"Able-bodied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and before the sound had died away six able-bodied men had fallen-to upon the beef and the bread in a manner that would have done kind Master Watts's heart good ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... very like a house nearly finished," I said severely; for, because of the verandah and many promises, I was again hopeful for something approaching that commodious station home. "A few able-bodied men could finish the dining-room in a couple of clays, and make a mansion of the rest of the building ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Gethsemane at the prospect, and for the abysmal sense of forsakenness on the cross? His sensitiveness of heart made Him feel the pain and shame of other men, a pain and shame they were frequently too stolid and obtuse to feel. He could not see able-bodied and willing workmen standing idle in the marketplace because no man had hired them, without sharing their discouragement and bitterness, nor prodigals making fools of themselves without feeling the ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... was grappling, at tremendous outlay, with two rebellions abroad. Yet all her many parties cried for war. Popular subscriptions were taken to aid the impoverished treasury; reserves were called out; in Cuba, Blanco summoned all able-bodied men. The navy was supplemented by ships purchased wherever hands could be laid ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... managed, however, to creep into a corner, and, getting up, surveyed the scene. The young men who had invaded the meeting, much superior in numbers and strength to the speakers, to the large man, and the three or four other able-bodied persons who had rallied to them from among the audience, were taking every advantage of their superiority; and it went to Mr. Lavender's heart to see how they thumped and maltreated their opponents. The sight of their brutality, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... proprietors, each of whom becomes a collector about every six years." In many of the villages the artisans, day-laborers, and metayer-farmers perform the service, although requiring all their time to earn their own living. In Auvergne, where the able-bodied men expatriate themselves in winter to find work, the women are taken;[5217] in the election-district of Saint-Flour, a certain village has four collectors in petticoats.—They are responsible for all claims entrusted to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the army were excited almost to open mutiny. Cortes, however, was perfectly cool. Addressing the army collectively, he assured them that the ships were not fit for service, as had been shown by due inspection. "There is one important advantage gained to the army, viz., the addition of a hundred able-bodied recruits who were necessary to man the lost ships. Besides all that, of what use could ships be to us in the present expedition? As for me, I will remain here even without a comrade. As for those who shrink from the dangers of our glorious enterprise, let them go back, in God's name! ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... by a side alley to the Padshahi Gate where I found Wali Dad's house, and thence rode to the Fort. Once outside the City wall, the tumult sank to a dull roar, very impressive under the stars and reflecting great credit on the fifty thousand angry able-bodied men who were making it. The troops who, at the Deputy Commissioner's instance, had been ordered to rendezvous quietly near the fort, showed no signs of being impressed. Two companies of Native Infantry, a squadron of Native Cavalry and a company of British Infantry ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... insolently. These conquered men remained there ten days, the wounded almost without care, the able-bodied almost without nourishment. The German army sneered around them. The heavens took part against them. The weather was fearful. Neither huts nor tents. Not a fire, not a truss of straw. For ten days and ten nights ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... Here he and his Indian legions levied terrific toll upon the lives of their enemies who pressed onward, up or down the rivers and through tropical swamps and forests. Inch by inch he contested their entry upon Paraguayan soil. When the able-bodied men gave out, old men, boys, women, and girls fought on with stubborn fury, and died before they would surrender. The wounded escaped if they could, or, cursing their captors, tore off their bandages and bled to death. Disease wrought awful havoc in all the armies engaged; yet the struggle ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... "Every able-bodied man in Denmark, who has attained the age of twenty-one, is liable to serve as a soldier for eight years in the regular army, and eight more in the army of the reserve. In preparation for this duty, every man is enrolled, and required to drill ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... must also be informed that a double-sleigh load of able-bodied men followed close behind the one in which Miss King was taken home. What this movement meant, I am not able very satisfactorily to conjecture. I venture the opinion, however, that the good folks supposed their victim would jump out of the ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... camel caravans loaded with merchandise from Afghanistan, Bokhara, and farther. And it is because of this that Peshawar is the Key of India, and a city of Romance that stands at every corner, and cries aloud in the market—place. For at Peshawar every able-bodied man sleeps with his revolver under his pillow, and the old Fort is always ready in case it should be necessary at brief and sharp notice to hurry the women and children into it, and possibly, to die in their defense. So enlivening is the neighbourhood of the frontier tribes that haunt the ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... scurcely keep from smilin'.—'Then,' says I, 'I shouldn't be my father's daughter, if I'd give a cent for a preacher that isn't smart enough to get his own livin' and pay for his own clothes and eddication. To ask poor women to pay for an able-bodied man's expenses,' says I, 'seems to me like turnin' the thing wrong end foremost. A young feller that a'n't smart enough to find himself in victuals and clothes won't be of much help in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Eagle helped himself to another dram when Tom Tulk had withdrawn his great body and sly face. It was true, all that Tom Tulk had said. It was true about the clerk; he was ripe to go bad. It was true about the crew; with hands scarce, and able-bodied young fellows bound to the Sidney mines for better wages, Skipper George could ship whom he liked and Tom Tulk chose. It was true about fetching fish into St. John's without accounting whence it came. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... the country generally was very much excited about a new constitution and a change of government. I don't think the country in France (the small farmers and peasants) are ever much excited about the form of government. As long as the crops are good and there is no war to take away their sons and able-bodied men, they don't care, often don't know, whether a king or an emperor is reigning over them. They say there are some far-off villages half hidden in the forests and mountains who still believe that a king and a Bourbon is reigning ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... as prisoners enter the Reformatory, they are carefully examined by an intelligent and pleasant woman physician, who is in charge of the infirmary where the anthropological examination takes place. When the prisoner has been declared able-bodied, she is placed in one of the work-rooms to learn and follow the trade indicated by the medical officer as the best adapted to her constitution and aptitude. At night, she is conducted to a second-class cell situated in a large, well-lighted corridor. ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... came to the quarter of the slaves—a village almost of the humble tenements occupied by this miserable class. None but the women, children, sick and aged, were now at home—the young and able-bodied being abroad at work. No new disturbances have broken out, he tells me; the former severity, followed by a well-timed lenity, having subdued or conciliated all. Curtius, although fond of power and of all its ensigns, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... civilisation and crowded cities, and one felt that it was not just very certain if one would see such things again; and how little it would take to wipe us out, like gnats squashed on a vast window-pane! In the morning we sent the able-bodied man away to hunt, but his interest in us soon overcame his desire for game, and he returned, and presently made himself useful by carrying roots of bushes for our fire, for wood was hard to get, and the nearest tree hardly ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... tint, and a comeliness of appearance, among the bourgeoises and common people, which were not to be eclipsed even by the belles of Coutances. Our garcon de poste and his able-bodied quadruped having each properly recruited themselves, we set forward—by preference—to walk up the very long and somewhat steep hill which rises on the other side of Conde towards Pont Ouilly—in the route hither. Perhaps this was the most considerable ascent we had mounted ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... arrangement with the laborer, and when, on the following Monday, they turned out to work, the paltry pittance of 12-1/2d. (7-1/2d. sterl.) was all that in the majority of cases was offered for the services of an able-bodied negro, although 2s. 6d. per day (currency), had before been invariably exacted from them, when they were desirous of purchasing the remaining term of their apprenticeship. Of course, the people refused ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... cannot. And figures prove to us, that, in the time consumed by five symphonic numbers, the startling number of four hundred and fifty hogs could be (and are daily) slaughtered, scraped, disembowelled, hewn, and packed. While forty or fifty able-bodied musicians are discoursing Beethoven's rambling "Eroica," it were possible to dispatch and to dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the performance of the "Sakuntala" overture might be regarded as a virtual loss of as much time as would be required ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... the old charters of freedom, and out of which France especially gathered a cause of triumph and indignation. What in some degree diminishes the triumph is, that while sailors were pressed in England, soldiers were pressed in France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied man, going through the streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by the crimps into a house called the oven. There he was shut up with others in the same plight; those fit for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold them to the officers. In 1695 there were ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... unused to anything like warlike preparations that we find it difficult to arouse ourselves to a realization of the fact that every able-bodied man is liable to be called upon to render active service for his country; and when a war is raging within our borders, of whose termination the only thing that can be predicted with certainty is that it can be reached only through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... keenly. There was no way out of it, the girls could not get to a town even in the able-bodied cars, for Cora would no more leave her Whirlwind there in the darkness than she would have left Bess or Belle. Then, when it was proposed that one of the boys stay to guard the machine, and the others of the party go along to some place, the objection of "no Miss Robbins" robbed ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... voyage, but I had for shipmates men who had come through the hard school of the merchant service of Europe. As boys, they had had to perform their ship's duty, and, in addition, by immemorial sea custom, they had had to be the slaves of the ordinary and able-bodied seamen. When they became ordinary seamen they were still the slaves of the able-bodied. Thus, in the forecastle, with the watch below, an able seaman, lying in his bunk, will order an ordinary seaman to fetch him his shoes or bring him a drink of water. Now the ordinary ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... against, impregnable, unconquerable, indomitable, dominating, inextinguishable, unquenchable; incontestable; more than a match for; overpowering, overwhelming; all powerful, all sufficient; sovereign. able-bodied; athletic; Herculean, Cyclopean, Atlantean[obs3]; muscular, brawny, wiry, well-knit, broad-shouldered, sinewy, strapping, stalwart, gigantic. manly, man-like, manful; masculine, male, virile. unweakened[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... everywhere a rude military organization, which included all the able-bodied men of the community. Every settlement had its colonels and captains; but these officers, both in their training and in the authority they exercised, corresponded much more nearly to Indian chiefs than ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... murder had been made in the neighbourhood, and was so talked of that it seemed that all kindly feeling had been severed. Men began to creep about and keep out of the way lest they should be suspected; and, indeed, it was the fact that there was hardly an able-bodied man in three parishes to whom some ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... As things were, he came back to him with a constant gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly seeming for a while—for quite a considerable time in fact—lusty and active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving no sign of overtaxed ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... reassure her. "I do not think so. If one man alone lay between the thieves and jewels of that value—well, then we might perhaps apprehend such a catastrophe. But there were two—two able-bodied men, who were neither children nor fools. No," I went on, "my own opinion is that there may be reasons—reasons of which you are entirely unaware—which have led your father to bury himself and his clerk for the present, to reappear ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... man had passed through the Hatchard gate, and she had the street to herself. North Dormer is at all times an empty place, and at three o'clock on a June afternoon its few able-bodied men are off in the fields or woods, and the women indoors, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the state school for the feeble-minded, cripples to the poorhouse. The able-bodied will have to get out and go ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... many years is it since that poor old fellow was young, able-bodied, and vigorous, and started off into the desert with his party? It wasn't yesterday, I'll ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... savages knew the horrible consequences of parting with their wits in this manner. Before the drinking commenced, they appointed a few able-bodied Indians who were to remain sober and take care of the rest. They then deprived themselves of all their dangerous weapons—tomahawks, clubs, guns, arrows, and knives, and prepared ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... across a basset-table, perhaps, with his wantons around him, while we are on our knees supplicating the Creator for him? Who knows? We may have London in flames again, and a conflagration more fatal than the last, thou obstinate wench, before thou art a week older, and every able-bodied man called away from plough and pasture to serve the King, and desolation and famine where plenty now smiles at us. And is this a time in which to refuse a valiant and wealthy protector, a lover as honest as ever God made; a pious, conforming Christian, of unsullied name; a young man after my own ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... "'Every able-bodied man and woman found golfing at the present time should be taken by the scruff of the neck and made to do some work of national importance,' said Mr. Waldie at the Edinburgh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... autumn day. She had not been much hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over. She and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, excellent cooks. Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who lived in the house. ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... spread from lip to lip that the British regulars had landed on the coast and were marching upon the town. A scene of indescribable terror and confusion followed. Defence was out of the question, as the young and able-bodied men of the entire region round about had marched to Cambridge and Lexington. The news of the battle at the latter place, exaggerated in all its details, had been just received; terrible stories of the atrocities committed by the dreaded "regulars" ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of that second summer riots broke out in the city, and simultaneously a bright spot appeared on Virginia's horizon. This took the form, for Northerners, of a guerilla scare, and an order was promptly issued for the enrollment of all the able-bodied men in the ten wards as militia, subject to service in the state, to exterminate the roving bands. Whereupon her Britannic Majesty became extremely popular, —even with some who claimed for a birthplace ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all respects, wholly failed to secure, ours absolutely provides. As to the unfortunates who are born lazy, our system has certainly no miraculous power to make them energetic, but it does see to it with absolute certainty that every able-bodied person who receives economic maintenance of the nation shall render at least the minimum of service. The laziest is sure to pay his cost. In your day, on the other hand, society supported millions of able-bodied loafers in idleness, a dead weight on the world's ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... one would expect a little seriousness of youthful instruction), that can possibly excite a love of reading, book-collecting, or domestic quiet? Again; let us see what these chivalrous lads do, as soon as they become able-bodied! Nothing but assault and wound one another. Read concerning your favourite Oliver of Castile,[216] and his half-brother Arthur! Or, open the beautiful volumes of the late interesting translation of Monstrelet, and what is almost the very first thing ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... self-respect, and has not given them objects of ambition or preserved their ancient habits of labour and self-restraint. A hundred years ago the tribes were organized and disciplined communities. No family or able-bodied unit need starve or lack shelter; the humblest could count on the most open-handed hospitality from his fellows. The tribal territory was the property of all. The tilling, the fishing, the fowling were work which could not be neglected. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Tabor. She says: "Desolate were the open towns in Israel, they were desolate.... Was there a shield seen or a spear among forty thousand in Israel?... I—unto the Lord will I sing." Not until the fields of Israel were desert, forsaken of able-bodied men, did the woman Deborah arise for the glory of God. She refused to pose as a heroine, rejected the crown of victory, nor coveted the poet's laurel, meet recognition of her triumphal song. Modestly she chose the simplest yet most beautiful of names. She summoned the warriors ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... my story—I stayed there and engaged the Indians in conversation while George was making tracks back over the same road that we had just come to hurry the cavalry up. I learned from them that there were no more able-bodied men left in the cave, and there were some twenty or thirty squaws and children, besides several warriors that were wounded. In about an hour from the time George started back, the ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... they chose to provide common workhouses, and to appoint 'guardians.' The justices, as usual, received more powers in order to suppress the harsh dealing of the old parochial authorities. The guardians, it was assumed, could always find 'work,' and they were to relieve the able-bodied without applying the workhouse test. The act, readily adopted, thus became a landmark ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... good'll that do with two able-bodied men set on getting in? There isn't a door or ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... aloft into the greenish radiance of the lamp. "All round. North, east, south and west. Land or sea. Adventures, Perry, are for the adventurous. Now, here we are, three able-bodied fellows fairly capable of looking after ourselves in most situations, tired of the humdrum life of Summer resorts. What's to prevent our spending a couple of months together and finding some adventures? Of course, we can't go to Africa and shoot lions and wart-hogs—whatever they may be,—and ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous—as vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and crepe ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... they had to keep an able-bodied, year-and-a-half-old baby! There was no other place to keep him. He could not be allowed on the damp floor, nor where he could touch the top of the tent; so Thyrsis set up sticks at all four corners ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... defeated by keeping it to the letter. Rations were withdrawn from all who had other sufficient means of support. This seemed like imposing a penalty upon industry; but it was soon followed by requiring all able-bodied men to perform a certain amount of labor for the common benefit, such as road-making, bridge building, etc., in return for money or rations. This was a great advance even though accompanied by some evils, notably the neglect of allotments while their families camped with the gangs of laborers ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... grasped what appeared to be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he spoke, was deep and sonorous. He said, "I am a murderer. I am a ruffian. I crouch when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something of the Spanish Main. I can do the lost treasure business. I have charts. Am able-bodied and a good walker. Capable of haunting a large park." He looked toward me beseechingly, but before I could make a sign I was paralyzed by the horrible sight which ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses. The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must be boarded out. The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies. If these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by County authorities. Of course, the resources of the existing Unions are much too limited to undertake ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... has been clamouring about. Now the Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You may be sure if there's fighting to be done—black or white—he'll be ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... rapidly diminishing forces by the issue of new press warrants. The City was called upon to furnish 1,000 men in addition to those already supplied.(283) The mayor's precept on this occasion directed the alderman of each ward to seize in their beds or otherwise all able-bodied men, and especially "all tapsters, ostlers, chamberlains, vagrants, idle and suspected persons," and to convey them to Leadenhall or Bridewell. Those who had previously been pressed and had absconded were to be particularly sought for, whilst those who had in their charge two small ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... board, all told," says Mrs. Brassey, the party then including her husband and herself and their four children, some friends, a sailing master, boatswain, carpenter, able-bodied seamen, engineers, firemen, stewards, cooks, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... being divided into companies of fifty, and the companies into platoons of ten. Each platoon was in charge of a lieutenant, whose duty it was carefully to inspect the arms, ammunition, and accoutrements. All able-bodied males in the territory, excepting those exempt by law, were liable to military duty, and it is probable that the Mormons could have put in the field not less than seven thousand raw troops, half disciplined, indeed, but inured to hardship, and from the very nature ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... disease germs which attack a delicate one, so unquestionably have thousands of mental and moral weaklings been retarded from their best development by books that left no mark on healthy children. In spite of the probability that there are to-day alive many able-bodied men who cut their first teeth on pickles and pork chops, we do not question society's duty to disseminate proper ideas on the care ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain 'Natural Enemies' of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men; Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... December evening in Bentinck street. It seems desirable to supply a reason why any one should be walking there, to begin with, any one, at all events, not a Chinaman or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand furniture or an able-bodied seaman luxuriously fingering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest glass of country spirits. Or, to be quite comprehensive, a draggled person ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... for the will-o'-the-wisp. As, for the second time, I neared the spot from which he had first called, he shattered the silence with lusty appeals, then broke cover within a hundred yards of where I followed, hot on his trail. He looked able-bodied and goodness knows he'd been active, so I withdrew into the shadows of a thicket to watch what he ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... coolies under a native comprador. These were sent by the consignees to help discharge the cargo into a lot of small junks that they brought alongside; but the Chinamen made a poor show, contrasting their work with that of our stalwart able-bodied tars, one