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noun
Scarcity, Scarceness  n.  The quality or condition of being scarce; smallness of quantity in proportion to the wants or demands; deficiency; lack of plenty; short supply; penury; as, a scarcity of grain; a great scarcity of beauties. "A scarcity of snow would raise a mutiny at Naples." "Praise... owes its value to its scarcity." "The value of an advantage is enhanced by its scarceness."
Synonyms: Deficiency; lack; want; penury; dearth; rareness; rarity; infrequency.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scarcity" Quotes from Famous Books



... no scarcity of young fellows in olive drab. The place was thick with 'em. Squads were drillin' every way you looked, and out in the center of the field, where two or three hundred new ambulances were lined up, more squads were studyin' the insides of the motor, or practicin' loadin' in stretchers. Hundreds ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... have been at the bottom of an edict which was shortly issued. Nothing that I remember in Kem better illustrated the absolute power of the Pharaoh and the unrestrained enforcement of his merest whim. The edict referred to the scarcity of bread and the multitude of foreigners who were flocking to the city to secure it, and provided (ostensibly for the good of the Kemish people) that no man in the city of Kem should give bread or any sort of food to any ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... sometimes as if the enemy might walk over them into the fortress. So solidly frozen was the surface of the river that Murray sent cannon to the south shore across the ice to repel a menace from that quarter. There was scarcity of firewood and of provisions. Scurvy broke out in the garrison. Many hundreds died so that by the spring Murray had barely three thousand men fit ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... advancing, attempted to charge upon the left, but were received on that side with a well directed fire, which caused them to break and fly in great disorder. Had Gen. Marion's cavalry been present they might now have been cut to pieces; but scarcity of forage had induced him to quarter them at the distance of six miles. The enemy rallied and manoeuvred about in the old field for an hour, making several different feints of charging, but never coming in reach of Marion's fire, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... the mess that things were in, and partly because they told him he would have to make a speech that night, and he had to spend two of his hardearned dollars for the hire of a dress-suit. Here, as always, the scarcity of dollars was like a thorn in his flesh. He had been obliged to leave Corydon heart-broken at home, because he had not been able to lay by enough to bring her; he had to stay at a cheap hotel—cheaper even than any of the actors; and when Miss Lewis and Mr. Tapping ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... will increase more and more, so that the inhabitants of the famine stricken earth will feel scarcity more than they ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... was against all forms of servitude and tenantry and in the direction of the freehold; that is, the small farm owned outright and tilled by the possessor and his family. This was favored by natural circumstances and the spirit of the immigrants. For one thing, the abundance of land and the scarcity of labor made it impossible for the companies, the proprietors, or the crown to develop over the whole continent a network of vast estates. In many sections, particularly in New England, the climate, the stony soil, the hills, and the narrow valleys conspired to keep ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... either the rise in wages is universal or it is not universal. If not universal, it must be a case of accidental rise from mere scarcity of hands; which is the case of a rise in market value; and that is not the case of Mr. Ricardo, who is laying down the laws of natural value. It is, therefore, universal; but, if universal, the gloves ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... area," Lord Curzon says, "the famine conditions for the greater part of a year were intense. Outside it they extended with a gradually dwindling radius over wide districts which suffered much from loss of crops and cattle, if not from actual scarcity. In a greater or less degree in 1900-01 nearly one-fourth of the entire population of the Indian continent came within ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... The scarcity of laborers caused by the ravages of the Black Death caused a general strike for higher wages on the part of free workingmen, and also induced thousands of villeins to run away from their masters, in order to get work on their own account. The ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... established fact; already there were few fit men to be seen out of uniform. David Linton looked forward to a time when shortage of labour, coupled with the deadly work of the German submarines, should mean a shortage of food; and he and Norah set themselves to provide against that time of scarcity. Miss de Lisle and Philip Hardress entered into every plan, lending the help of brains as well as hands. The farm was put under intensive culture, and the first provision made for the future was that of fertilizers, which, ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... habitations were invented. The scarcity of wood in the group was a serious evil, and it was found indispensable to import that material. Parts of Rancocus Island were well wooded, there growing among other trees a quantity of noble yellow pines. Bigelow was sent across in ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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 ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... a curate preaching to an agricultural congregation at a harvest thanksgiving after a disastrous season, when the earth had not yielded much by way of increase, remarking that in such a time of scarcity we might be thankful that plenty of foreign corn would be available; good theology, perhaps, but ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... their records painfully show, did what they could to displace unworthy ministers, though they often failed through defect of law. In order to avoid the danger of having evil ministers fastened upon them, as well as from the scarcity of ministers, they made much use of lay-readers as substitutes.... The reading of the service and sermons in private families, which contributed so much to the preservation of an attachment to the Church in the same, was doubtless promoted by this ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... with the prescriptions of my compositions, free of cost, as an earnest of my sympathy and goodwill; and had the Government, seen fit to accept my proposal, the immediate effect would have been that these compounds, which at present, through reduced manufacture and the consequent great scarcity of chemicals (necessarily of the finest description and purity) are very costly, would have been brought by extensive and organized production within the reach of every citizen, removing at once that paramount difficulty of my system, so ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... "Out with thy tale, O Jamil!" and the poet begun:—Know, O Commander of the Faithful, I was desperately in love with a girl and used often to visit her, because she was my desire and delight of all the things of this world. After a while, her people removed with her, by reason of scarcity of pasture, and I abode some time without seeing her, till I grew restless for desire and longed for her sight and the flesh[FN128] urged me to journey to her. One night, I could hold out no longer; so I rose and saddling my she-camel, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... 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 effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... River to the Little Big Horn, on account of the scarcity of game, we did not anticipate any more trouble. Our runners had discovered that Crook had retraced his trail to Goose Creek, and we did not suppose that the white men would care to follow us ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... fishing, very often the large vessels also follow this practice on those not too frequent "fish days" (when conditions permit fishing "outside ") that intervene between the storms; and with the scarcity of fish in the markets usual to the season and the consequent better price for the catch, with ordinary fishing luck they are well ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich

