"Able-bodied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be expedient for a state of peace as well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of three hundred thousand able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they may be wanted, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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
... by most of the able-bodied men in Ratlinghope, beat that part of the hill lying between Ratlinghope and Wolstaston thoroughly, thinking that I must be somewhere in the tract between the two places, never supposing that I could have wandered ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... the Boy cooked the eternal beans, bacon and mush dinner, after whatever desultory work was done; as a matter of fact, there was extraordinarily little to occupy five able-bodied men. The fun of snow-shoeing, mitigated by frostbite, quickly degenerated from a sport into a mere means of locomotion. One or two of the party went hunting, now and then, for the scarce squirrel and the shy ptarmigan. They tried, with signal lack of success, to ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... imply that Queen Victoria approved of his religious views. In China the repeated restrictive edicts concerning monasteries should not be regarded as acts of persecution. Every politician can see the loss to the state if able-bodied men become monks by the thousand. In periods of literary and missionary zeal, large congregations of such monks may have a sufficient sphere of activity but in sleepy, decadent periods they are apt to become a moral or political danger. A devout Buddhist ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... to be forced to lower himself to the level of an ox or an ass. It must have an insidious, demoralizing effect, too, upon the persons who ride in these little vehicles. I am not yet used to seeing able-bodied young foreigners, especially men, being pulled about by thin, tired, exhausted coolies. I feel ashamed every time I enter a rickshaw and contrast my well-being with that of the ragged boy between the shafts. I suppose I shall get over this feeling, think no more about it than any one else does, ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Ali and some others aboard her, steering ever in the wake of the carack which continued to be navigated by the Nasrani dog, Jasper Leigh. When Sakr-el-Bahr learnt the value of the capture, when he was informed that in addition to a hundred able-bodied men under the hatches, to be sold as slaves in the sok-el-Abeed, there was a cargo of gold and silver, pearls, amber, spices, and ivory, and such lesser matters as gorgeous silken fabrics, rich beyond anything that had ever been seen upon the seas at any one time, he felt that the blood he had ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the ditch March 7, 1877. All hands worked with a will. Part of the company moved down on to lands located for settlements. Most of the able-bodied men formed a working camp near the head of the ditch, where a deep cut had ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... SECTION 1. All able-bodied male citizens of the State of North Carolina, between the ages of twenty-one and forty years, who are citizens of the United States, shall be liable to duty in the militia; Provided, That all persons who may be averse ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... the constable, 'I have brought back your man—not without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your prisoner!' And the third stranger was led ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... can't," said he. "If you could you wouldn't go into the chorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we can get in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodied enough to carry a spear. By-the-way, in musical circles my name is Dickson. ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... passed a sleepless night, for even the question of food would be problematical if all the able-bodied men and women on the place went away. In the early dawn there were ominous sounds at the quarters, and as the light increased a spectacle which filled the old planter and his wife with rage was revealed. The quarters were empty and all were trooping toward the avenue with bundles containing ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Servants (Vol. ii., p. 89.).—It was provided by several old statutes, the first of which was passed in 1349, that all able-bodied persons who had no evident means of subsistence should put themselves as labourers to any that would hire them. In the following year were passed several other acts relating to labourers, by one of which, 25 Edward III. stat. i. c. i., entitled, "The ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... of self-mutilation—to quote the words of one of these reports written in 1850—the disappearance, without exception, of all able-bodied Jews has become so general that in some communities, outside of those unfit for military service because of age or physical defects, not a single person can be found during conscription who might be drafted into ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... expedition of British and Tories (Virginians who sided with England in the war) under Lord Dunmore. His buildings had all been burned; his wharf demolished; his livestock killed; and every one of his able-bodied slaves of both sexes had been carried off to Jamaica to be sold. The enemy had also destroyed his growing crops; cut down his fruit trees; in short, nothing was left of his once prosperous and valuable plantation but ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... ma'am, where there's tourniements? And could an able-bodied lassie walk to them? and what might be the charge ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... even recklessness, could have conceived such a plan. The harbor was defended by a fort of no mean power. There was always one British armed vessel, and often more, lying at anchor under the guns of the fort. Two hundred of the people of the town were able-bodied men, able to bear arms. How, then, were the Yankees, with their puny force, to hope for success? This query Rathburne ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 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 ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... was called out, an appointed trooper appeared who took the horse with any sort of arms which might be presented to him, and set off on the expedition at a moment's notice. Moreover, these troopers were the least able-bodied of the men: raw recruits set simply astride their horses, and devoid of soldierly ambition. Such was ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... it. Go to your battle fields, where your flag has been borne triumphantly, and where fresh laurels have been added to the brow of your country, and there you will find the sod dyed as deep by the blood of the foreign born as by that of the native citizen. [Applause.] Is the able-bodied man, who comes here to contribute to your national interests by building up your public works, or aiding in the erection of your architectural constructions, or who bears your flag in the hour of danger, and who bleeds and dies for your country, ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... look here! I don't know much about you, but you come over t' our Sailors' Snug Harbor, an' you took some pictures. That was all right, I'm not captain there an' I haven't anything t' say. You said you wanted an old able-bodied man for certain work, an' I volunteered. I didn't know where the voyage was, but I signed on, an' come here; ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... all aggression upon their constitutional privileges"; and directing them to hold their commands ready to march to any part of the territory, with ammunition, wagons, and clothing for a winter campaign. In the Legion were enrolled all the able-bodied males between eighteen and forty-five years, under command of a lieutenant general, four generals, eleven colonels, and ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... from a similar affliction, well advanced, under his arm. Both cases were well advanced because the man had been on the outside and had not been treated. In each case. Dr. Goodhue put an immediate and complete stop to the ravage, and in four weeks those two men will be as well and able-bodied as they ever were in their lives. The only difference between them and you or me is that the disease is lying dormant in their bodies and may at any future time commit ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... what Windeatt 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
... strong, able-bodied seamen made up in activity in a great measure for the paucity of their numbers, and for the weakness of the rest. Paul, Abel, Tom, and Peter, and the rest literally flew about the decks, and ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... are a garrulous, gossipy set, as every one knows. They are able-bodied, not particularly fond of fish, and inclined to seek the neighborhood of man, rather than to come out here away from him. They make very good American rooks. So I am led to think it is their love of "neighboring" that brings them about the hawk's nest. If this surmise ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... exist by the side of each other without frequent broils and collisions. Standing armies exhaust the resources of nations and retard the progress of civilization by a double result. They withdraw able-bodied men from the productive energies of the country, and are at the same time a tax upon the industrial forces which remain. The enormous daily expense of the present war must give us some idea of the cost of maintaining a standing army of two or three hundred thousand men even in times of peace. This ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 ...
— 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 ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the word it was evident that he was aroused. Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a gun: "Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a forest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied men ready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring my car here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... 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 ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... employment of the great mass of the able-bodied people by the state, has an unavoidable tendency to paralyse industry, and to ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... "But, pay dear sir, be reasonable." ... Reasonable! I nearly choked. If I could have stood once more on my useless legs, I should have swung my left arm round and clouted him on the side of the head. Reasonable indeed! This well-fed, able-bodied, young Oxford prig to tell me, an honourable English officer and gentleman, to be reasonable, when the British Empire, in peril of its existence, was calling on all its manhood to defend it in arms! I glared at him. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... fifty-eight; sixty-four arpents had been cleared; and twenty-eight horned cattle were reported among the possessions of the habitants. Rather significantly this colonial Domesday of 1681 mentions that the sixteen able-bodied men of the seigneury possessed 'seven muskets' among them. From its situation, however, the settlement was not badly exposed to ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... not spend their time in idleness. The narrow confines of their house would soon grow irksome to five able-bodied boys and men, and every one of them knew it. They went forth with rude wooden shovels, and began to clear paths in the snow—one to a point among the trees where the fallen brushwood lay thickest, another to the edge of the lake, where they broke holes in the ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... they were again repulsed with a severe loss. Darkness finally 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
... negro who belonged to one Mr. Clarkson; he was called Jim Swine; his right name was James, but he was called Jim Swine because he loved hog meat and would often steal hogs from his master or from the neighbors; he was a very able-bodied man, weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, and a very good field hand. Of course it is generally known that a great many of the slaves were poorly fed, so it was natural that they should take anything they could ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... cried Bessie. "No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn't entirely Teddy's fault. If there is anything in the world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, able-bodied child, it is hotel life. Teddy was egged on to all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the bell-boys up. If he'd stand on his head on the cashier's desk, the cashier would laugh first, and then, to get rid of him, would suggest that he ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... father 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
... area ripens as nearly as possible at the same moment, in order that the birds and other pests may not have the opportunity of turning their whole force upon the several parts in turn. The men now build on each patch a small hut, which is occupied by most of the able-bodied members of the roomhold until harvest is completed, some fourteen to twenty weeks after the sowing of the PADI, according to the variety of grain sown. They erect contrivances for scaring away the birds; they stick ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... that a good average crop will give one bale or bag of cotton, weighing 310 lbs. for each working-hand employed on the plantation; now, in Alabama, four or five bales, each weighing 430 lbs. is a fair average for an able-bodied slave engaged in the cultivation; and I have conversed with many planters, holding places upon the bottom-lands of the river, who assured me their crop was yearly ten bales of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... to the front. The hospital corps had supplies on the vessels at Siboney, but as everything could not possibly be landed and carried forward at once, preference was given to ammunition and rations for able-bodied soldiers rather than to tents, blankets, and invalid food for the wounded. I do not mean to be understood as saying that the hospital-corps men had even on the transports everything that they needed in order to enable ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... I want to ascertain is whether I can get a number of able-bodied men, with their wives and children, who are willing to go when I present evidence of encouragement and protection. Could I get a hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and children, and able to "cut their own fodder," so to speak? Can I have fifty? If I could find ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to lean on himself for a while. Uncle Sam needs every able-bodied man he can get these times and you look to be as strong as a mule. Here, take this card and go on through that door yonder to the second room down the hall and let Doctor Dismukes look ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 for their ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... devil. If you were an able-bodied man, I'd get you, too—just to have a pair of you. Yelping, snapping curs, both of you." He played the dog as ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... sometimes, to see mothers trying to get their pretty daughters on the stage, or at a typewriter, in order to live at ease themselves. And fathers, too, by George! Well, I don't think there's a more despicable type of humanity in this world than the able-bodied father who brings his children up with the idea of making ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... 