a word, the Irishman was authorized to enter upon the office of school-master of the settlement. We have been thus particular in this description, because it was the way in which ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... for the boys even to venture an estimate on the value of the immense mine of turquoise, although they realized that the increasing scarcity of the jewel made the beautiful and unique specimens everywhere about them worth a great deal of money. Nor had they any idea of the value of the mother-of-pearl bowls, nor of the hundreds of beautiful and unique ceremonial and funeral urns and vases. Least of all, could they put even an approximate ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... is derived, is used in the New Testament in the sense of washing [Mark 7:4] and sprinkling. [I Cor. 10:2] The baptism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost [Acts 2:41] and of the Philippian jailor [Acts 16:33] could hardly have been by immersion, on account of the scarcity of water available for such a purpose. When Jesus was baptized, He "came up out of the water"; [Matt. 3:16] but it is quite probable that He stood in the stream while John poured water ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... hundred had died, including fifty of great distinction, and five "maitres de camp."[1302] And, with all this expenditure of life, and with the heavy drafts upon the public treasure, little or nothing had been accomplished. Meanwhile, in other parts of France there existed a scarcity of food amounting almost to a famine; nor had the solemn processions to the shrines of the saints—processions for the most part rendered contemptible by the irreverent conduct both of the clergymen and the laity that took part in them[1303]—averted ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... In times of scarcity and distress, when the question has arisen of how to feed the largest number of persons upon the least quantity of food, the aliment chosen has always been soup. There are two reasons for this: first, by the addition of water to the ingredients used we ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... hour tells them tales of adventure and chivalry, thus quieting the children's room and directing the energy of the boys into more peaceful channels. This story in the evening takes the place of the story hour for older children during the daytime, which on account of the scarcity of boys and girls of ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... it can serve the surgeon in physical examinations of the body after the manner of X-rays. It has not, however, been much employed in this direction owing to its scarcity and prohibitive price. It has given excellent results in the treatment of certain skin diseases, in cancer, etc. However it can have very baneful effects on animal organisms. It has produced paralysis and death in dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, guinea-pigs and other animals, and undoubtedly it might ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... to spend his Christmas with Mr. B——, when, the weather being very cold, and but bad fires, occasioned by a scarcity of wood in the house, Foote, on the third day after he went there, ordered his chaise, and was preparing to depart. Mr. B—— pressed him to stay. "No, no," says Foote; "was I to stay any longer, you would not let me have a leg to stand on; for there is ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Ridgely, and the other at Yellow Medicine. It is the custom to keep a certain quantity of provisions at these Agencies to feed them during these visits, and also to sometimes send them supplies during times of great want and scarcity of game in winter. Unfortunately, they came last year much earlier than common, and before they had received their usual notification from the Agent, that the annuities were awaiting them. In addition, as if all the accidents were destined to be adverse, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... triumphs by the senate on account of their success in war. Her husband was surnamed Dives on account of his enormous wealth. He is said to have possessed a fortune equal to a million and a half pounds sterling; and to have given an entertainment to the whole Roman people in a time of scarcity, besides distributing to each family a quantity of corn sufficient to last three months. Along with Julius Caesar and Pompey, he formed the famous first Triumvirate. While the richest, he seems, notwithstanding ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... oxyurus Rafinesque. DM 2. The longnose gar is abundant in most large rivers of Kansas. The scarcity in the Wakarusa is probably attributable to the small size ...
— Fishes of the Wakarusa River in Kansas • James E. Deacon
... of repression. On the other hand, when it appears that the congestion of the slum produces vice and disease, we are not urged by the spokesmen of this ethical creed, to blame the chain of institutional causes typified by scarcity of land, high prices of building materials, the incapacity of a raw immigrant population to pay for better habitations, or to appreciate the need for light and air. Rather, we are urged to fix responsibility upon the individual owner who receives rent from slum tenements. Perhaps we can not imprison ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... itself from inclement weather; if it could dam up a river like the beaver, to store water for the annual drought; if it could only, like the ordinary squirrel or field mouse, make a store for a season of scarcity, how marvellous we should think this creature, simply because it is so huge! It actually does nothing remarkable, unless specially instructed; but it is this inertia that renders it so valuable to man. If the elephant were to be continually exerting its natural intelligence, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... be not sad, Thou art true and honest; ingenuously I speak, No blame belongs to thee.