... never been to Potsdam; which he figures as the abode of horrid cruelty, a kind of Tartarus on Earth;—where there is a dreadful scarcity of women, for one item; lamentable to one's moral feelings. Scarcity nothing like so great, even among the soldier-classes, as the Demon Newswriter imagines to himself; nor productive of the results ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... this wrote and sent a letter to apostate legion in which he affected to pardon them for revolting on account of the scarcity of the necessities of life, and did not seem to think it proper to view them with suspicion but conferred praise upon those who had accepted their leadership for the purpose of preventing any outrage due to lack of government ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... who had been educated at the same famous cloister of Cluny which had trained Gregory VII, thought that the time had come for action. The general state of Europe was far from satisfactory. The primitive agricultural methods of that day (unchanged since Roman times) caused a constant scarcity of food. There was unemployment and hunger and these are apt to lead to discontent and riots. Western Asia in older days had fed millions. It was an excellent field for the purpose ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... thee!" said the old woman, laying her palsied hand upon Vanslyperken's head. "It is not often I bless—I never did bless as I can recollect—I like cursing better. My blessing must be worth something, if it's only for its scarcity; and do you know why I bless thee, my Cornelius? Because—ha, ha, ha! because you are a murderer and a traitor, and you ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Canadian Reciprocity Treaty, since secured, will bring the products of the British North American colonies, free of duty, into competition with those of the United States, when prices, with us, rule high, and tend to diminish their cost; but in the event of scarcity in Europe, or of foreign wars, the opposite results may occur, as our products, in such times, will pass, free of duty, through these colonies, into the foreign market. It is apparent, then, that nothing short of extended free labor cultivation, far distant from the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... the throne of Mexico, Guatimotzin had been prince or cacique of Iztapalapa, the people of which place were determined enemies to us and our allies[3]. We had been now twelve days in Tezcuco, where the presence of so large a force occasioned some scarcity of provisions, and even our allies began to grow somewhat impatient of our inactivity. From all these considerations, Cortes determined upon an expedition to Iztapalapa, against which place he marched at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... expected, from former experience, to afford considerable pleasure at the close of the journey, in the shape of one or two pellets of butter in each bottle; the novelty of the phenomenon, and not any scarcity of the article, constituting the ground of interest. A baby on the lap of a rosy country-girl, and the servant in his blue Sunday coat, who sits outside the cover on the edge of the cart, but looks in occasionally to show some attention ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... for she sent him a small supply of powder. The men of the little colony, which had begun so pretentiously with its constitution and assembly, were now obliged to put all other plans aside and to concentrate on the question of food and defense. There was a dangerous scarcity of powder and lead. The nearest points at which these necessaries could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River settlements, which were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and Logan, some time in 1777, reached the Watauga fort with three or four packhorses ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... bounteous supply of the productions which annually bless our favored land. The vast invading army of the enemy, soon to be driven with disaster out of the loyal States, will have made no serious impression upon the abundance of our overflowing stores. There may be some scarcity of labor to secure the maturing crops, but we shall still supply all our own wants abundantly, leaving a large surplus for shipment abroad, and even for meeting the necessities of our suffering brethren in the South, when they shall have utterly failed in their wicked purpose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... twenty-two men, and with one hundred and 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; but some of the poor wretches, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Race meetings and the various social gatherings connected with them are among the most important resources of the planter's life. H——'s nearest European neighbours were seven miles away, and he said that he could seldom entertain visitors at Tji Wangi, because of the scarcity of game in the neighbourhood. Indeed, the loneliness of the life is its great objection. The case of the Dutch planters is rather different. They are often married, and with their managers, form quite a little society of their ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... time of the war, and perhaps till its close, the history of New Bedford and the whaling industry was identical. But the discovery of petroleum, the scarcity of whales, and at the same time the low price of oil, necessitated an entirely new field for the capital and energy so long devoted to whaling. For a period of ten years or so the city was in a transition ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various

... of the coins at the end of each king's reign, in "Rapin's History of England;" and upon comparing these impressions with the coins found by the orphans, she perceived that many of them were of the reign of Henry the Seventh, which, from their scarcity, were ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... the poorest, only those who are without expectations and without means, devote themselves to it, for the very reason that this calling offers a less brilliant prospect than any other? Be that as it may, the very scarcity of virtuous and learned priests arouses all the more within me the desire to be a priest. I would not willingly let self-love deceive me. I recognize all my defects, but I feel within me a true vocation, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... speak a word in season to him that is weary," when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth; for some of these press, most sensibly, on the poor. Such is the character of the dispensation symbolized by the "black horse." Scarcity of bread is the judgment represented here by the combined symbols. "Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine." (Lam. v. 10; Zech. vi. 2.)—The rider "had a pair of balances in his hand." The word translated "balances," literally rendered, signifies ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... been effected at 3.30 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 ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the Conqueror's palace, adjoining the abbey of St. Stephen. The resemblance between them is so great, that it would be difficult to believe that they are of very different dates. But the palace was unquestionably the production of more than one aera; and in the scarcity of materials for the forming of a correct opinion upon the subject, it is impossible to say, whether the door in question may not have been inserted some time after its erection, or even whether the ornamental part may not ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... illustration. Is the Englishman prepared to admit that the American is his superior as a human being? I ask this question because the scarcity of labor in America relatively to the demand for it has led to a development of machinery there, and a consequent "increase of command over Nature" which makes many of our English methods appear almost ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... responsibility, but were not less occupied; for, not to mention the other peoples who, as I have said, resort to this port, the Bissayans alone kept six fathers so busy during Lent that the people hardly left them alone by day or by night. Nevertheless, so great is the need, and at the same time the scarcity, of the bread of divine truth, for lack of those who may distribute it, that many people dwelling very near the city die in this hunger and cannot be assisted; for although the right reverend bishop of Sebu and the few priests who are under him do much, and the