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 ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... you?" repeated Miss Brooke, rather rudely, though with kind intent. "An able-bodied young woman of eighteen or nineteen surely can take care of herself! You are not in Paris now, my dear, you are in London; and girls in London have to ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a matured opinion that while it is a calamity for the country generally, and for employers of labour and farmers in particular that able-bodied men and women should be leaving the country in their thousands, we unhesitatingly assert that it is far wiser for these men and women to emigrate to countries where their labour is of real value to them, and where they can spend it improving land which will not only be found ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... the Colorado River, apparently not having met with the people mentioned. If Cardenas started from the Moki towns, as has generally been believed, where would he have arrived by a journey of twenty days, when an able-bodied man can easily walk to the brink of Marble Canyon from there in three or four days? Why did the guides, if they belonged in the Moki towns, conduct Cardenas so far to show him a river which was so near? The solution seems to be that he started from some locality other than the present ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... 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 coast, hoping ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vessels were watched and waited for, all ports were under 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 the nature of their former occupations, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... developing the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive power, of any police power, to enforce the decrees of the court. In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect. In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... a crew of thirty odd, all able-bodied and knowing their job, I suppose. And all waiting for a month to give you and me a lunch and a tea. Seven hundred pounds in wages alone for lunch and a tea for two, without counting ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of the Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the Butter Trade; the Garden of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing Astonishers; Ladies of Horror; Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden; Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... the War Department had withheld its consent. Now that the ban was lifted, the people could expect the necessary measures to be taken for their defense. In no part of the country was the war more popular; nowhere did the mass of the able-bodied population show greater eagerness ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... 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 he had no dealings with each other. But at last, when Tosti tried to entice ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... 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 of ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... won't go to work. I'll give every able-bodied man here all the work he wants. Apply at the office of the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... weeks' residence," the Governor recited, impressively, "all able-bodied persons who will not work are put to work or deported. Have you made any effort ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... levies of 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 ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... unpardonable presumption in me to address to you other 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 lost, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... 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
... after listening to this emphatic and unequivocal testimony of these intelligent, competent and able-bodied witnesses (laughter), who that is not as incredulous as St. Thomas himself, will doubt for a moment that the Goshen of America is to be found in the sandy valleys and upon the pine-clad hills of St. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of 300,000 able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they may be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after the necessity ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... pillaging the town. It seems a little illogical that we should call out our young men from Halifax, from Quebec, from Montreal, from Kingston, from Ottawa, and from the other cities that put forces into the field, to go out into the far wilderness to protect property, when able-bodied men with arms in their hands stood by and watched unmoved a body of savages and squaws pillage their town, and give their property to the flames. It was to relieve this town that Colonel Otter made the brilliant march, upon which ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... were, and did not even have to stoop over to do it. He walked about in the clean, fresh air, and when it rained, he cuddled up against the stove in the pharmacy. The present paper-gatherer was a chemist; his predecessor had been a priest. It was a very nice position for an able-bodied man with some education, and Fouquet greatly desired it himself, only he feared he was not sufficiently well educated, since in civil life he was only a farm hand. So in his march up and down the trottoir he cast ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... ten days before James was sufficiently recovered to be embarked—a delay which probably cost him his kingdom, for there can be no doubt that, on landing, he would have been joined at once by all the great clans, and by no small proportion of the able-bodied men of ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... laughed. "Oh dear no. I don't think I need take quite such drastic measures as that. What I thought was to set Eva up somewhere, in some new place, where she could start afresh, and then take myself off quietly—to California, or New Zealand, or somewhere of the sort, where an able-bodied fellow like me can be sure ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... slaughter, that is regarded as an indication of success. If, however, they make their appearance in the van of such persons, they indicate disaster and defeat. If these birds, viz., swans and cranes and Satapatras and Chashas utter auspicious cries, and all the able-bodied combatants become cheerful, these are regarded as indications of future success. They whose array blazes forth with splendour and becomes terrible to look at in consequence of the sheen of their weapons, machines, armour, and standards as also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... inconveniences of martial law. Business of nearly every kind was suspended. A provost-marshal's pass was necessary to enable one to walk the streets in security. The same document was required of any person who wished to hire a carriage, or take a pleasant drive to the Kentucky side of the Ohio. Most of the able-bodied citizens voluntarily offered their services, and took their places in the rifle-pits, but there were some who refused to go. These were hunted out and taken to the front, much against their will. Some were found in or under beds; ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... offenders are 'drafted in the army' in much the same manner that our prisons sent their able-bodied men into military service during our late war. Their terms of enlistment are various, but generally not less than fifteen years. The men receive the pay and rations of soldiers, and have the possibility of promotion before them. They are sent to regiments stationed at distant posts in order to ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... clanship was at that time, so strong—to which must be added the wish to secure the adherence of stout, able-bodied, and, as the Scotch phrase then went, pretty men—that the representative of the noble family of Perth condescended to act openly as patron of the MacGregors, and appeared as such upon their trial. So at least the author was informed by the late Robert MacIntosh, Esq., advocate. The circumstance ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... it for his 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 sensible of what was due from others to him as well as from him ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... that the khedive's people have got news that Arabi is damming up the Sweet-water Canal. We shall have a deal of trouble if he does. There is very bad news, too, from the country. They say that everywhere except at Cairo the natives have risen and massacred the Europeans. Arabi has ordered all the able-bodied men in the country ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... ruins; its inhabitants were starving in the gutters; soldiers and civilians were dying. When Morillo entered its streets he found them almost deserted, and he made the few remaining persons suffer the worst tortures he could devise. The able-bodied men succeeded in ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... in the workhouse garb, she looked like any other bowed down little woman. She belonged, in short, to the failures of life. She was hurried down one or two long passages, then through a big room, empty at present, which the matron briefly told her was the "Able-bodied Women's Ward," and then into another very large room, where a bright fire burnt, and where several women, perhaps fifty or sixty, were seated on benches, doing some light jobs of needlework, or pretending ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... exposed in the window of this tavern inviting able-bodied seamen and artificers to join the battleship; one of our lieutenants attending each day for a certain number of hours at the little shipping office which was established in the bar parlour of the tavern to inspect the discharge notices and certificates of any sailors ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... with business disaster. "War prices" for grain fell rapidly, the markets were stocked with more manufactured goods than impoverished Europe could absorb, while the English labor market was glutted by the influx of several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and sailors in quest of industrial employment. As early as 1821 Mr. Huskisson, a cabinet colleague of Mr. Canning, had endeavored to lighten the burden of British manufactures by reducing the import duties upon the raw material used by the English looms. He was ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... replied the Secessionist, "that you have four millions of brave, able-bodied men, while we have not, perhaps, more than two millions; but bear in mind that you are divided, and therefore weak; we ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... and flung into the compound. After being thoroughly ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their constitutions may decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt the 750 volts of kicking that he can send though your arm seventeen times before you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he may die ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... had been treacherously shot; but now, either with or without orders, the men began to burn and destroy every thing within their reach. Even the fences were fired when it could be done. Not a single able-bodied man could be seen along the route; they had fled from the ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... provision intended, as Lincoln recorded, to safeguard poorer men against such a rise in prices. They could escape by paying 300 dollars, or 60 pounds, not, in the then state of wages, an extravagant penalty upon an able-bodied man. The sums paid under this provision covered the cost of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... public walks, in which the people were wont to waste their time in empty talk about the war. He forbade all drinking, feasting, and unseasonable revels, and forced the people to take up arms, proving himself inexorable to every one who was on the muster-roll of able-bodied citizens. This conduct made him much disliked, and many of the Tarentines left the city in disgust; for they were so unused to discipline, that they considered that not to be able to pass their lives as they chose was no ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of the North. The army was indeed strong, disciplined, a powerful instrument in the hands of a leader like General Lee. Nevertheless, it had reached about the highest degree of its strength. The merciless conscription in the South had swept into its ranks nearly all the able-bodied men, and food and forage were becoming so scarce in war-wasted Virginia and other regions which would naturally sustain this force, that a bold, decisive policy had become a necessity. It was believed that on Northern soil the army could be ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... wanting which lead to a rapid growth of numbers. Numbers now increase with the increase of employment and with the facilities which are provided by the modern system of labour for the establishment of independent households. At present, any able-bodied unskilled labourer earns, as soon as he has arrived at man's estate, as large an amount of wages as he will earn at any subsequent time; and having no connection with his employer beyond the receiving the due amount of weekly money from him, and thinking himself as well able to marry as he is likely ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... another community of fruit growers the usual Japanese labor was not available; but when the fruit ripened, the banker, the butcher, the lawyer, the garage man, the druggist, the local editor, and in fact every able-bodied man and woman in the town, left their occupations and went out, gathered the fruit, and ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... much diminished by the combination of workhouses, and by substituting a rigid administration and contract management for the existing scenes of neglect, extravagance, jobbery, and fraud." Mr. Chadwick points out that "if no relief were allowed to be given to the able-bodied or to their families, except in return for adequate labor or in a well-regulated workhouse, the worst of the existing sources of evil—the allowance system—would immediately disappear; a broad line would be drawn between the independent laborers and the paupers; the numbers of paupers would ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... those gallons of tea on the lawn, it is a pity if an able-bodied young gentleman couldn't secure one cup," said the Colonel smiling. "Now you mention it, I believe I have had none either. Ring the bell by all means and order it. I was absorbed in verifying some points of old Norman law," he added to Win. "Our islands ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... we counted the boats, the whole able-bodied population of Spaakenberg issued from small, peak-roofed houses to see what monster made so odd a noise. By twenties and by thirties they came, wonderful figures, and the air rang with the music of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... 