—[To Servant.] Ventidius lately Buried his father; by whose death he's stepp'd Into a great estate. When he was poor, Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends, I clear'd him with five talents; greet him from me, Bid him suppose some good necessity Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd With those ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... system may be attributed to the scarcity of labour brought about especially by the Black Death. When men could not be had in sufficient number, the necessary consequences was the expansion of pasture and the contraction of tillage; and this dual process was assisted by the stampede of ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... March? No, father, this is the situation—three good crops in succession will wipe off our indebtedness and leave us facing only low prices and a scarcity of niggers; on the other ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... be inhabited without fear. That it was most inconsistent that greater care should be taken in cultivating Sicily than Italy. But it was a matter by no means easy for the people, the free labourers having been cut off by war, and there being a scarcity of slaves, their cattle having been carried off as booty, and the farmhouses pulled down or burnt. A large number, however, compelled by the authority of the consuls, returned into the country. The mention of this affair had been occasioned by ambassadors ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... after going seven miles to the lower point of an island on the north side, about one mile in length. He found the banks on the north side high, with coal occasionally, and the country fine on all sides; but the want of wood, and the scarcity of game up the river, induced us to decide on fixing ourselves lower down during the winter. In the evening our men danced among themselves, to the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... ships, and brought vs fresh meat, as Stags, Deere, fishes, with diuers other things, but held them at such an excessiue price, that rather then they would sell them any thing cheape, many times they would carie them backe againe, because that yere the Winter was very long, and they had some scarcity and neede ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... many degrees below zero. And finally, the most fear-inspiring of all, there was the possibility of wolves, for the dreaded timber wolf had been both heard and seen in close proximity to the camp of late, an unusual scarcity of small game having made him daring in his search ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... November 12, following. The people formerly imagined, that when this happened there would soon follow some stupendous calamity of famine, war, or some other national disaster, or change. It is said that it grew dry before the civil war, and again before the beheading of Charles I.; against the great scarcity of corn in 1670; and in 1679, when the miscalled Popish plot was discovered; but we do not hear that St. Hellen's Well withheld its supplies previous to, or upon, the breaking out of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... certain parks or inclosures, in which there are two unicorns to be seen, called by the Greeks Monocerotae, which are shewn to the people as miracles of nature, and not without good reason, on account of their scarcity and strange appearance. One of these, though much higher than the other, is not unlike a colt of thirty months old, and has a horn in its forehead, growing straight forwards and the length of three cubits. The other is much younger, resembling a colt of one year old, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... utmost enthusiasm were hieroglyphical to them. Such of his literary exercises as they could understand consisted, he says, of "some trifles which I had in memory composed at under twenty or thereabout; and other things which I had shifted, in scarcity of books and conveniences, to patch up among them." The former class of compositions may no doubt be partly identified with his college declamations and Latin verses. What the "things patched up among them" may have been ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... government are the curbing of the budget deficit and further privatization of public enterprises. Growth slowed in 1998-2000, due to sluggish tourist and tuna sectors. Tight controls on exchange rates and the scarcity of foreign exchange have hindered short-term economic prospects. The black market value of the Seychelles ruppee is half the official exchange rate; without a devaluation of the currency the tourist sector should remain sluggish ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nearly five hundred men under his command, but he at once submitted to the decision of his king and accepted Pedrarias as his superior. The fifteen hundred new men landed in that pestilential climate, in the unhealthy season, paid bitterly for their imprudence. A violent disease attacked them; scarcity of provisions made it worse; and within a month more than six hundred of them had died, while others hastened ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the Vedas and the institutes, and virtue, and sacrifices, and religious observances, fall into disuse. And (then) reign iti[41], and disease, and lassitude, and anger and other deformities, and natural calamities, and anguish, and fear of scarcity. And as the yugas wane, virtue dwindles. And as virtue dwindles away, creatures degenerate. And as creatures degenerate, their natures undergo deterioration. And the religious acts performed at the waning of the yugas, produce contrary effects. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... change in me, but she could not discover the cause, as she did not know where I had spent most of my time, thinking, that I as formerly, went out in the woods botanizing, though she must have wondered at the scarcity of my collections. ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... been unusually wet and cold, both at home and abroad, and the harvest had, in consequence, been so deficient as to cause a very general apprehension of scarcity, while rumors were spread that the high prices which the shortness of the crops could not fail to produce were artificially raised by the selfish covetousness of some of the principal corn-dealers, who were ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Reformation. I suggest that the intellectual capacity of the nation was directed towards literature, politics and religious controversy, rather than to art and religion. I cannot think there was any scarcity of the artistic germ in the English nation which had already expressed itself in the great Abbeys and Churches, such as Glastonbury, Tintern, Fountains, and York. And you must remember that the minor art of embroidery, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... of getting about, the king had to contend with the scarcity of money in the Middle Ages. This prevented him from securing the services of a great corps of paid officials, such as every government finds necessary to-day. Moreover, it made it impossible for him to support ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... so that the wisest child was not expected to know his own father, and family ties were reckoned through the mother alone? Again (setting aside the question of what was 'primitive' and 'original'), did the needs and barbarous habits of early men lead to a scarcity of women, and hence to polyandry (that is, the marriage of one woman to several men), with the consequent uncertainty about male parentage? Once more, admitting that these loose and strange relations of the sexes do prevail, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out,—an obstinate disease of the eyes,—contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... so equally distributed that they may be easily attainable when needed. Every change in their value is a virtual change in the value of the vast variety of obligations which are measured and liquidated by them; and every apprehension of their scarcity or disappearance, by whatever cause excited, is an apprehension of embarrassment on the part of all those who have debts to pay or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Marion organized four new companies of cavalry. This proceeding was prompted by the scarcity of ammunition. His rifles were comparatively useless, and the want of powder and ball rendered it necessary that he should rely upon some other weapons. To provide broadswords for his troops, he was compelled once more ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... natural that the scarcity of water for domestic purposes should affect my wife much more than it did me, and perceiving the discontent which was growing in her mind, I determined to dig a well. The very next day I began to look for a well-digger. ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... to the city were now accompanied with greater danger, and only the boldest dared to venture. Such, however, was the contempt of danger and death with which they were inspired that there was never any scarcity of men for this ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... economy is tourism. An estimated 13 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. Agricultural production is limited by a scarcity of arable land, and most food has to be imported. The principal livestock activity is sheep raising. Manufacturing consists mainly of cigarettes, cigars, and furniture. The rapid pace of European economic integration is a potential threat to Andorra's advantages from its duty-free status. ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... run. Uncontrolled qualities may be selected for survival and development for certain periods and under certain circumstances. For instance, since it is the ungovernable gluttons who strive the hardest to get food and drink, their efforts would develop their strength and cunning in a period of such scarcity that the utmost they could do would not enable them to over-eat themselves. But a change of circumstances involving a plentiful supply of food would destroy them. We see this very thing happening often ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Caesar for the better regulation of Italian monetary and agricultural relations were of a graver character and promised greater results. The first question here related to temporary enactments respecting the scarcity of money and the debt-crisis generally. The law called forth by the outcry as to locked-up capital—that no one should have on hand more than 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds) in gold and silver cash—was probably only issued to allay the indignation of the blind public ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the dollar that buys one bushel, is to say that the dollar which it requires two bushels of wheat to buy is a better dollar than that which can be bought with one bushel. Consequently, to increase the excellence of your dollar all you need to do is to increase the scarcity of the stuff out of which dollars are made, so that each one shall constantly stand for more and more wheat, or, using wheat merely as representative of commodities in general, so that it shall ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... little competition among merchants under this system, since the burden of his debt kept the planter from seeking the cheapest market. The double weight of extortionate prices and heavy interest impressed a large section of the South with the scarcity of cash and ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... was, as has been said, its dealing with the land question, but perhaps its most pathetic fallacy was the policy with which it met the Great Famine. Now the singular thing about this famine is that during it there was no scarcity of food in Ireland; there was only ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... Mexico scarcity of hazardous waste disposal facilities; rural to urban