fathers ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... is, and will continue to be, a great grazing country; for nearly all of its vast area is fit for live stock, though in large regions the proportion of stock to the acre must remain small, owing to the scarcity of feed. It will therefore continue to export wool, goats' hair, and hides in large quantities, and may also export meat, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... in England. Some years ago a disease manifested itself in most of the plantations, which, not being understood by the growers, was not remedied (in fact, is not generally understood and remedied at the present time), the acreage under cultivation decreased, and, partly owing to this and a scarcity occasioned by a failure in the crop, the price of the oil rapidly rose from 50s. to 200s. per lb. Consequently, with the continually increasing demand and the continued rise in price, manufacturers of lavender water and of compound perfumes in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... and danger, had neither bent nor despaired beneath the merciless blows which "the dire African" dealt her in rapid succession at Trebia, at Thrasymene, and at Cannae. Her population was thinned by repeated slaughter in the field; poverty and actual scarcity wore down the survivors, through the fearful ravages which Hannibal's cavalry spread through their corn-fields, their pasture-lands, and their vineyards; many of her allies went over to the invader's side; and new clouds of foreign war threatened her from Macedonia and Gaul. But Rome receded ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... problem to the slaveholding group. It is noticeable that from the year 1798 until 1835 there was not sufficient pressure upon the State legislature to increase the reward to the captor of a runaway. It is further evident from the scarcity of contemporary advertisements that there were comparatively few Negroes who ventured forth from the neighborhood of their masters. But with the rise of the anti-slavery movement in the North and the growth of abolition sentiment as expressed by the apostles ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... From the middle of the base of this panel a little cypress grew, which remained the same size for generations. The country people believed that its growth was due to the wonder-working power of the saint, and that its colour foretold scarcity or a fruitful year. When I was there the second time, in 1906, the podesta told me it had died. The sea gate is also Renaissance; from the jambs still hang the ancient doors thickly studded with iron nails, and behind the door is a S. Mark's lion with the book closed, though they ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... mountainous sections. They were shy and not easy to take, but we captured a few of some varieties. Some members of the party demonstrated that fishing was good in the Rocky Mountain streams. Naturally the men were hopeful of securing specimens of the larger game, but our lack of experience and scarcity of proper equipment for the purpose were against the chance, though not to the extent ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... with a frown, "the scarcity we suffer from is due to the unprincipled buyers and speculators who starve the people and connive with our foes over the border to render the Republic odious to the citizens and to destroy liberty. This comes of the Brissotins' plots and the traitorous dealings of your Petions ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... food; that they had consumed their winter store of dryed fish and that those of the present season had not yet arrived. I could not learn wheather they took the Sturgeon but presume if they do it is in but small quantities as they complained much of the scarcity of food among them. they informed us that the nations above them were in the same situation & that they did not expect the Salmon to arrive untill the full of the next moon which happens on the 2d of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... ability excel others in the number and quality of their habits in the field in which they show power. As the little child differs from the adult in the number and quality of his habits, so the ordinary layman differs from the expert. It is scarcity, not abundance, of habits that forces a man into a rut and keeps him mediocre. Just as the three year old, having taken four or five times as long as the adult to dress himself, is tired out at the end of the task, so the amateur in literature or music or morals as compared ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... delayed by calms and contrary winds that it cost us nine days to regain the westing which, when we stood to the eastward, we ran down in two. In this desponding condition, with a crazy ship, a great scarcity of water, and a crew so universally diseased that there were not above ten foremast men in a watch capable of doing duty, and even some of these lame and unable to go aloft; under these disheartening circumstances, I say, we stood to the westward; and on the ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... I left home was one of the longest and hardest that had been for several years (1680). It was followed with extreme scarcity, which proved to me an occasion of exercising charity. My mother-in-law joined me heartily and appeared to me so much changed. I could not but be both surprised and overjoyed at it. We distributed at the house ninety-six dozen loaves ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... their Sins and Wickedness, the many Warnings that they had received to repent, and God's long Forbearance, as well as great Mercy, in not having totally destroy'd them long ago. He represented their Wants, and Scarcity of Provision, as a certain Token of the Divine Wrath, and shew'd them plainly, that labouring already under the Weight of his Displeasure, they had no Reason to think, that God would connive longer ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... rendered still more revolting by the frequent bodily infirmities which everywhere meet the eye: among these elephantiasis, causing horrible club-feet, is especially conspicuous; there is, too, no scarcity of persons afflicted with blindness and other ills. Even the cats and dogs, that run about the gutters in great numbers, partake of the universal ugliness: most of them are covered with the mange, or are full of wounds and sores. I should like ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... of which the root is eaten, and sometimes the leaves; and a plant called Theve, of which the root also is eaten: But the fruits of the Nono, the fern, and the Theve, are eaten only by the inferior people, and in times of scarcity. All these, which serve the inhabitants for food, the earth produces spontaneously, or with so little culture, that they seem to be exempted from the first general curse, that "man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow." They have also the Chinese paper mulberry, morus papyrifera, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... the circuit of a few miles, above eight hundred shafts have been made, but they have not been found sufficiently productive to encourage extensive mining works. The difficulties which impede mine-working in these parts are caused chiefly by the dearness of labor and the scarcity of fuel. There being a total want of wood, the only fuel that can be obtained consists of the dried dung of sheep, llamas, and huanacus. This fuel is called taquia. It produces a very brisk and intense flame, and most of ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... plate of a battery ions go into solution and electrons are left behind. At the other end of the battery positive ions are crowded out of solution and join the plate where they cause a scarcity of electrons; that is, make the plate positive. If a wire is connected between the two plates, electrons will stream through it from the negative plate to the positive; and this stream is a current ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills

... spell that brought the wolves in such unheard-of numbers, and the peasant maintaining that it was a judgment on our desecration of Christmas-eve. For my own part, I think the long storm, and a great scarcity of food had something to do with it, for tales of the kind were never wanting in our province. The wolf-gathering, however, saved us a journey to Siberia: thanks to old Wenzel. And sometimes yet, when any strange ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... the men declare that they had worked like horses, and that it was hard upon them now to see their children starve like dogs. For in this earlier part of the famine the people did not seem to realize the fact that this scarcity and want had come from God. Though they saw the potatoes rotting in their own gardens, under their own eyes, they still seemed to think that the rich men of the land could stay the famine if they would; that the fault was with them; that the famine could be put down if the rich would but stir themselves ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... of course," replied Julien, sarcastically, "from what you said to me, there is no scarcity here of girls inclined to be good-natured, and you have only the trouble of choosing among them. I supposed you were courting some woodman's young daughter, or some pretty ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... characterised the "hotel," had unaccountably toned down. In fact, burly old Alvord, the consular interpreter, who had been accustomed to expostulate with Tom for the number of prostrate figures, redolent of bad rum, lying outside on the path in the early morning, showing by the scarcity of their attire that they had been "gone through" by thieving natives, expressed the opinion that Tom was either going mad, or "was getting consairned" about ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... transportation resulted in a scarcity of drugs for the army hospitals even while druggists in other areas resorted to advertising in order to sell their stocks. Some relief came from British prize ships captured by the American navy and privateers, but the chaotic condition of drug supply was ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen

... all this was to recommend to me rather the bestowing my fortune upon some eminent merchant, who lived already in the first figure of a merchant, and who, not being in want or scarcity of money, but having a flourishing business and a flowing cash, would at the first word settle all my fortune on myself and children, and maintain me like ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... born after his father became a bishop, and many infidel writers have made use of the story for their own malicious purposes. But if it was so, the Church may have allowed such a departure from her law, at a time of great emergency and in a scarcity of pastors. But the most probable thing is that nothing of the kind happened—" he drew himself up with decision—"that the father of St. Gregory had separated from his wife before he became a bishop—and that those writers who record ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 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. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... Lakes, though less violent than the typhoons of the Indian Ocean or the hurricanes of the Atlantic, are still very dangerous to mariners; and, owing to the want of sea-room, and the scarcity of good harbors, shipwrecks are but too common, and frequently attended with much loss of life. A short, ugly sea gets up very quickly after the wind begins to blow hard, and subsides with equal celerity when the wind ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... scarcity in Germany, a certain rich man invited twenty poor children to his house, and said to them, "In this basket there is a loaf of bread for each of you; take it, and come again every day at this hour until ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... of Brebeuf, spent the winter of 1625-26 at the convent of the Recollets, no doubt enduring privation, as at that time there was a scarcity of food in the colony. Brebeuf, eager to study the Indians in their homes, joined a party of Montagnais hunters and journeyed with them to their wintering grounds. He suffered much from hunger and cold, and from the insanitary conditions under which he was compelled ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... The scarcity of my late friend's poem may be an excuse for adding the spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin's vow. The Clan Gregor has met in the ancient church of Balquidder. The head of Drummond-Ernoch is placed on the altar, covered for a time with the banner of the tribe. The Chief of the ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... of his life of forty-four years, besides pursuing his favorite branch, he obtained a very considerable knowledge of the kindred sciences and of astronomy. Being obliged to sell his watch in a time of scarcity, he made for himself a pocket sun-dial, by which he could tell the time to ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... these forts into as good a condition of defense as is possible with the few men that I have. For never were there fewer Spaniards in these islands; since, if occasion should arise, I have not twenty men with whom I could reenforce any fortress, without creating a notable scarcity in the others. It cannot be less, since last year only thirty soldiers came, whom I brought; while in the two companies of this year have come forty-six. A like number of sick and crippled men have gone to that city [of Manila]; while there are others here who have died; and many are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... distributed about among my clothes and in my drawers, so as to erect between my whims and the spending of a five-franc piece a thorny barrier of search, and an adventurous peregrination round my room. While I as dressing, I dived about for my money in an ocean of papers. This scarcity of specie will give you some idea of the value of that squandered upon gloves and cab-hire; a month's bread disappeared at one fell swoop. Alas! money is always forthcoming for our caprices; we only grudge the cost of things that ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... claimed with confidence for the "Keeyuga" that it is the cheapest and most practical cookery book ever sold. What is wanted in these days of scarcity of domestic help is a cookery book that will serve in an emergency, one that contains well-tried, reliable recipes that can be depended upon; these are to be found in the "Keeyuga," as well as all the recipes necessary ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... have saved France. For then, Germany could have had the freedom of the seas. Her navy would have sent the French into harbor, closing not only every French, but every Russian port to the entrance of supplies and munitions, which would have meant food scarcity in France, and utter scarcity of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... Northern energy, endurance, and patient discipline began to tell, and the time soon arrived when the Southern cavalry were invariably driven, especially in sabre charges, to which Southerners have great aversion. At present, on account of the scarcity of horses, the difficulty of supplying forage, and the loss of so many gay youths of the chivalry, the Southern, cavalry has dwindled into such a condition as to be no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... tenancy just noted. The man whose chief concern is to get the most out of the land, at the least expense, in two or three years, will not treat his labourers so well—nor the land so well—as will the man who means to spend his life on the farm; and therefore the labourers will not stay. This scarcity of labour may be met to some extent by an increased use of machinery; but it is more likely to lead to poorer cultivation, which means the depopulation of agricultural districts. England and Ireland furnish too many examples of the rural decay immortalised in ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... of a wine-house, purchased each a copy, whilst the village schoolmaster secured the rest for the little ones beneath his care, lamenting, at the same time, the great difficulty he had long experienced in obtaining religious books, owing to their scarcity and extravagant price. Many other persons were also anxious to purchase Testaments, but Lopez was unable to supply them: at his departure, they requested him to return ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... the food problem but the people's hope was centred upon the next harvest. In April and May the submarine issue and the American crisis turned public attention from food to politics. From July to October the Somme battles kept the people's minds centred upon military operations. While the scarcity of food became greater the Government, through inspired articles in the press, informed the people that the harvest was so big that there would be ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... answering his own question. "Some of the women are shedding tears. But they are all hopeful. They have heard that in the