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 sleigh in which she was riding, if a ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... the best, and that he only wished his friends could have the same good fortune, for his expectations were more than realised. (Cheers and laughter.) It is well to remember that the men who will succeed here, as in every young community, are usually the able-bodied, and that their entry on their new field of labour should be when the year is young. Men advanced in life and coming from the old country will find their comfort best consulted by the ready provided accommodation to be obtained by the purchase of a farm in the old Provinces. All ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... would be hand-to-hand work before we were through, and in plenty, I was convinced, and so every able-bodied youth I could muster was enrolled in my infantry battalion and spent most of his time in vigorous bayonet practice. And for the same reason I had discarded the idea of armor. I felt it would be clumsy, and questioned its value. True, it was an absolute bar against the disintegrator ray, but of ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... considering that you're not very big), you'll often have occasion to observe that some of the wild creatures, otherwise no fools, are more afraid of a bit of colored rag fluttering in the wind than of an able-bodied man who sits staring right at them, if only he doesn't stir a finger. But only let him wiggle that finger, his very littlest one, and off ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... 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 ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... received as a fact that the Northern States, taken together, sent a full tenth of their able-bodied men into the ranks of the army in the course of the summer and autumn of 1861. The South, no doubt, sent a much larger proportion; but the effect of such a drain upon the South would not be the same, because the slaves were left at home to perform the agricultural work ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... need of their lords and the scarcity of servants, are unwilling to serve unless they receive excessive wages, and others are rather begging in idleness than supporting themselves by labour, we have ordained that any able-bodied man or woman, of whatsoever condition, free or serf, under sixty years of age, not living of merchandise nor following a trade nor having of his own wherewithal to live, either his own land with the culture of which he could occupy ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... the Earthmen, there were no illicit sexual relations on the planet. In fact, no Martian in his right mind would have relations with the native crop of females, and they in turn felt the same way about the males. Laws had to be passed requiring all able-bodied ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... urged,—refuse altogether compulsory relief to the able-bodied, and the number of those who stand in need of relief will steadily diminish through a conviction of an absolute necessity for greater forethought, and more prudent care of a man's earnings. Undoubtedly it would, but so also would ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... was a military muster at Salem. Every able-bodied man, in the town and neighborhood, was there. All were well armed, with steel caps upon their heads, plates of iron upon their breasts and at their backs, and gorgets of steel around their necks. When the sun shone upon these ranks of iron-clad men, they flashed and blazed with a splendor ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it that 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
... each bench a great oar or sweep projected into the water. To each 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 more ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... o' paint did 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
... 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 destitute workers. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... from a land of safe refuge. There was, besides, distrust of each other; and fear, though no love, of General Walker. He was said to have the iron will and reckless courage of the true man of destiny. At one time, so they told us, a large body of fresh, able-bodied men, just arrived in Nicaragua, refused to join the filibusters on account of some disappointment about the amount of promised wages. General Walker led out his crowd of yellow men, whom the newcomers might have knocked down with the wind of their fists, and so overawed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... halls built after such extensive plans as to entertain, at one time, twenty-five thousand guests. All this is to accommodate the vast throngs that take their sacred pilgrimage once in a year under an arrangement by which one tenth of the able-bodied go each thirty-nine days, ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... as usual: the shops are open; people walk about and chat, and smoke, and drink their coffee or absinthe, just as usual. The only difference is, that everyone is in some sort of uniform or other. One does not see a single able-bodied man altogether in civilian dress; and at night the streets are very dismal, owing ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... 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 them, their property, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a slender maiden of twelve summers, removing her elegant hat and passing her tapery fingers lightly through her fair tresses, "how sad it is—is it not?—to see able-bodied youths and young ladies wasting the precious summer ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... Regulation of wages was not sporadic, but was a regular part of the work of certain magistrates, in England of the justices of the peace. Parliament enforced with incredible severity the duty of the poor and able-bodied man to work. Sturdy idlers were arrested and drafted into the new proletariat needed by capital. When whipping, branding, and short terms of imprisonment, did not suffice to compel men to work, a law was passed to brand able-bodied vagrants on the chest with a "V," ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... habitually idle because (as 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 ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... years' term of office was in the hands of the burghers, and in this office he was to be supported by an Executive Council consisting of the Commandant-General, two burghers qualified to vote, and a Secretary. All the able-bodied men of the Republic, and if necessary natives, were liable ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the entire able-bodied population was soon called into military service, so that almost the whole church was in the army. At the North the churches at home hardly seemed diminished by the myriads sent to the field. It was amazing to see the charities and missions of the churches ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... not usually credited with overmuch intelligence, and certainly not with much sentiment, and the few remarks he did occasionally offer on things in general were never very weighty. He was a good-tempered, noisy, able-bodied fag, who was at any one's service, and who in all his exploits did about as much work for as little glory as ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... fact I'm still one of those able-bodied young shirkers in mufti that patriotic old gentlemen in clubs are always writing to my uncles' ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... escaped him. The convincing Apostle Oddris had called on him at official headquarters that day, to inquire whether, as the said Oddris's wife and children were going to the Women's Laager, his place as a husband and father was not by their side? Being informed that able-bodied male beings were not included in the list of the defenceless, he had become importunate in the matter of at least a bomb-proof shelter to be ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... system in order. Henceforth every male able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... war at all, so far; everything goes on just the same—not only 'business as usual,' but other things too: pleasure, luxuries, eating, clothes; everything as usual. I reckon that conscription is bound to come, and before the Hun gets put in his place nearly every able-bodied man in these islands will be forced to help in ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... began, "when I was brought to realize that my husband, although apparently an able-bodied man, couldn't support me as I'd been used to be supported, and when I was forced to support HIM by keepin' boarders, I says, 'If there's one thing that my house shall stand for it's punctual promptness at meal times. I say nothing,' I says, 'about the inconvenience ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... name of Shemuel:—There is yet another festival in Rome, which is observed only once in seventy years, and this is the manner of its celebration. They take an able-bodied man, without physical defect, and cause him to ride upon the back of a lame one. They dress up the former in the garments of Adam (such as God made for him in Paradise), and cover his face with the skin of the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Berlin was filled with women and children, hardly an able-bodied man. In one compartment a gray-haired Landsturm soldier sat beside an elderly woman who seemed weak and ill. Above the click-clack of the car wheels passengers could hear her counting: "One, two, three," evidently absorbed in her own thoughts. Sometimes she repeated the words at short ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... SOMETIMES GET THE IDEA that it is nice to be 'weak' and 'delicate,' but they cannot get a more false idea! God meant women to be strong and able-bodied, and only by being so can they be happy and capable of imparting happiness to others. It is only by being strong and healthy that they can be perfect in their sexual nature; and it is only by being perfect in this part of their being that you can become ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... Covey was a poor man; he was just commencing in life; he was only able to buy one slave; and, shocking as is the fact, he bought her, as he said, for A BREEDER. This woman was named Caroline. Mr. Covey bought her from Mr. Thomas Lowe, about six miles from St. Michael's. She was a large, able-bodied woman, about twenty years old. She had already given birth to one child, which proved her to be just what he wanted. After buying her, he hired a married man of Mr. Samuel Harrison, to live with him one year; and him he used to fasten up with her every night! The result was, ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... because (as was the reason with George) they 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 ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... night. A lot of things were doing the Melbourne Cup inside my blanket. The horrible thought suggested itself that I had got "them" too, but a light revealed the presence of fleas. These were very large able-bodied animals and became our constant companions at nighttime; in fact, one could only get to sleep after dosing the ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... seemed but an easy stroll from below. The heights and distances are most deceptive, partly on account of the crystal clearness of the air, and partly because of the magnitude of everything in proportion. The mountains are not only high themselves, but their spurs and foothills would rank as able-bodied mountains were they not dwarfed by peaks which average 15,000 feet in height above the sea. The pines which clothe their sides, the chenars and poplars in the valley, are all enormous when ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Sec.3. All able-bodied white male citizens of the United States, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, are liable to perform military service in the states in which they reside, except such as are exempt by the laws of the states and of the United States. Persons exempt by the laws ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... send the women and children South. The escapes from them are very numerous, and a squad has come in this morning to my pickets bringing their women and children. Of course these cannot be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch. I am in the utmost doubt what to do ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... Then how 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, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... risks he ran. He would not have hesitated for a moment, in spite of the display of armed men ready to attack, for if he had felt free to act he would have chanced everything, depending as he felt he could upon his little party of thoroughly well-drilled able-bodied seamen, and boldly attacked at once; but he had to think of his captain and the great risk he ran of bringing him into difficulties and forcing him to answer for some international difficulty over the rights of the United States, which, if the American overseer was ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... impossible to classify the multitude of remaining irrelevancies, who, were one to permit them, would fall upon our leisure like locusts; but possibly 'friends of the family,' 'friends from the country,' and 'casuals' would include the most able-bodied. Sentiment apart, old schoolfellows should, if possible, be avoided; and no one who merely knew us when we were babies (really a very limited elementary acquaintance) and has mistaken us ever since should be admitted within the gates—though we might introduce him ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... Nowhere! be at least a man; let no one ever call you the basest thing an able-bodied man can ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the case of males, a common table and common stores with supplies. (Petr. Martyr, Dec. VII, 1. Rochefort, II, c. 16. B. Edwards, History of the West Indies, I, 43 ff.) Among the Kuskowimers of Russian America, all the able-bodied men of the tribe live together. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, 129.) Among the inhabitants of the Aleutian islands, at least in times of scarcity of food, the produce of the fisheries is divided according to their need. (V. Wrangell, 185.) The organization ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... to the South%.—Thus drained of her able-bodied population, the South went rapidly to rack and ruin. Crops fell off, property fell into decay, business stopped, railroads were ruined because men could not be had to keep them in repair, and because no rails could be obtained. The loss inflicted ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... passed round the belt of trees, the company of recruits became visible, consisting of the able-bodied inhabitants of the hamlets thereabout, more or less known to Bob and Anne. They were assembled on the green plot outside the churchyard-gate, dressed in their common clothes, and the sergeant who had been putting ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... For as his coat sleeve slipped down his forearm I saw nothing but bone supporting his hand. And the hand that then bared his head was a skeleton hand! Slowly the hat was lifted, but as quickly as light six able-bodied men were on their feet and half way to the door before we realized the cowardliness of it. We forced ourselves back inside the store very slowly, all of us rather ashamed of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... their seats no longer for the purpose of festivity, but to fix, in the hasty manner customary among these prompt warriors, where they were to assemble their forces, which, upon such occasions, comprehended almost all the able-bodied males of the country,—for all, excepting the priests and the bards, were soldiers,—and to settle the order of their descent upon the devoted marches, where they proposed to signalize, by general ravage, their sense of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... The starving cattle went roaming over the burnt pastures, and found nothing to eat. Many of them perished, and the greater part of what remained, though in miserable condition, the Highlanders had to sell perforce. Most of the able-bodied men were engaged in this latter business at a distance from home, when the dreaded term-day came on. The pasturage had been destroyed before the legal term, and while, in even the eye of the law, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... military service on every male American, foreign, or native inhabitant between the ages of eighteen to fifty years, with the exception of certain professions specified in the Philippine Commission Act No. 1309, dated March 22, 1905. Under this law the native mayor of a town can compel any able-bodied American (not exempted under the Act) to give five days a month service in hunting down brigands, under a maximum penalty of P100 fine and three months' imprisonment. And, subject to the same penalty for refusal, any proprietor or tenant (white, coloured, or native) residing ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... example of such terrible enormity should be allowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society of respectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightly of all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that you should have the chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you. The unborn must not be allowed to come near you: and this not so much for their protection (for they are our natural enemies), ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... measure. This fairness, which your system, utterly unjust in 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 ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... be trained for the next "war of defense" (twenty years hence, thirty years hence), when Germany is strong again—stronger than France because of her population, stronger then, enormously, than France, in relative numbers of able-bodied men than in August, 1914. So if that philosophy continue—and I do not think it will—the old fear will be re-established, the old burdens of armament will be piled up anew, the people of France will be weighed down as before under a military regime stifling ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... constitution, which required as a prerequisite for voting a residence of two years in the State and one year in the district or town. A poll tax of two dollars—to be increased to three at the discretion of the county commissioners—was levied on all able-bodied men between twenty-one and sixty. This tax, and all other taxes due for the two previous years, must be paid before the 1st of February of the election year. All these provisions, though applying equally ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to board that ship," von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, all of you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to hold Uller for the Company and the Terran Federation." He looked around him. "Now, get back to work, all of you," he told the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... itself—though she could occupy only an humble position in the service. Certain farmers were privileged to wear swords. It appears that in the early ages of Japanese society there was no distinction between farmers and warriors: all able-bodied farmers were then trained fighting-men, ready for war at any moment,—a condition paralleled in old Scandinavian society. After a special military class had been evolved, the distinction between farmer and samurai still remained vague in certain parts of the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... The three consuls were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith, without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the able-bodied help of Lloyd—and dined. Then down in continual showers and pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has, but Napoleon's professional armies numbered, at most, only two hundred thousand men, while today France has put fifteen or twenty times as many in the field. In the present war, when an army sustains a 10 per cent. loss it is not merely 10 per cent. of the army, but actually of the able-bodied ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... these opening years of the nineteenth century. The practice of impressing able men for the royal navy was as old as the reign of Elizabeth. The press gang was an odious institution of long standing—a terror not only to rogue and vagabond but to every able-bodied seafaring man and waterman on rivers, who was not exempted by some special act. It ransacked the prisons, and carried to the navy not only its victims but the germs of fever which infested public places of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... now go and select from out the regiment Twenty or thirty able-bodied fellows, And let them take the oaths to the Emperor. Then when it strikes eleven, when the first rounds Are pass'd, conduct them silently as may be To the house—I will myself be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... followed the Dutch had five men killed, and twenty-five wounded and lost their brigantine, which was captured with her crew of twenty-five men. The Spaniards lost more than 200 men, for their flag-ship caught fire and sank. Far from picking up the wounded and the able-bodied men, who were trying to save themselves by swimming, the Dutch, "making way with sails set on the foremast, across the heads which were to be seen in the water, pierced some with lances, and also discharged ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... little town in Vermont all the strong, able-bodied men had gone to the front. News came that the English and the Americans were about to meet in battle. The Americans needed more men and called for volunteers. Old men with white hair and long beards volunteered. Young boys with smooth cheeks and unshaven lips volunteered. ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... was lieutenant-general of the expedition; the Marigold, a bark of 30 tons, Captain John Thomas; the Swan, a fly-boat of 50 tons, Captain John Chester; and the Christopher, a pinnace of 15 tons, Captain Thomas Moon. These ships were manned with 164 able-bodied men, including officers, and were provided with an ample supply of provisions, ammunition and stores, for so long and dangerous a voyage. Captain Drake likewise provided the frames of four pinnaces, which were stowed on board in pieces, ready ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... 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 youth ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word 'Marriage-licence' in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. From this digression, let me ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... said that sure information had been received of a speedy rising of the Indians, and the Buckinghams were urged instantly to remove to that more thickly settled spot, where a large blockhouse was erected, and all preparations were made to give the enemy a warm reception. The addition of even one able-bodied man to their force was desirable, and they strove to impress upon their neighbors the imminent peril of their exposed situation. So earnest were they, and so probable did the news appear, that Mr. Buckingham resolved to comply with their wishes, and to remove on ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... to say, Martha dear, is, I'm quite well and strong now, and I want to set about immediately looking for something to do. I ought to be able to support myself, you know, for I'm able-bodied, and not so stupid but that I managed to graduate from college. Once, two summers ago, I tutored—I taught a young girl who was studying to take the Wellesley entrance exams. And I coached her so well she went through without a condition, and she wasn't very quick, either. I ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... militia of the United States. But the acts of Congress, under which this body of people of color are understood to have been raised during the late war, uses no other terms of description as to the recruits than that they shall be 'effective, able-bodied men' (act 24th December, 1811), 'for completing the existing military establishment,' and act 11th January, 1812, 'to raise an additional military force,' of 'free, effective, able-bodied men' (act December 10, 1814), ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... in his "Romance of the Colorado River," argues that the Tusayan of Castaneda could not have been the land of the Hopis, for, as he truthfully remarks, "an able-bodied man can easily walk to the brink of the Marble Canyon from there in three or four days." He also says that it has usually been stated, without definite reason, that Cardenas reached the Grand Canyon about opposite Bright Angel River, or near the spot where El Tovar ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... as the man. She was not at all strong, and, moreover, the constant presence of a sense of injury at the hands of life filled her very soul with a subtle poison, to her weakening vitality. She was a child hurt and worried and bewildered, although she was to the average eye a stout, able-bodied, middle-aged woman; but David had not the average eye, and he saw her as she really was, not as she seemed. There had always been about her a little weakness and dependency which had appealed to him. Now they seemed fairly to cry out to him like the despairing voices of the children whom ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... 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 in a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... with cold steel and other mortal weapons, the position of the White Kendah was serious indeed. As I think I have said, in all they did not number more than about two thousand men between the ages of twenty and fifty-five, or, including lads between fourteen and twenty and old men still able-bodied between fifty-five and seventy, say two thousand seven hundred capable of some sort of martial service. To these might be added something under two thousand women, since among this dwindling folk, oddly ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... brought the neighbors together exclaiming and condoling, though not in great force, as there was a fair going on down beyant, which nearly all the men and some of the women had attended. This was accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without any one able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was said to be a "thrifle lame-futted"; though Mrs. M'Gurk, who had seen him come down the hill, opined that "'twasn't the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... as a proof of the avarice of the illustrious[2] censor, that he never paid more than 15,000 drachmae for a slave. After the great conquests of the Romans, in Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Greece, and the Orient, the market went down by reason of the multitude of human beings thrown upon it. An able-bodied, unlettered man could be bought for the price of an ox. Such were the men of Spain, Thrace, and Sardinia. Educated slaves from Greece and the East brought a higher price. We learn from Horace, that his slave Davus whom he has ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... for someone else, that relatives even by marriage were supposed to "make allowances" on which it was quite proper for other persons to live. Rosalie had been accustomed to a community in which even rich men worked, and in which young and able-bodied men would have felt rather indignant if aunts or uncles had thought it necessary to pension them off as if they had been impotent paupers. It was Rosalie's son who was to be "provided for" in this case, and who was to "provide ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with a note of amusement in her manipulation of the keys. "If those are your subjects, let us discuss them. I am surprised to find an able-bodied man like yourself bothering with such problems, but I'll help you out of your difficulties if I can. No needy man shall ever say that I ignored his cry for help. What do you want to know ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... when the operative replied to the summons and walked into the private office; on the other hand, Latisan showed no animosity. He merely surveyed Crowley with an expression of mingled pity and wonderment, as if he were sorry for an able-bodied man who earned a living by the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... obvious that they could not hold it long. Secretly, steadfastly, and swiftly they had, therefore, during the long wintry nights, been constructing a half moon of solid masonry on the inside of the same portal. Old men, feeble women, tender children, united with the able-bodied to accomplish this work, by which they hoped still to maintain themselves after the ravelin ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