migration; natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... of an army and the incessant reluctance of the battle to be met will try a sinner; but a scarcity of tobacco and constantly wet feet will try a saint. Aladdin was somewhat of both. But in the fidgety gloom which presently settled upon man and beast, his, great Irish gift of cheerfulness shone like a star. He even gave up longing for promotion, and strained his mind to ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... up Goose Creek the condition of our commissariat troubled us not a little. The scarcity of game had forced us to draw heavily upon our stores. Only a little of our lard and a small part of our twenty-five pounds of bacon remained. "We must hustle for grub, boys," Hubbard frequently remarked. Our diet, excepting on particular occasions, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... peeling and slicing onions into earthen bowls for supper. So they had been doing last night all the way from Avignon. We passed one or two shady dark chateaux, surrounded by trees, and embellished with cool basins of water: which were the more refreshing to behold, from the great scarcity of such residences on the road we ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... and a whole hog," were required weekly of the peasants for his table, in a time of great scarcity, and it was impossible to satisfy the rapacious appetites of the Irish kernes. The paymaster-general of the English forces was daily appealed to by Stanley for funds—an application which was certainly not unreasonable, as her Majesty's troops had not received any payment for three months—but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dissensions between some of the colonies over the land-disputes; sparks were flying between the colonies and the mother-country; every day brought gruesome news from the back-country; there was a scarcity of guns and ammunition; militia captains were eagerly stealing one another's men ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... sufficiency, plenty, profusion, copiousness, exuberance, plenteousness, overflow. Antonyms: deficiency, dearth, scarcity, poverty. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... other violations of the laws regarding trade. There are too many officials, both secular and religious; and the former are often incompetent or corrupt. The Indians are demoralized by having learned the use of the white men's money; their native industries are neglected, which causes scarcity and high prices of goods and supplies. New impulse and wider scope are given to the missions conducted by the Jesuits, who begin the task of gathering the scattered Indian converts into mission villages, thus more easily to civilize and christianize the natives. A new governor for the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... crushing and complete that assuredly few of the fugitives would be found willing to again encounter the terrible artillery fire, followed by the irresistible onslaught of the infantry. That evening, in spite of the scarcity of wood, bonfires were lighted, and the Scouts gathered round them. Every bottle of spirits and wine that remained in the camp was broached, and a most ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... Island of Rhodes, there was once, formerly, a great scarcity of provisions, a famine quite; and some merchants fitted out ten ships to relieve the Rhodians; and one of the merchants got into port sooner than the others; and he took advantage of this circumstance to sell his goods at an exorbitant ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... I promised Mr. Birnbaum to come to the little synagogue of which he is President. It seems they have a scarcity of Cohenim, and they want me to bless ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... metallic currency: first, that paper money may be increased or diminished much more easily than metallic money; and, second, that any excess or deficiency of the former is not so easily corrected by the natural operations of trade. The sudden or large increase of the metals is prevented by their scarcity and the laborious processes necessary to produce them, and a sudden or large decrease of them could be brought about only by some great public calamity which should destroy them or cause them to be hoarded. But paper money, whether made by a government or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... efforts. He's blood-brother to every kind of Albanian bandit. Also he used to take a hand in Turkish politics, and got a huge reputation. Some Englishman was once complaining to old Mahmoud Shevkat about the scarcity of statesmen in Western Europe, and Mahmoud broke in with, "Have you not the Honourable Arbuthnot?" You say he's in your battalion. I was wondering what had become of him, for we tried to get hold of him here, but he had left no address. Ludovick Arbuthnot—yes, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... left, and we could not get a drop of milk. But since we left Minieh we see them again, and I hear the disease is not spreading up the river. Omar told me that the poor people at Benisouef were complaining of the drought and prospect of scarcity, as they could no longer water the land for want of oxen. I paid ten napoleons passage-money, and shall give four or five more as backsheesh, as I have given a good deal of trouble with all my luggage, beddings, furniture, provisions for four months, etc., and the boat's people have ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... land is dense forest, and much is fertile farm land. A small part has so few rivers and such a scarcity of rainfall that the land is dry and arid. Little grows upon it but coarse grass and cactus. This region ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... conditions will demonstrate how baseless the hope must be. Countries not yet thickly populated would be in much the same condition as the countries of western Europe a century ago, the similarity being due to the relative