promised land there is plenty of work, high wages, enough to eat, and, what is far better, opportunity to rise. In Italy there is scarcity of work, low wages, a chunk of black bread, and nothing better to look forward ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches, without weakening or too much disheartening; and, in that case, the longer she lives the better she will grow. A hopeful point in all her writings is the scarcity of false French sentiment; I wish I could say its absence; but the weed flourishes here and there, even in ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Barclay for the post of commander-in-chief, refused to adopt this course, and fell back towards Moscow, followed by the French. The sufferings of the latter had already become severe—the nights were getting very cold, the scarcity of food was considerable, the greater part of the army was already subsisting on horse-flesh, the warm clothing, which was becoming more and more necessary, was far in the rear, their shoes were worn out, and it was only the thought that they would have a long ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... troops in Jamaica proved to be very discouraging material, and the army was soon in a wretched state. The officers and soldiers plundered and mutinied instead of working and planting. Their wastefulness led to scarcity of food, and scarcity of food brought disease and death.[139] They wished to force the Protector to recall them, or to employ them in assaulting the opulent Spanish towns on the Main, an occupation far more lucrative than that of planting ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... sent 3,000,000 roubles' worth of manufactured goods into Russia, and in May 2,500,000 roubles' worth. And the Allied Press was then descanting on the stagnation in German trade and the starvation of the German people. The explanation of this anomaly lies in the unforeseen and enormous scarcity and rise of prices in the home markets. Some metal wares—for instance, various kinds of instruments and of wire appliances, etc.—are not to be had in Russia for love or money, consequently a hundred per cent. duty is but a heavy tax paid by ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... who only have to give an occasional order. They have also plenty of conversation on other than local subjects, though there are no circulating libraries within reach, and the supply of books and newspapers must necessarily be limited. It may be that this scarcity leads them to study the volumes which they ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... 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 ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison

... impetus will be given to farming operations in general. At present there are only about 220 acres under cereal cultivation, whilst its inhabitants number over 70,000! Although there are no trees, as before said, there is no scarcity of flowers, indeed the flora is particularly rich, in some instances being composed of specimens not found elsewhere. Often for miles the ground is thickly carpeted with the most beautiful mountain and Arctic flowers, sometimes nestling ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... nutriment as meat-biscuit or Arctic pemmican, came the glory of the repast, a mighty sterlet, which was swimming in Volga water when we took our seats at the table. This fish, the exclusive property of Russia, is, in times of scarcity, worth its weight in silver. Its unapproachable flavor is supposed to be as evanescent as the hues of a dying dolphin. Frequently, at grand dinner-parties, it is carried around the table in a little tank, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... scarcity of polemical athletes and the relative plenty of the Miss Susie Goldrick kind of teachers, apparently called into being the Berean Lesson Leaf system, with its Bible cut up into lady-bites of ten or ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... mending the fire in the Superior's room, when a priest was conversing with her on the scarcity of money; and I heard him say, that very little money was received by the priests for prayers, but that the principal part came with ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... a few days before and I was thinking of turning the acquaintance to immediate account for the fulfilment of my wish. The next morning, therefore, I buttoned a whole ream of paper—of which there was never a scarcity in our home—under my coat, and went to the office. In order not to betray myself, I kept my armor with great personal inconvenience upon my body until, toward noon, I knew from the going and coming of my colleagues and from the sound of the munching jaws that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the technicalities of engineering, but I saw enough of this work to be certain that it was well and truly done, and I heard enough of the scarcity of water in Cadiz to be convinced it will be a great boon when finished. The reservoirs are constructed in colonnades, supported by ashlar pillars and roofed with rubble; for the water must be shaded from the sun in this hot climate; the pillars are buttered over with cement, and there is over ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... evidence. The Gentleman was, I remember, very sorry that the old books of the Jews were lost, which would, as he supposes, have set forth all this matter; and I agree with him, that he has much reason to be sorry, considering his great scarcity of proof. And since I have mentioned this, that I may not be to return to it again, I would ask the Gentleman now, how he knows there ever were such books? And since, if ever there were any, they are lost, how he knows what they contained? I ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... decrease in the amount of specie in circulation, partly because so much moved to the Orient in payment for luxuries, and partly because the few mines in western Europe went out of use during the period of the invasions. The scarcity of money, as has been shown, [17] helped directly to build up the feudal system, since salaries, wages, and rents could be paid only in personal services or in produce. The money supply increased during the latter part of the Middle Ages, but it did not become ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... brought away two natives of that island, who had most earnestly entreated the captain to take them off, and leave them upon any other land he pleased, as, according to their statement, Tucopea was so overstocked with inhabitants that it was scarcely possible to find subsistence; and the scarcity of food had become so general, that parents destroyed their children rather than witness their sufferings from famine. Captain Kent, therefore, from motives of compassion, received them on board his ship; and, not having touched at any inhabited spot, brought them with him here. ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... that village 6 dayes, we have seene horrible cruelties committed. Three of us resolved to turne back to our fort, which was 5 miles off. We brought above 100 women, hurron slaves & others, all loadened with corne. We weare allwayes in scarcity for pollicy, though we had enough, ffor certainty is farre better then the incertainry. Before we departed this base place we received [news] that the hurron who was saved by the consent of the rest in the Isle of Massacre, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... crying for water—for, in consequence of the discovery that had been made, their morning's allowance had not yet been served to them; and water was always the thing they seemed most to covet and desire. Its scarcity was to them their greatest grief. Even at that moment, as I passed the hatchway, I could hear them calling for "water—water," some in their native tongue, and others—in hopes of being better understood—in that language best-known along the African ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else—in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer; but in the only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the mistress of his study; and, from her teaching, all the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... Louis, from which point, without obstruction or transshipment, the river is navigable to Fort Benton, situated almost in the center of the territory, a distance of more than twenty-five hundred miles. Here, too, there is a large and constant supply of water, a matter of great difficulty and scarcity in other mining districts. As the range of the Rocky Mountains in this vicinity does not present that broken and rugged character which marks the other ranges, the land is especially adapted for agricultural purposes, and timber of all kinds abounds ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... destroyed, batteries erected in strong positions, everything prepared to impede their progress. Our story needs not that we should dwell upon the sufferings of the Union soldiers on that futile expedition, from the narrow, dusty roads, the frequent scarcity of water, the intense heat. With infinite fatigue and peril they advanced only five or six miles in a day's march. Many died of sunstroke, and many fell by the way utterly exhausted. There was occasional skirmishing; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... But this scarcity of marine objects is not confined to those primary mountains, as they are called; for among the most horizontal strata, or those of the latest production, there are many in which, it is commonly thought, no marine calcareous ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... a later portion of this work, these animals are nevertheless often captured by Deadfalls and other devices, which are well known to the professional Trapper, and which serve excellently in cases of emergency, or in the scarcity of ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... the exalted capacity of pilot or guide. He led the way, and the other two followed as close to his heels as possible. In this manner they finally found themselves as close to the cottage as circumstances and a scarcity ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... supplied by the Germans, these men would literally have died like flies.... Lord Beresford and other noble lords had been rather prone to ignore the fact that Germany was a blockaded country. It was common knowledge that there was a general scarcity of food throughout Germany, and, if the prisoners did not get as much as they ought to have, in all probability the vast majority of the German population was in a state of comparative hunger.... ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... dog's flesh as an article of luxury, and not from any want or scarcity of other animal food; for they have the bear, buffalo, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... do not think that all the inconveniences this will produce are yet observed; for as they sell the cattle dear, so if they are consumed faster than the breeding countries from which they are brought can afford them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; and by these means this your island, which seemed as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few persons; besides this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much as they can; and what ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... for Winter's future sorrow, Its gloom and scarcity; Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... his writings of painting in their true colors. This official had been in the habit of having his horse fed at the Mercado home when he visited their town from his station in Binan, but once there was a scarcity of fodder and Mr. Mercado insisted that his own stock was entitled to care before he could extend hospitality to strangers. This the official bitterly resented. His opportunity for revenge soon came, and was not overlooked. A disagreement between Jose Alberto, the mother's brother in Binan, ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... and delirious fancies prevailed as to the conduct of other nations. All the most natural effects of a violent revolution—the depreciation of the assignats, the disturbance of trade, the consequent scarcity of food—were ascribed by frantic rhetoricians to the guineas of Pitt, whose very limited amount of secret-service money was quite inadequate to the performance of such wonders. When a foreign nation has given offence, it is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... would be better to say "showing it up." It had not justified its survival in our efficient days, it had held out—thanks to Perry—with absurd and anachronous persistence against the inevitable consolidation. Mr. Tallant's newspaper had published many complaints of the age and scarcity of the cars, etc.; and alarmed holders of securities, in whose vaults they had lain since time immemorial, began to sell.... I saw little of Perry in those days, as I have explained, but one day I met him in the Hambleton Building, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... was a mystery to him, for he had fully expected hostilities would commence, every moment, for the last two hours. Nor was he yet absolutely out of danger, though there was time to pause and look about him, and to take his succeeding measures more deliberately. The first report was a scarcity of both food and water. For both these essentials the men had depended on the wreck, and, in the eagerness to secure the foremast, and subsequently to take care of themselves, these important requisites had been overlooked, quite probably, too, as much ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge; he became Master of the latter in 1642-3. Dean of Peterborough 1661. He was very hospitable and liberal. He did not hesitate in years of scarcity (after he had exhausted his own stores of provisions) to buy corn which he gave away to the poor day by day. He died in 1684, and was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley

... westward way, Brown led a small company over the Carson route. In the Sierras, September 6, he met the first returning detachment of Battalion soldiers. To them he delivered letters from the First Presidency telling of the scarcity of food in the Salt Lake Valley. Sam Brannan, leader at San Francisco, had passed, going westward, only the day before, giving a gloomy account of the new home of the Saints. So about half the Battalion men turned back to Sutter's Fort, presumably with Brown. Brown returned from Los ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... of An. Engl. Poet. ii. 143. ed. 1794, is probably the composition of Deloney, as it is found in more than one of his publications. In 1596, had he not eluded the search of the Mayor of London, he would have been punished for writing "a certain Ballad, containing a Complaint of great Want and Scarcity of Corn within the Realm ... bringing in the Queen speaking with her People Dialogue-wise, in very fond and undecent sort," &c., Stow's Survey, B. v. 333. ed. 1720, where he is described as "an idle Fellow, and one noted with ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp

... which only lacerate and lame him; till at last, after thousand attempts and endurances, he, as if by miracle, clears his way; not indeed into luxuriant and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky wilderness where existence is still possible, and Freedom, though waited on by Scarcity, is not without sweetness. In a word, Teufelsdrockh having thrown up his legal Profession, finds himself without landmark of outward guidance; whereby his previous want of decided Belief, or inward guidance, is frightfully aggravated. Necessity urges him on; Time ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... with the air of a respectable servant, her manners particularly pleasing. It appeared that she was the daughter of a first wife, and, after the period of schooling, had been at service, but had been lamed by a fall downstairs, and had been obliged to come home, just as scarcity of work had caused her father to leave his native parish, and seek employment at other quarries. She had hoped to obtain plain work, but all the family were dismayed and disappointed at the wild spot to which they had come, and anxiously ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... curiosities of the world's fair at St. Louis will be this tying and weaving of hemp. Then a still greater curiosity will be the making of pine-apple fiber. This manufacture has been sadly neglected and crippled by the war and its devastations. They have learned to mix in other fibers because of the scarcity of the pine-apple. I did not see this prepared at all; only secured with difficulty some of the good cloth. It is considered by the natives their very best and finest fabric. They spend much time on its embroidery and their exquisite work ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... some fourteene dayes, we vvere brought to Cape S. ANTHONIE againe, thorough lacke of fauorable winde: but then our scarcity vvas growen such, as neede made vs looke a little better for vvater, vvhich vve found in sufficient quantitie, being in deede as I iudge, none other then raine vvater nevvly fallen, and gathered vp by making pittes in a plot of marrish ground, some three ...
— A Svmmarie and Trve Discovrse of Sir Frances Drakes VVest Indian Voyage • Richard Field

... the protective tariff, have since been purchased by Americans at a vast expense. Moreover, the money which used to be sent to England in payment for superfluous luxuries would be kept at home, to be there laid out in domestic improvements. Gold and silver, the scarcity of which caused great inconvenience in the colonies, would remain in the country. All these advantages would accrue from a course which at the same time must give rise in England itself to a pressure so extreme that Parliament could not long resist it. "The trading part of ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... pretences; others deprived of their property, and obliged to quit the kingdom. He insisted upon laying an imposition of two per cent, on all the Portuguese gold that should be exported; but the profits of the trade would not bear such an exaction. Meanwhile, there being a scarcity of corn in Portugal, the kingdom was supplied from England; and the people having nothing but gold to purchase this necessary supply, the king saw the necessity of conniving at the exportation of his coin, and the trade ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... one,—but I set it down with diffidence. The particulars are so striking that, had they been true, I almost think I must have heard them oftener referred to. Upon one point there seems to be no question: that the feast was sometimes furnished from within the clan. In times of scarcity, all who were not protected by their family connections—in the Highland expression, all the commons of the clan—had cause to tremble. It was vain to resist, it was useless to flee. They were begirt upon all hands by cannibals; and the oven was ready to smoke ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... others with an indignant sorrow which brought the tears to his eyes. For this reason he could not bear that ignorant homage should be given to men really unworthy of it. He said to me, once, speaking of a critic who blamed the scarcity of noble and lovable character in his novels,—"Other men can do that. I know what I can do best; and if I do good, it must be in my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... to the summit, the slopes being the favorite pasture-lands of the cattle. Generally no hay need be cut, as the grass cures standing, and keeps the cattle in as good condition all winter as if they were stall-fed. The only reason for putting up hay is to avoid a scarcity of feed in case of heavy snow. This very seldom happens, however, as very little snow falls in the Bad Lands. A curious fact with cattle is that the ones that have been here a year or two, and know ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... to suppose that, although the quality may be inferior to that of the old forest removed now, timber scarcity will make a second cut in sixty years equally profitable per acre. Therefore, if the area denuded annually at present were encouraged to reforest and protected, it should at the end of that period again yield $165,000,000 to ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... by tenors, who, being of course unable to give a true pattern to their pupils, treated the female organ according to their own very different registers, then it can easily be understood that many voices must have been ruined by the process, and the scarcity of distinguished female singers would thus be satisfactorily accounted for. But I fail to see in what way the disappearance of male soprani and contralti could possibly ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... the old yew-tree, and Jerry sat trembling, with his eyes upon the castle, while the black horse, roped to a branch, was mourning the scarcity of oats and the abundance ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... father of the late Marquis of Sligo endeavoured to preserve the breed, his kennels in latter years exhibited but a scanty specimen. These majestic and beautiful animals are now, I believe, quite extinct in Ireland, where their scarcity is accounted for by Mr. Pennant as 'the consequence of the late King of Poland having procured from thence by his agents as many as could be purchased.' The last notice taken of the Irish wolf-dog in fictitious narrative may, I believe, be found in one of ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... again great scarcity in every corner of the land; and one night the children overheard their stepmother saying to their father, "Everything is again consumed; we have only half a loaf left, and then the song is ended: the children ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... memory. The first step in a new, and, as it ultimately proved, the right direction, was the borrowing of a character already in use to represent another word identical in sound, though different in meaning. Owing to the scarcity of vocables noted above, there might be as many as ten different words in common use, each pronounced fang. Out of those ten only one, we will suppose, had a character assigned to it—namely [Ch] "square" (originally said to be a picture of two boats joined together). ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... they would not be displaced without an obstinate battle; and, disappointed of victory, the King of Prussia began to listen to proposals of peace sent to him by Dumouriez. [20] A week spent in negotiation served only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the scarcity and sickness within the German camp. Dissensions broke out between the Prussian and Austrian commanders; a retreat was ordered; and to the astonishment of Europe the veteran forces of Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and unknown generals ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... to plough it and sow it, and harrow it and water it, to lay the sickle to the ripe corn if so be that their serfdom falls in the years of plenty and the ear is full, to eat the bread of tears, if their season of servitude be required of them in a time of scarcity and famine. Bondsmen of death, from birth, they are sent forth out of the sublime silence of the pathless forest which hems in the open glebe land of the present and which is eternity, past and to come; bondsmen of death, from youth to age, they join in the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... 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. Such an individual was not easy to find, for in the region in which I lived ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... were 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 ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... Lord Methuen's disposal insufficient numerically, but their horses were already worn out by the heavy reconnaissance duty, which had of necessity been carried out by them day after day without relief, under the adverse conditions of a sandy soil, great heat, and a scarcity of water. The results of this deficiency in mounted men were far-reaching. Not only did the enemy avoid paying the material penalties of successive failures on the battlefield, but his moral was stiffened by these ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... alive at the time of the dissolution of the company were to continue their labor either on the public land or on private associations. In practice, however, it is likely that lax enforcement of the contracts resulted in a substantial diminution of the obligations of many workers. The scarcity of records for this period makes it impossible to trace all of this group, but there is enough evidence to indicate that some continued to serve out their term of labor. The General Court in 1627 expressed concern about ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.

... explain the source from which nearly all the artificial coloring matters are derived, viz., gas tar; showing the principal products of this wonderful, complex mixture, of which one is anthracine. Alizarine manufacturers originally found scarcity of anthracine; at present the supply is in excess of the demand, and the price during the last 18 months has fallen from 3s. 6d. to 1s. per unit, and the probabilities are that the supply will increase. The quantity of gas tar now obtained the lecturer estimated at 500,000 tons ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... years' smelting. Some new deposit was discovered in the river Daguao, but it does not seem to have been of much importance. From the year 1530 the reports of the crown officers are full of complaints of the growing scarcity of gold; finally, in 1536, the last remittance was made; not, it may be safely assumed, because there was no more gold in the island, but because those who had labored and suffered in its production, had succumbed to the unaccustomed hardships imposed on them ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... each other's throat for the pleasure of accompanying me against a set of savages that are little better than so many devils. Come, Johnstone, you know the Colonel allows us but one sub. at a time, in consequence of our scarcity of officers, therefore it is but fair Leslie should have his turn. It will not be long, I dare say, before we shall have another brush ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... are," he says, "many other creatures in the sea which it is not possible to arrange in any class from their scarcity" ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... the footlights; in short, these Spaniards are sometimes extraordinarily demonstrative. A furore has sometimes cost these caballeros large sums of money. But we are describing the past rather than the immediate present, for the scarcity of pecuniary means has put an end to nearly all such extravagances. The Havanese are peculiar in their tastes. While Miss Adelaide Phillips was more than once the recipient of extravagant favors on the Tacon Theatre stage, Jenny Lind did not pay her professional ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... no other country which has more to give than Canada in the shape of discipline; of that kind of mental, moral, and physical tonic which makes for swift, sure character-development, and the stiffening and bracing of the human fibers. In English life there has been of late years a rather serious scarcity of this tonic influence. Canada is very rich in her supply of it; but the tonic is too potent for the use ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... and perhaps the most brilliant sovereign of the thirteenth century, endeavored to protect the Jews,[27] but was finally compelled, by the clamor of his subjects, to expel the unfortunate race from his domains. He, however, permitted the exiles to take their wealth with them; and the scarcity thus created was one of the contributing causes which compelled him to promise his parliaments not to lay taxes without their consent. It was by this power to control the purse of king and country ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... 