of whom thought nothing of handling a big crate as it was hoisted out of the hold which it took ten of the others ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... their parols, were allowed to return home. But they had scarcely reached their home in Mecklenburg when the British general issued his proclamation declaring the country subdued, and requiring every able-bodied militiaman to join the royal standard. Refusing to fight against their country, and being no longer bound as they believed, by their parols, they immediately repaired to the standard of General Sumter, and were with him in several battles. In the ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... outward from the Moon, had seemed invincible; but up until now he had never seen an entire Gens mustered at one time. His whole being thrilled with the awesome grandeur of the spectacle; it seemed that not an able-bodied individual of the Gens of Dalis had failed to answer the muster of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... Church contain a petition against the spiritus percutiens, or spirit who produces 'percussive noises'. The Norsemen of the Viking age were given to second sight, and Glam 'riding the roofs,' made disturbances worthy of a spectre peculiarly able-bodied. But, not counting the evidence of the Icelandic sagas, mediaeval literature, like classical literature, needs to be carefully sifted before it yields a few grains of such facts as sane and educated witnesses even now aver ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... Irish Government. To what better use, then, could the 'loose Irish kerne and swordsmen' of Donegal be turned than to send them to fight in the army of the King of Sweden? Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied peasantry of Inishown were shipped off for this service. Sir Toby Caulfield, founder of the house of Charlemont, was commissioned to muster the men and have them transported to their destination, being paid for their keep in the meantime. A portion of his account ran thus: ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... "I flatter myself I have made a difference to your material comfort! Poor we may be, but we do have nice, dainty little meals, and there's no reason why every able-bodied woman shouldn't have them at the same cost. I've just remembered another nice dish. We'll have it to-morrow night." She paused, and a wistful look came into her eyes, for the next day was Saturday, and it was on holiday afternoons that the feeling ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... said Captain Sybil, "that if the public school had been common through the South this war would never have occurred. Now things have reached such a pass that able-bodied men must report at headquarters, or be treated as deserters. Their leaders are desperate men, of whom it has been said: 'They have robbed the cradle ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... seemed very remote—and spent some time and consideration in arranging it. Her costume was workmanlike and that of an hotel manageress in the morning; yet distinctly set off her figure and suited her character of an able-bodied, intellectual woman. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... began, with the opportunities of conversation, to come from the Count Giovanni, and we learned that he was a private soldier at home on that permesso which the Austrian Government frequently gives its less able-bodied men in times of peace. He had been at home some years, and did not expect to be again called into the service. He liked much better to be in charge of the cave at Oliero than to carry the musket, though ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... been preserved in highly civilized communities, will extend more of a fatherly care to the masses than liberalism. This cannot be otherwise; for liberalism sets itself to educate the masses to self-responsibility, and each individual to thrift and self-reliance. The sight of an able-bodied beggar is, to a genuine liberal, a source of anger first, and only on further contemplation, of pity. He will exert all his energies to remove every obstacle from out of the way of his poorer brethren; he will preach wise economy, and facilitate it by personal sacrifices and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she received explained some ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... De Wet had rushed the British camp on the Christmas morning of 1901—the militiamen slaughtered while drunk, and the Kaffir drivers tied to the blazing waggons. The curtain rose again, and, five minutes later, I saw that he was weeping in sympathy with the stage misfortunes of two able-bodied young men who had to eat 'inferior Dorset' butter. My sympathy with the militiamen and the Kaffirs was 'pure,' whereas his was overlaid with remembered race-hatred, battle-fury, and contempt for British incompetence. His sympathy, on the other hand, with ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... the direct employment of the great mass of the able-bodied people by the state, has an unavoidable tendency to paralyse industry, and to substitute artificial for ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... straight to Gashford's hut where, as he anticipated, the man named Bill had silently collected most of the able-bodied men of the camp, all armed to the teeth. He at once desired Gashford to put them in fighting order and lead them. When they were ready he went off at a rapid pace towards the ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... a much larger class in New York than the women. They are engaged in all imaginable occupations and dog your steps at every corner. Some of these men are middle-aged, able-bodied fellows, quite strong and healthy enough to be clearing up land in the West or laying bricks at five dollars a day. For some unaccountable reason they prefer to remain in New York, living from hand to mouth, and doing nothing to improve themselves, mentally, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... was, was wretchedly manned. [Footnote: The navy got together by Czar Peter had all but disappeared by the time Catherine II. came to the throne. "Ichabod" was written over the doors of the Russian Admiralty. Their ships of war were few in number, unseaworthy, ill-found, ill-manned. Two thousand able-bodied seamen could with difficulty be got together in an emergency. The nominal fighting strength of the fleet stood high, but that strength in reality consisted of men "one half of whom had never sailed out of the Gulf of Finland, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... came on, and then ensued a cessation of hostilities. Two of the scouts had been killed, four fatally wounded, and fourteen others were wounded more or less severely. There were just twenty-eight able-bodied men left out of the fifty. The supplies had run out, and as Dr. Mowers had been mortally wounded and the medical stores captured, the wounded men could not ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... honour and for the honour of his country to receive a Frenchman, as he took this gentleman to be, replied in the least satisfactory manner possible, and in the short language of some seamen, 'Your footman's an Englishman, sir; has been pressed for an able-bodied seaman, which I trust he'll prove; he's aboard the tender, and there he will remain.' The foreigner, who, notwithstanding the politeness of his address, seemed to have a high spirit, and to be fully ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... himself, in resignation. From what he had seen and surmised of Mrs. Hallam, he shrewdly suspected that the tune would prove an exceedingly lively one; she seemed a woman of imagination, originality, and an able-bodied temper. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... head and looked at Laverick incredulously. He was more than half inclined to believe that this was a practical joke. Were they not standing on the pavement in Chancery Lane, and was not he an able-bodied policeman of great bulk and immense muscle! Yet his companion did not look by any means a man of the nervous order. Laverick was broad-shouldered, his skin was tanned a wholesome color, his bearing was the bearing of a man prepared to defend himself at ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have a pretty fierce smell, but I didn't put much faith in it. I'd been in opium joints, an' I knew that a Chinaman would FATTEN on a smell 'at would suffocate a goat; an' when it comes to vigorous an' able-bodied odors, a billy-goat ain't ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... to get out of, but however small and insignificant a man's head is, he had rather have it with him, keeping good time, than to have it wandering around out of his reach. When I "come to," as the saying is, it only seemed as though I had been asleep over night, but I dreamed more than any able-bodied man could have done in one night. I was what they call un-. conscious, but I did a great deal of work during that period of unconsciousness. One thing I did, which I was proud of, was to wind up the war. I arranged it so that all of the bullets that were fired ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... supervision; and in a day, if need were, a large number of men could be added to the forces of his Majesty's navy. But if the Admiralty became urgent in their demands, they were also willing to be unscrupulous. Landsmen, if able-bodied, might soon be trained into good sailors; and once in the hold of the tender, which always awaited the success of the operations of the press-gang, it was difficult for such prisoners to bring evidence of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... look of fiendish hatred, instead of returning blow for blow, Thad made a sudden grab and tore Bill's crutch out of the hand which had felt no impulse to use it in defense against his able-bodied antagonist. ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... defending their liberty by precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a country of agriculture ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the neighbourhood did this dishonest practice of his become, that, after a time, the majority of the local tradespeople refused to serve him at all. Only the exceptionally quick and able-bodied would attempt to do ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the millions of intelligent, able-bodied Americans, who could crush the tribe of Rockefeller as elephants crush snakes, rise with each sun and dig and delve and suffer that a Rogers may wallow in wealth and an Armour gain a greater income than the Rothschilds? Why are they so easily hoodwinked into imagining ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... tempted to live with, and upon, his father-in-law. But the ease thus secured is unattended by dignity. The gharjamai, "son-in-law of the house," as he is styled, shocks public opinion, which holds it disgraceful for an able-bodied man to eat the bread of idleness. Pulin incurred a certain degree of opprobrium by quartering himself on Debendra Babu; neighbours treated him with scant courtesy, and the very household servants made him feel that he was a person of small importance. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the past summer, men had shrunk from service, and muster-masters, after the fashion of Falstaff, had taken bribes to excuse them. On the present occasion no excuse was to be taken, and every able-bodied man, of any rank, from sixteen to sixty, was to be ready to take arms when called upon, and join his officers, under pain of death.[640] With these essential orders, the business of the legislature ended, and parliament was prorogued on the 7th of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... field for their benumbed energies in looking after rabbits, feeding poultry, minding bees, and, in short doing all those little odd jobs about a place which must be attended to, but which will not repay the labour of able-bodied men. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... machines in accordance with the amount of work which is to be performed. A plowman, other things being equal, consumes more than a watchmaker; just as a locomotive burns more fuel than the little engine that runs a sewing machine; the strong able-bodied active man, one who works his brains and muscles up to their full power, eats more than the weak, emaciated and inactive girl, who passes all her time in the recumbent position in bed; and the latter will, other things being equal, endure for a longer period entire abstinence ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... Darius marched forth in silence and secrecy, with all the vigorous and able-bodied forces under his command, leaving the weary, the sick, and the infirm to the mercy of their enemies. The long column succeeded in making good their retreat, without exciting the suspicions of the Scythians. They took the route which they ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... slaves. To bring that about, their fellow slaves all over the world must unite in a vast international association of men pledged to share the world's work justly; to share the produce of the work justly; to yield not a farthing—charity apart—to any full-grown and able-bodied idler or malingerer, and to treat as vermin in the commonwealth persons attempting to get more than their share of wealth or give less than their share of work. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish, because ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Labor force: total: 14 able-bodied men (1993) by occupation: no business community in the usual sense; some public works; subsistence farming ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... next recruit. Thus the recruit comes equipped for his four months' training, and takes his arms home with him at the conclusion, and is responsible for their good condition. Each man receives a certain number of cartridges, for which he must always be able to account, so that every able-bodied man is an efficient and well-armed soldier capable of taking the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... King, the Royal Eagle, the Tiger, the Big Snake, the Little Snake, the Frog, the Alligator, and many others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-bodied men living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ships were left, the Albatross at Sarawak, and the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... position now taken, and that that object was the Mediterranean. Moreover, so large a body of commissioned ships—nearly forty—as were now assembled, could not fail to tax severely the resources of a port like Cadiz, and distress would tend to drive them out soon. Thirty thousand able-bodied men are a heavy additional load on the markets of a small city, blockaded by sea, and with primitive communications by land. Upon this rested Nelson's principal hope of obliging them to come forth, if Napoleon himself did not compel them. Their position, he wrote ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... justices to issue warrants to constables, petty constables, headboroughs, and tything-men, to enter and, if need be, to break open the doors of any houses where they shall believe deserting seamen to be; and for the further increase and encouragement of the navy, to take able-bodied landsmen when seamen fail. This Act, which occupies four columns of the Gazette, and another of similar length and meaning for pressing men into the army, need not be quoted at length here; but ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his big neighbour. "Well, I'm off tomorrow, Leonard. Don't mention it to my folks, but if I can't get into the army, I'm going to enlist in the navy. They'll always take an able-bodied man. I'm not coming back here." He held out his hand and Leonard ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... cheerful compliance; but they often regained their strength too rapidly, and the whole order and convenience of kitchens and wards would be thrown into wild confusion by a stern mandate from Washington, that every able-bodied man was to go to his regiment. No matter what the exigency of the case might be, these men were despatched in haste. Then came a new training of men, some on crutches, some with one hand, and all far from strong. When ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you? Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way together, and the general effect was non plus ultra. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... factory belonged to a firm at Carbonear, and employed, one way and another, all the people in the place, in number less than two hundred. The women worked at the fish-curing, along with the children and some old men, but the able-bodied men belonged mostly to the Labrador fleet, or manned a two-three small vessels that made regular voyages to the Island of St. Jago to fetch home salt for the pickling. My mother, besides working at the factory, kept a boarding-house for ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Tall platforms were erected at almost speaking distance from each other, where sentinels kept watch for French frigates or privateers. Redoubts and towers were within musket-shot of each other, with watch-houses between, and at intervals every able-bodied man in the country was obliged to leave his trade to act as sentinel, or go into camp or barracks with the militia for months at a time. British cruisers sailed the Channel: now a squadron under Barrington, again under Bridport, hovered upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... kept to their seats, and listened to the words of the preacher, interrupting him occasionally by fervent ejaculations; others sang and shouted, sometimes standing up, clapping their hands and stamping their feet; while a large proportion of the able-bodied members left their seats, and pushed their way forward to the wide, open space which surrounded the preacher's desk, and prepared to engage in the exhilarating ceremony of the ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... procrastinated. He obstructed the draft as adroitly as he could, claiming inequities. And on August 7th, 1863, Mr. Lincoln in a communication to Seymour regarding these claims, said: "We are contending with an enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter pen; no time is wasted, no argument is used." And Mr. Lincoln repeatedly wrote Governor Seymour of the cost in blood and treasure by ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... give the secret away right here. I was doing the work of two men. Before me, one mature able-bodied labourer had done the day shift and another equally mature able-bodied labourer had done the night-shift. They had received forty dollars a month each. The superintendent, bent on an economical administration, had persuaded me ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... than his own words. 