scarcity of good land communications. A part—probably not a very large part—of the articles required by the people dwelling on and near the coast in one section would be drawn from another similar section. These articles could be most conveniently and cheaply transported ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... now with the scarcity of labor, the one specific thing that Capital has taught it to do and has done for forty years with the scarcity of ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... "There was a scarcity of gangways to the boats, and the only means of boarding them was by narrow planks sloping at dangerous angles. Up these the fugitives struggled, and the strong elbowed the weak out of their way in ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... company, I could people the grim stockade with old friends out of those four most wonderful books of my grandfather's. And very grateful was I now for the insistence which had made me read them times without number, and for the scarcity which had limited me to them till I knew parts of them ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... economic conditions of demand and supply. But in the days of the Civil War there was a great dearth of skilful manipulators of the key. About fifteen hundred of the best operators in the country were at the front on the Federal side alone, and several hundred more had enlisted. This created a serious scarcity, and a nomadic operator going to any telegraphic centre would be sure to find a place open waiting for him. At the close of the war a majority of those who had been with the two opposed armies remained at the key under more peaceful surroundings, but the rapid development of the commercial and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... querulous declamations against the age, on account of luxury[634],—increase of London,—scarcity of provisions,—and other such topicks. 'Houses (said he) will be built till rents fall: and corn is more plentiful now than ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that throughout the valley there was most undue fluctuation of prices. Moreover, the Manbo sold a part of his rice in harvest time at 50 centavos a sack, and in time of scarcity repurchased it at as much ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... troops, defied the law, and distressed the whole travelling community. The transmission of letters by post was tardy and unfrequent, and the scandal of coffee-houses supplied the greatest want and the greatest luxury of modern times, the newspaper. There was great scarcity of books in the country places, and the only press in England north of the Trent seems to have been at York. Literature was but feebly cultivated by country squires or country parsons, and female education was disgracefully neglected. Few rich men ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... for an armistice of twenty-four hours. 'God knows,' writes Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The royalists had lost nearly the whole city except the palace and its surroundings, and, cut off from the sea, they began to feel a scarcity of food, but not to a severe extent. It seems most probable that with his men panic-stricken and constantly driven back in spite of the bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when had he known the straits to which the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... ceased to worship Khnemu in a manner appropriate to his greatness, and when he had taken steps to remove the ground of complaint, the Nile rose to its accustomed height, the crops became abundant once more, and all misery caused by scarcity of provisions ceased. In other words, when Tcheser restored the offerings of Khnemu, and re-endowed his sanctuary and his priesthood, the god allowed Hapi to pour forth his streams from the caverns ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... with authority. The land was undeveloped and poor. It barely sustained its inhabitants. The additional burden of a considerable foreign garrison and a crowd of rapacious officials increased the severity of the economic conditions. Scarcity was frequent. Famines were periodical. Corrupt and incapable Governors-General succeeded each other at Khartoum with bewildering rapidity. The constant changes, while they prevented the continuity of any wise policy, did not interrupt the misrule. With ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... "GENTLEMEN—The scarcity of Coal at this time, and the piercing cold of the weather, cannot fail to be some apology for the depredations daily committed on the hedges in the neighbourhood. If ever it be permitted, it ought in the present season. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... dearth, paucity, scarcity, deficit. Lame, crippled, halt, deformed, maimed, disabled. Large, great, big, huge, immense, colossal, gigantic, extensive, vast, massive, unwieldy, bulky. Laughable, comical, comic, farcical, ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, droll. Lead, guide, conduct, escort, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... October 19th: The scarcity of potatoes is increasing, in spite of a good crop. The peasants were forbidden to pull out their plants before July the 21st, when the greater part ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... prevent them from fertilising the flowers. A chain of connection has thus been found between such totally distinct organisms as flesh-eating mammalia and sweet-smelling flowers, the abundance or scarcity of the one closely corresponding to that of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... holiday Safeguards of the law taken from slaves Sale of a man by a Presbyterian elder Sale of slaves Savannah, Ga. Savannah slave-hunter Save us from our friends Scarcity, times of Scenes of horror Search for Bibles and Hymn books Secretary of the Navy Separation of slaves Shame unknown among naked slaves Shoes for slaves Sick, treatment of "Six pound paddle," "Slack-jaw," Slave-breeders ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... too, did ye know the sarcumstances. Travelled last night good twelve miles before I could light on this here cretur. Never seed such a scarcity o' fowl. Farmers above tending sich like things now-a-days, dom pride! ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... from eight to ten millions. "In what kind of operations?" No one ever told me, but I know that he called all operations that would make money, good ones. To lend small sums at a big interest, to accumulate great stores of grain in order to relieve a scarcity after producing it himself, to foreclose on unfortunate debtors, to fit out a vessel or two for trade in black flesh on the African coast—such are specimens of the speculations which the good man did not despise. He never boasted of them, for he was modest; ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... or fugitive people prove this, and official reports confirm them. Also the press of neutral, neighboring countries, such as Switzerland, Holland, and Italy, is full of similar complaints. Owing to the scarcity of news from Russia, the facts known so far only concern Petersburg, where German and Austrian men and women, residents or transients, were beaten and stoned in the streets. Here were also some cruel mutilations and murders. The ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... going to search for bush yams in time of scarcity gave a yam to the stones as a thank-offering, supposing that these gods caused the yams to grow, and could lead them to the best places for finding such ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... above fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... so that when Nance had the first plunder of the chest which held all their clothes in common, and Biddy made the second grab, poor Kitty had little left but her ordinary rags to appear in. But as, in the famous judgment on Ida's Mount, it is hinted that Venus carried the day by her scarcity of drapery, so did Kitty conquer by want of clothes: not that Love sat in judgment; it was Plutus turned the scale. But, to leave metaphor and classic illustration, and go back to Mat Riley's cabin—the girls were washing, and starching, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... insufficiency; inadequacy, inadequateness; incompetence &c. (impotence) 158; deficiency &c. (incompleteness) 53; imperfection &c. 651; shortcoming &c. 304; paucity; stint; scantiness &c. (smallness) 32; none to spare, bare subsistence. scarcity, dearth; want, need, lack, poverty, exigency; inanition, starvation, famine, drought. dole, mite, pittance; short allowance, short commons; half rations; banyan day. emptiness, poorness &c. Adj.; depletion, vacancy, flaccidity; ebb ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... N.J., showed that the crisis had already affected labor. On all sides an anxiety to retrench was shown, and large numbers, in the aggregate, were thrown out of employment all over the country. The retail trade was very unfavorably affected, the losses sustained by the crisis, combined with the scarcity of currency, causing people to expend as little as possible; and this feature, resulting from the crisis, is likely to be a marked one for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... it must unavoidably happen that, according to the plenty or scarcity of goods at market in proportion to the demand, the relative value would be subject to continual fluctuation, greater precision has been found necessary; and at this time the current value of a single bar of any kind is fixed by the whites at two shillings sterling. Thus, a slave whose ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... a support for the joists of the floor above. In large houses numerous arches gave an imposing appearance to the architecture of the ground floors, which were generally used as warehouses. Even the wooden joists were imported poles of fir, thus proving the scarcity of natural forests. The roofs of the houses were for the most part flat, and covered with tempered clay and chopped straw for the thickness of about ten inches. Some buildings of greater pretensions were gaudy in bright red tiles, but all were alike in ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... difficulties has been the scarcity of suitable people for carrying the work on. This was ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... whole Indian population by farming, it remained, when I came there, entirely uncultivated, and hunting and fishing were still the only means the people had of supporting themselves. The consequence was, that at times they suffered greatly from scarcity of provisions, and this naturally brought disease. The year after my marriage was a bad one, and the women and children especially felt the want of their usual supplies. A great many of them left the island, and tried to find food by begging, or by selling mats, and baskets, at the nearest settlements. ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... commission by Tyrconnel, and had since been living on an estate in Fermanagh, was appointed Governor, and took up his residence in the castle. Trusty men were enlisted, and armed with great expedition. As there was a scarcity of swords and pikes, smiths were employed to make weapons by fastening scythes on poles. All the country houses round Lough Erne were turned into garrisons. No Papist was suffered to be at large in the town; and the friar who was accused of exerting his eloquence against the Englishry ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the throne, and his abilities were employed to supplant, not to serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers were irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open sedition, which were at ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... person, and far less a family, is not brought about solely by the immigrant who comes from abroad, but is, to a very great extent, the consequence of inter-migration, of the influx of villagers into the cities. While in country places there is a scarcity of labor, thus in New England, for example, while many farms are vacant, there are people starving in the cities, unable to obtain work. The increase of large cities and of their population is beyond the proportion in which it formerly stood to that of the country. This ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... complained of the lack of educational advantages. Madame Schuyler deplored the scarcity of books and of facilities for womanly education, and spoke with irony of the literary tastes of the older ladies: "Shakespeare was a questionable author at the Flatts, where the plays were considered grossly familiar, and by no means ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... their fear of death increased and the chorus of their despair mounted higher there came another pounding, nearer, louder—the sound of splitting wood and of rending metal. To escape was impossible; to remain was madness; of hiding-places there was a fearful scarcity. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... quantity of them to supply every one's desires and necessities. As the improvement, therefore, of these goods is the chief advantage of society, so the instability of their possession, along with their scarcity, is ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Branch was right. There was, indeed, but little food of any kind, and that little was of the coarsest. Ordinarily, such a condition of affairs would have occasioned them no surprise, for the men were becoming accustomed to a more or less chronic scarcity of provisions; but the presence of Norine Evans put quite a different complexion upon the matter. They were still discussing the situation when Miss Evans, having finished her afternoon nap, threw open the flaps of her tent and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... this morning, after a ten miles' mountain walk, followed by three hours' ride in the blissful bowels of an empty cattle-truck. But for the good Samaritan of a luggage train I must last night have camped beneath the canopy of heaven. No scarcity of fun in Ireland—which beats the world for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... use, the value is fixed for the time being, from which no material deduction can be had. Things have their wholesale and retail prices. True, these vary more or less, from accidental causes, such as the abundance or scarcity of the article, the state of the money market, or the season of the year. Buyers, by watching these accidental influences, may purchase more or less to their advantage. And one can look to these points, and profit from them, as well as another. Prison providers, especially ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... of studying old and foreign arts—the way of the connoisseur and the way of the craftsman. The collector may value such arts for their strangeness and scarcity, while the artist finds in them stimulus in his own work ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... mules at Albenga for Oneglia. Along this tract are many of the tree called caroubier, being a species of locust. It is the ceratonia siliqua of Linnaeus. Its pods furnish food for horses, and also for the poor, in time of scarcity. It abounds in Naples and Spain. Oneglia and Port Maurice, which are within a mile of each other, are considerable places, and in a rich country. At St. Remo, are abundance of oranges and lemons, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... so good as the first," replied the peddler, fixing a last and lingering look in the direction of Harper's route, "it is owing to the scarcity of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of so decidedly irreligious a temper are not numerous. If esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect. Indeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence visible, that William Gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous species of animal, produced by our ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... sweeping his stock from existence with icy blizzard, and mowing down the tall green corn with devastating hail, was now showering favors on him when it was too late. Still, though he felt the irony of it, he was glad, for others had followed his lead, and while the lean years had left a lamentable scarcity of dollars at Silverdale, wealth would now pour in to every man who had had the faith ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... pastures bare. Even in that conservatory existence where the fair Camelia is sighed for by the noble young Pineapple, neither of them needing to care about the frost or rain outside, there is a nether apparatus of hot-water pipes liable to cool down on a strike of the gardeners or a scarcity of coal. And the lives we are about to look back upon do not belong to those conservatory species; they are rooted in the common earth, having to endure all the ordinary chances of past and present weather. ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... deeper than he had pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise, the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... become part of the other's life. For bush hospitality is something better than the bare housing and feeding of guests, being just the simple sharing of our daily lives with a fellow-man—a literal sharing of all that we have; of our plenty or scarcity, our joys or sorrows, our comforts or discomforts, our security or danger; a democratic hospitality, where all men are equally welcome, yet so refined in its simplicity and wholesomeness, that fulsome thanks or vulgar apologies have no part in it, although it was whispered among the bushfolk ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... were equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Hellas. And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they obtained on their arrival—and ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides |