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 ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... mechanism of the other, brought up in a land of plenty. Now if this difference of shape will make a difference in the performance of the animal, it will be just the same thing in its consequences, whether this imperfection of shape be produced by scarcity of foot, or entailed by the laws of nature; if so, does it signify whether the colt be got by Turk, Barb, or what kind of blood his dam be of? or where shall we find one certain proof of the efficacy of blood in any Horse produced ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer

... found the exercise of the art of hunting more difficult than ever before, one that needed a new development of courage, cunning, alertness, and endurance, the scarcity of animals obliging him to make long journeys and attack the strongest creatures. Whether or not he possessed the poisoned arrow, which the Pygmies now find so effective, cannot be said, but in all probability he was forced to invent new and more ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... merriment. Lord T., who had just read "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," remarked that the House had, he supposed, passed the donkey clause out of respect to its ancestors.—"It is a wise measure," said a popular novelist, "especially as it affects the importation of food; for, should a scarcity come, we should otherwise have to fall back on the food of our forefathers."—"And, pray, what is that?" asked an ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... lovely Chinese floss silk shawl." His talents as a giver of dinners were in evidence at that early age, and his father made use of them in connection with the law business. There was a French chef, at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. High prices and scarcity served only as spurs ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... Medford in a small log cabin with bark floors, as there were at that time no saw mills in that locality. Soon our simple house was crowded to the utmost with relatives and friends looking for claims in this rare section of the state. There was a scarcity of neighbors, no schools nor places for church or holiday meetings. It was years before I heard ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... year. The habits of the whale in changing his locality at certain periods are somewhat curious, and afford old sailors a subject for the most wild and unreasonable stories. The sailors, yielding to their superstitions, attributed the scarcity of whales to the appearance of a number of mermaids, whom the natives on various islands had reported, and the sailors sincerely believed, had been seen and heard singing in various parts of the Pacific ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... a time, in 1865, on duty at Fort Cottonwood, Nebraska, as adjutant of my regiment, the First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry, when the scarcity of officers at the post made it necessary for the commanding officer to detail me, with thirty Indian soldiers, to proceed to, and garrison Jack Morrow's Ranch, twelve miles west of the fort, on the south side ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... a scarcity of partridges, but there is plenty of other game in Derbyshire. The Mid-Cheshire birds are of the opinion that this cannot be too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various

... to see our way very clearly and where many intelligent plans are already being put into execution. The Treasury of the United States has, by a timely and well-considered distribution of its deposits, facilitated the moving of the crops in the present season and prevented the scarcity of available funds too often experienced at such times. But we must not allow ourselves to depend upon extraordinary expedients. We must add the means by which the farmer may make his credit constantly and easily available and command when he will the capital ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... copper mines at Roroes have been operated for two hundred and fifty years, and there are less important copper mines in Nordland, Telemarken, and the Hardanger. There are iron mines at Arendal and elsewhere, but the rise in the cost of charcoal, due to the scarcity of wood, has greatly crippled the iron industry. There are important soapstone quarries in the Gudbransdal and the Trondhjem basin; green colored slate in the Valders and at Vossevangen; and granite, syenite, and porphyry in many parts ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... Babar, is my hero among the Moguls, and this was Akbar's chosen home, until scarcity of water forced him to abandon it for Agra. Akbar, the noblest of the great line of Moguls whose splendour ended in 1707 with the death of Aurungzebe, came to the throne in 1556, only eight years before Shakespeare was born, and ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... nitre, and when mixed with wood-ashes formed an important source of it, the right to remove these in France was vested in the Government under the Saltpetre Laws, which obtained till the French Revolution. This great scarcity soon led, however, to a careful investigation being made into the conditions under which potassium nitrate was formed in nitre soils.[101] These conditions, which included the presence of rich nitrogenous matter, ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... Valentinian, in a law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... to-day's necessities. The poor enjoy to-day what yesterday even the rich could not afford. Mankind always has exhibited great irregularities. In every race some are born with an energy and ability to produce wealth, others not. Invention and discovery have replaced scarcity and dearness with abundance and cheapness. The law of competition seems to cheapen ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... nettles which they fed on; two or three, sometimes more, on a car, going to the grave for want of bearers to carry them, and many buried only in the fields and ditches where they perished. The universal scarcity was followed by fluxes and malignant fevers, which swept off multitudes of all sorts, so that whole villages were laid waste. If one for every house in the kingdom died—and that is very probable—the loss must be upward ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... to one, the entire exports of all kinds in 1790; and they equal the average aggregate of the years from 1815 to 1824. But the multiplication of the wants of a people rapidly growing in numbers and refinement will, with the comparatively high price of labor, scarcity of capital and distance of most of our ports from the markets supplied by European manufactures, for a long time to come make the home-supply the chief care of our artisans. They have, for such and other reasons, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... to see that most of the volunteers who go to join the army are either old men or boys, tempted by extraordinary pay and scarcity of employ. A cobler who has been used to rear canary-birds for Mad. de , brought us this morning all the birds he was possessed of, and told us he was going to-morrow to the frontiers. We asked him why, at his age, he should think of joining the army. He said, he ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... closely, or, perhaps, to avoid being recognised by it. Then came the time of their extreme poverty, when there was no work at the farm and no one of their own people to help tide them over a season of scarcity, for the old people were dead or in the workhouse or so poor as to want help themselves. It was then that, in his misery at the sight of his ailing anxious wife—the dear Marty of the beautiful vanished days—and his three little hungry children, that he went out into the field one dark night ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... 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 the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... been simply my desire to present a few new points of view. The great value of Marco Polo's description of the Persian desert consists in confirming and proving its physical invariableness during more than six hundred years. It had as great a scarcity of oases then as now, and the water in the wells was not less salt than in our own days." (Overland to India, II., ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa



Words linked to "Scarcity" :   scarce, deficiency, abundance, rarity, inadequacy



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