'If, Athenians, you will now, though you did not before, adopt the principle of every man being ready, where he can and ought to give his service to the state, to give it without excuse, the wealthy to contribute, the able-bodied to enlist; in a word, plainly, if you will become your own masters, and cease each expecting to do nothing himself, while his neighbour does everything for him, you will then, with God's permission, get back your own, and recover what has been ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men and citizens. The ministers of Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of enlisting the young and able-bodied monks in the Imperial armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria, which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... not felt. Yes, he knew it. And, for the first time since the accident which wrecked the Old Colony train and his own life, he began to think that, perhaps—some day, perhaps—he might again be a man, a whole, able-bodied man among men. When he submitted this thought to the cold light of reason, it was transparent and faint enough, but it was there, and it was one cause ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... a kind of temporary refuge. This is not so frequent considering the sort of life a vagrant has to lead; but when it does occur, the labour-master of the Union very often finds it next to impossible to got him to perform the task every able-bodied person is expected to complete when taking shelter in a Casual Ward. As a result the habitual beggar has sometimes to appear before the magistrates as a refractory pauper, but a short sentence of imprisonment, which ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... took his horses and went with the scouts to bring in the bear. Several able-bodied men accompanied them, for news had spread from house to house of what had taken place up the brook. It was almost sundown, when they returned, and quite a crowd of neighbours were gathered around the captain's house to see the bear which Rod ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... We are four able-bodied men in this household, so that we could take good care of ourselves, but I confess that I have had uneasy moments when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles from any help. There are ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... the impact. Before then Mrs. Singleton Corey had learned the feel of biting cold, when she waited on a bald nose of the hill while three shovels lifted the snow out of the road so that they could go on. Her unaccustomed ears had learned the sound of able-bodied swearing because the horseman had taken a short-cut over the hill and so had not broken the trail here for ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... bagani in rank come the warriors, a class which includes practically all the able-bodied free men; and still below them are the slaves. Slavery was an ancient institution with this people when the Spaniards first visited their country, and it has continued to flourish up to the present, in all districts a little removed from the influence of the white ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... and, having finally loosened itself from its bed, it acquired increased momentum. As the men with chisels and steam-points became exhausted others took their places, but the structural gang clung to its perch above, augmenting the din of riveters and the groaning of blocks and tackle. Among the able-bodied men sleep now was out of the question, for the ice gained in spite of every effort. It was too late to remove the steel in the uncompleted span to a place of safety, for that would have required more time than to bridge ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... exclaimed triumphantly. "Throwing away all that perfectly good time amounts simply to murdering 163 harmless old men of seventy, or 326 able-bodied men of thirty-five, or 1,630 innocent little children of seven. If that isn't atrocity, what is? I think Mr. Hoover or Admiral Grayson, or somebody, ought ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... village that young Squire Carne from foreign parts was come back to live in the ancient castle, there was much larger outlay (both of words and thoughts) about that than about any French invasion. "Let them land if they can," said the able-bodied men, in discussion of the latter question; "they won't find it so easy to get away again as they seem to put into their reckoning. But the plague of it all is the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... bench were chained three luckless slaves—seventy-five down each side, and a hundred and fifty in all. The benches were intended for four rowers apiece, and could at a pinch accommodate five. The supply of able-bodied prisoners was small, and the Indians refused to undertake the work at a wage, so three men were compelled to manage oars that were a heavy tax on the strength of four. There was a slight compensation in this—the three had room to lie ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Washington's staff. In his own way Colonel Laurens was a man of parts quite as well as his father; he was thoroughly devoted to the American cause and Washington said of him that his only fault was a courage that bordered on rashness. He eagerly pursued his favorite project; able-bodied slaves were to be paid for by Congress at the rate of $1,000 each, and one who served to the end of the war was to receive his freedom and $50 in addition. In South Carolina, however, Laurens received little encouragement, and in 1780 he was called upon to go to France on a patriotic mission. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... people that the old men and the tiny children should be slain; that all who were too young to bear arms should be taken out of the land, and only the strong should be vouchsafed their own country; that none but able-bodied soldiers and husbandmen should continue to abide under their own roofs and in the houses of their fathers. When Agg and Ebb brought news of this to their mother Gambaruk, she saw that the authors of this infamous decree had found safety in crime. Condemning the decision of the assembly, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Indians very angry. They laid themselves to the siege, and so briskly they maintained it that there was no rest for the little garrison of only ten able-bodied men, nor was there any chance for succor ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... had one of his ideas. An advertisement was printed in the Daily for two hundred able-bodied men to earn two shillings for working six hours a day. An address different from the address of the Daily was given. By a ruse Denry procured the insertion of the ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... He was a able-bodied young man, and, remoovin his coat, he enquired if I wanted to be ground to powder? I said, Yes: if there was a Powder-grindist handy, nothin would 'ford me greater pleasure, when he struck me a painful blow into my right eye, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... against about two hundred and fifty desperate ruffians armed with pickaxes if they thought fit to unite in an assault upon our little party? They have no such intention, however, and the feeling of the visitor is rather one of pain and sorrow to see so many able-bodied fellows manacled than of fear in their presence.[76] The mode in which they get the salt is by cutting an oblong figure in the floor, deepening this until it resembles a mound, and then cutting the block ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... seals and mackerel and even salmon to a large extent should not "strike in" along that shore. Bad seasons and the wretched trading system have impoverished the fishermen, while the opening of the southern mines has taken away some of the most able-bodied. Here and there a braver cottage still boasts a coat of whitewash and a mixture of cod oil and red dust on the roof. But for the most part there is a sombre, dejected look about the human part of the harbour that suggests nothing ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... our ladies present at dinner was worthy Mrs. Threadgall, widow of the late Professor of that name. Talking of her deceased husband perpetually, this good lady never mentioned to strangers that he WAS deceased. She thought, I suppose, that every able-bodied adult in England ought to know as much as that. In one of the gaps of silence, somebody mentioned the dry and rather nasty subject of human anatomy; whereupon good Mrs. Threadgall straightway brought in her late ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... ourselves to despair, or congratulate ourselves on decided success,—whether we should abandon all attempts to restore the Union, assert the dignity of the Constitution, and punish treason, or nerve ourselves to new effort, and determine to persevere in a righteous cause so long as a single able-bodied man remains or a dollar of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... daughter's life, as well as those of the other girls, and that this put him, Mr. Nelson, deeply in the others' debt. In view of this the old fellow finally surrendered. In his heart he was deeply, fervently thankful for the help of the young, able-bodied man whom Mr. Nelson provided and for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... products? The time is short. It is of the most imperative importance that everything possible be done, and done immediately, to make sure of large harvests. I call upon young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to accept and act upon this duty—to turn in hosts to the farms and make certain that no pains and no labor is lacking ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next produced a short, straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother to the one which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a shake, thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours in this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk satisfaction: "So! Now we are ready to begin." She murmured a "Thank you," seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... war. For my own life that experience has been of the utmost significance, and despite the heavy price I have had to pay for my outings, despite the daily reminder of five long months of intense suffering, I have no regrets. An able-bodied young man, with a long vacation at his disposal, could not have done otherwise, and the right to teach Southern youth for nine months was earned by sharing the fortunes of their fathers and brothers at the ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... consequent intercourse with strangers, have greatly the advantage, in the means of acquiring information. Mr. Birkbeck says that, in every village and town, as he passed along, he observed groups of young able-bodied men, who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers of Europe. This love of indolence, where labour is so profitable, is a strange affection. If these people be asked why they so much indulge in it, they answer, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... thus occupied by a neutral party, which prevents friction between the nations on either side of the border. The Afridis are fearless fighters, half-civilized, half-savage, and almost entirely supported by the subsidies they receive. Nearly all of the able-bodied men are under arms. A few, who are too old or too young to fight, remain at home and look after the cattle and the scraggy gardens upon the gravelly hillsides. The women are as hardy and as enduring as the men and are taught to handle the rifle. The British ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... proportion. The islanders brought much of their fruits to us in their little canoes, which are long and narrow boats, like troughs, hollowed out of single trees; but their cattle we bought on shore. I observed the people to be straight, well-limbed, and able-bodied men, of a very dark tawny colour. Most of the men, and all the women, were entirely naked, except merely enough to hide their parts of shame. Some few of the men wore long garments, after the fashion of the Arabs, whose language they spoke, and were likewise of the Mahometan religion, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... enough to do in this house for two able-bodied women—and I'm one! Rose taught me how to make coffee yesterday, and toast and eggs are easy. Just look at that coffee! Real amber? It's an improvement for looks on what you've been brewing for yourself in camp. And I've been watching your winning ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... opportunity to watch the war preparations of these savage, cannibal people, my friends, the Mangeromas. Their army consisted of twelve able-bodied men, all fine muscular fellows, about five feet ten in height, and bearing an array of vicious-looking weapons such as few white men have seen. First of all were three club-men, armed with strong, slender clubs, ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... Number of the Militia.—All able-bodied male citizens of the United States and males between eighteen and forty-five years of age who have declared their intention to become citizens are regarded as the militia force of the country. As a matter of fact, ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... grew worse rather than better, and by the time of the great Governor Cochrane, in 1825, it had assumed the form of an inveterate social disease. Many able-bodied applicants for relief were provided with work in public employments, and the wholesome warning was added that those who refused such work would under no circumstances be entitled to relief. Governor Cochrane did not shrink from indicating the real cause of the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... deserted: no horsemen spurred Along the bridle path on the shore; the boats were few and far between, and held only servants or Indians or very old men. It was as Rolfe had said, and the free and able-bodied of the plantations had put out, posthaste, for matrimony. Chaplain's Choice appeared unpeopled; Piersey's Hundred slept in the sunshine, its wharf deserted, and but few, slow-moving figures in the tobacco fields; even the Indian villages looked scant of all but squaws and children, for ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the women, children, aged and sick should be left in the city, while the able-bodied men cut a way through the battalions of their besiegers. On these non-combatants it was hoped that the Spaniard would have mercy—as though the Spaniard could have mercy, he who afterwards dragged the wounded and the ailing to the door of the hospital ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... even key: "An', Mr. Sheriff, if there's any disquiet in your mind about your ability to take this prisoner into custody, an' hold him securely in such custody, the co'te instructs you that you are empowered by law to call into service as your posse every able-bodied man in the jurisdiction of this county.... Moreover, Mr. Sheriff, the co'te suggests that when you get ready to summons this posse—an' it had ought to be right here an' now—you call me fer the fust man to serve on it, an' that you call Hump Doane and Parish Thornton fer ther ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... number of lives lost from this town, but few of the bodies have been recovered. It is directly above the ruins and the bodies have floated down into them, where they burned. A walk through the town revealed a desolate sight. Only about twenty-five able-bodied men have survived and are able to render any assistance. Men and women can be seen with black eyes, bruised faces ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the point of Islandmagee, although her approach had been made known to Spender by signal at dusk. There were about five hundred motor vehicles assembled at Larne alone, and such an invasion of flaring head-lights gave the inhabitants of the little town unwonted excitement. Practically all the able-bodied men of the place were either on duty as Volunteers or were willing workers in the landing of the arms. The women stood at their doors and gave encouraging greeting to the drivers; many of them ran improvised canteens, which supplied ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... "Here I am complaining, and just look at her! A stout, able-bodied man that will grumble over a mistake or two with a sight like that before his eyes ain't worth the powder and lead that it would take to kill him. Look what she's took on her young shoulders, and goes about with a constant smile and song on her red lips. Yes, Dixie Hart shall be ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... demoralized the drunken barrier. Skilfully directed into the heart of the crowd at the door-way, then into the ruck and tumult within, it first cleared a passage, then, torrent-like, swept away into it, tumbling and swearing and cursing, but going, the last able-bodied invader of saloon sanctity, bestowing upon its foul interior the first thorough washing it ever received, driving the despoilers before it with the force of a battering-ram, yet even then, unsatisfied, following up its victory. With perhaps half ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... able-bodied men were standing in a line from the well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the depths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body, made fast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was leaning over the opening, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... they say) they can find no employment. They look for work where it can not be had. They seem to be, or they are, unable to do such as abundantly confronts and solicits them. Suppose these to average but one million able-bodied persons, and that their work is worth but one dollar each per day; our loss by involuntary idleness can not be less than $300,000,000 per annum. I judge that it is actually $500,000,000. Many who stand waiting to be hired could earn ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... service was introduced, while the condition imposed by Napoleon that the army should not exceed 42,000 men was practically evaded by replacing each body of 42,000 men by another of the same size as soon as the first was fairly versed in military affairs. In this way every able-bodied male Prussian was in preparation for an expected War ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... were all used as prisons. The great fire in September; the scarcity of provisions; and the cruel conduct of the Provost Marshal all combined to produce intense sufferings among the men, most of whom entered into captivity, strong, healthy, young, able-bodied, the flower of the American ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... not come handy just now, seeing that Sir George is off with the King, and all the money and plate with him and most of the able-bodied servants, but I'm the more bound to ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the route, the country was astir with volunteers, and the war is all that seems to be alive, and even that doubtfully so. Nevertheless, the country certainly shows a good spirit, the towns offering everywhere most liberal bounties, and every able-bodied man feels an immense pull and pressure upon him to go to the war. I doubt whether any people was ever actuated by a more genuine and disinterested public spirit; though, of course, it is not unalloyed with baser motives and tendencies. We met ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had grown gray and enfeebled in the service of the family, and were kept on by the present mistresses, who themselves disliked any changes in their establishment, and who could hardly see their way to finding the wages that able-bodied servants would look to receive. So they lived in this very quiet fashion, surrounded by retainers almost as aged as themselves, and led on the whole a happy and a placid life. Petronella was proving of so much use that the burden of her maintenance ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of my own regiment sick and on duty in Beaufort, and Colonel Montgomery had as yet less than one hundred and fifty); but to hold it, and also to make forays up the river, certainly required a larger number. We came in part to recruit, but had found scarcely an able-bodied negro in the city; all had been removed farther up, and we must certainly contrive to follow them. I was very unwilling to have, as yet, any white troops under my command, with the blacks. Finally, however, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... de trouble is I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy, no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day—an' ever sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was open. An' des as soon as I felt like I could bring ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Mr. Rivers, "for they would walk into a trap. Some of these Indians have muskets and ammunition, and are therefore as well armed as our men. If many more of us were taken there would not be left able-bodied men enough to sail the sloop. 'Twould be better if they held off and waited for the Indians to take the initiative. My hope is that we will be able to treat with the savages for ransom,—that is, if the friar bears us no real ill will. ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... to the new Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores. Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach, and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates' nest at Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining inhabitants of the place, at the advice ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Arbroath were not slow to answer the summons. There were neither lifeboats nor mortar-apparatus in those days, but there were the same willing hearts and stout arms then as now, and in a marvellously short space of time, hundreds of the able-bodied men of the town, gentle and semple, were assembled on these wild cliffs, with torches, rope, etcetera; in short, with all the appliances for saving life that the philanthropy of the times had ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... possession of it, and they were still sufficiently strangers in London to suppose that seats were placed for the accommodation of the weary of all ranks and both sexes, and not merely for the benefit of nurse-maids and their charges, or of able-bodied tramps. The sisters prepared to talk over their own concerns and Redcross with the empressement of girls, to forget all about the moving crowd around them, and the grinding of that great mill of London in the traffic that is never ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... once—instinctively. What was a stout fellow, who at any rate looked as though he were still of military age, doing with nonsense of this sort, at four o'clock in the day, when England wanted every able-bodied man she possessed, either to fight for her or to work for her? At the same time the reflection passed rapidly through his mind that neither the man nor the name had come up—so far as he could remember—before the County Tribunal of which he ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Indians, and renewed his excursion to Palachocolas. There he found a fort erected at the lowest passage of the river, and forty-five miles from Savannah. Returning from this visit, as he entered Ebenezer he found eight of the most able-bodied men at work, with their minister Gronau, in constructing booths and tents against the arrival of the families. In furtherance of their labors, he laid out the town, and directed the carpenters, who had arrived also in obedience to his orders, to ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... men and women of the lower classes, much as men were pressed into naval service; paupers were handed over to the colonizing companies to be shipped to their settlements; repeatedly the prisons were emptied to provide colonists, and commissions were appointed, as in England in 1633, "to reprieve able-bodied persons convicted of certain felonies, and to bestow them to be used in discoveries and other foreign employments." [Footnote: Cal. of State Pap, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... was to cover as much likely country as we could, and to let the dogs have a good time. As I have before indicated, they were thoroughly doggy dogs, and interested in everything—except able-bodied lions. None of the stick-at-your-heels in their composition. They ranged far and wide through all sorts of cover, seeking what they could find in the way of porcupines, mongoose, hares, birds, cats, and whatever else should interest any healthy-minded dog. If there happened to be any lions in the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Tosti had been to Norway, to Harold Hardraade, and asked him why he had been fighting fifteen years for Denmark, when England lay open to him. And how Harold of Norway had agreed to come; and how he had levied one half of the able-bodied men in Norway; and how he was gathering a mighty fleet at Solundir, in the mouth of the Sogne Fiord. Of all this Hereward was well informed; for Tosti came back again to St. Omer, and talked big. But Hereward and ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley |
