"By the piece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as a copyist, and afterwards in the more responsible work of abridging original papers, and preparing records for publication. As she was an excellent chirographer, with a clear head for business, and was paid by the piece and not by the month, she made money fast, as matters were then reckoned, and she was very liberal with it. I met her often during those years, as I have since and rarely saw her without some pet scheme of benevolence on her hands which she pursued with ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... keeping her doubled. This, which would have defeated a bargain with any common couturiere, succeeded perfectly with Adrienne. She received her fifteen sous with humble thankfulness, in constant apprehension of losing even that miserable pittance. Nor would her employer consent to let her work by the piece, at which the dear child might have earned at least thirty sous, for she discovered that she had to deal with a person of conscience, and that in no mode could as much be possibly extracted from ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... the motive to activity is ever present to the worker, and almost always the worker turns out a larger product when paid by the piece than when paid by time. The employer benefits by the more efficient use of his machinery and equipment even when the price per piece is not reduced with the larger output per worker. The worker's earnings may increase ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... however, and book-making, are two very different things: "spinning a yarn" is mechanical, and book-making savours of trade, and is the employment of a manufacturer. The author by profession, weaves his web by the piece, and as there is much competition in this branch of trade, extends it over the greatest possible surface, so as to make the most of his raw material. Hence every work of fancy is made to reach to three volumes, otherwise it will not pay, and a manufacture that does not requite the cost of production, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the Wigans ranged us in a row in a gorgeous and immense private box, and where we saw "Still Waters Run Deep." I laughed (in a conspicuous manner) to that extent at Emery, when he received the dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me than by the piece. I don't think I ever saw anything meant to be funny that struck me as so extraordinarily droll. I couldn't get over it at all. After the piece we went round, by Wigan's invitation, to drink with him. It being positively impossible to get Stanny off ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... diamond polishers of Amsterdam. These ateliers are well worth visiting. Besides diamonds and precious stones, rock crystal, and various kinds of imitations, and paste jewellery are here worked up; also jasper, agate, malachite, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, jet, &c. The work is done by the piece, and the whole family of the lapidary ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... groove, as it were, like the rook and starling, and have but one kind of food and one way of finding it, are always the worst off in winter. These subsist on the grubs and other minute organisms they are able to pick out of the grass roots, and are life workers paid by the piece who must labour hard and incessantly to make enough to keep themselves alive; their winter life is accordingly in startling contrast to that of the daw—one that lives on his wits and fares better and altogether has an easier and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... like the painting of miles and miles of palings: grass, grass, grass, trees, trees, trees, ad infinitum; whereas yellow leads a roving, versatile life, and is seldom called upon for such monotonous labour. The sands of Sahara are probably the only conspicuous instance of yellow thus working by the piece. It is in the quality, in the diversity of the things it colours, rather than in their mileage or tonnage, that yellow is distinguished; though, for that matter, we suppose, the sun is as big and heavy as most things, and that is yellow. Of course, when we say yellow ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... Maoris, not so much tattoo-marked, much more peacefully inclined, and probably more industrious. Some of the men are tall and handsome, which is more than I can say of the women. The men do not work very heartily on day wages, but well enough when paid by the piece. Here, on the wharf, they get a dollar for a day's work, and a dollar-and-a-half for night-work. They are employed in filling the coal-bunkers and unloading ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... seemed to pursue us everywhere. Here the work in hand was the building of a solid breastwork in continuation of Guards Trench, just East of the Rue du Bois. Two nights out of each four we were at rest, we had to send large parties to Richebourg to carry on this work, which was being done "by the piece." A certain number of sandbags were issued to each man about half-a-mile before he got to his work, and he was told that when these had been filled and laid he could return. It is perhaps needless to say that many of the sandbags found a resting place in the nearest ditch, not far ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman |
