"Scarcity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at that moment he was out of reach, being in the army that was blockading us. Not that we should ever have found out that we were blockaded, if we could have got any letters from any one, except for the scarcity of firewood. My mother wanted much to get to our own Queen, but the approaches to the Louvre were watched lest she should communicate with the Regent; and we were cut off from her till M. Darpent gave his word for us, and obtained for us a pass. And, oh! it ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dearness of wine, or the caprice of fashion, the consumption of beer again became so general in France that, according to the "Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris," it produced to the revenue two-thirds more than wine. It must be understood, however, that in times of scarcity, as in the years 1415 and 1482, brewing was temporarily stopped, and even forbidden altogether, on account of the quantity of grain which was thereby withdrawn from the food supply of the people ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... Ireland in 1845 is supposed to have been nearly nine millions. The manufactures were small, and the people depended on the potato crop, and had no other resource in time of scarcity. For several years the potato yield had been abundant, the country was comparatively prosperous, and the temperance movement led by Father Mathew promised a happier future. A great harvest was expected in 1845, but almost at a single stroke this expectation was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... more ancient part of the city. The supply of water was so inadequate that the severest miseries were sometimes suffered from the absolute want of that necessary of life, and the greatest inconveniences at all times from its scarcity. Finally, the public edifices were without splendour, and even the best of the private houses unprovided with many of what are now accounted the most indispensable accommodations. Instead of all this, we behold ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... but I promised Mr. Birnbaum to come to the little synagogue of which he is President. It seems they have a scarcity of Cohenim, and they want me to bless ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... mother-wit, independence, a certain reckless, you-be-damned courage, a wandering instinct. He quits work not because he wants to loaf, but because he wants to go somewhere else. He is always on the road travelling, travelling, travelling. It is not hope of gain that takes him, for in the scarcity of labour wages are as high here as there. It is not desire for dissipation that lures him from labour; he drinks hard enough, but the liquor is as potent here as two hundred miles away. He looks you steadily enough ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... well be explained. Volta regarded the formation of small flakes of ice, the kernels of future hail-stones, in the month of July, during the hottest hours of the day, as one of the most difficult phenomena in nature to explain. It is difficult to account for the comparative scarcity of hail-showers in winter; as also, for the great size which hailstones are ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... constantly, so that when I got into a hollow where I could not see any distant object by which to guide my course, I was often uncertain in which direction I was going. I found also, after I left the river, a great scarcity of water; the heat had dried-up all the water-holes and rivulets, and I thus began to suffer much from thirst. The pangs increased as I walked on. I might have killed a bird, or some animal, and quenched my thirst with their blood; but as I might require their flesh for food, I did ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... the end of the year 1780, when, as the Court of Directors affirm, the Company were in the utmost distress for money, and almost every department in arrear, and when it appears that there was a great scarcity and urgent want of grain at Fort St. George, the said Warren Hastings did accept of a proposal made to him by James Peter Auriol, then Secretary to the Council, to supply the Presidency of Fort St. George with rice and other articles, and did appoint the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... two distinct things which make the payment of taxes difficult; the one is the large and real value of the sum to be paid, and the other is the scarcity of the thing in which the payment is to be made; and although these appear to be one and the same, they are in several instances riot only different, but the difficulty ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... for corn; but produces more rye than wheat. Almost all the ground seems to be ploughed up, so that there is little or nothing lying fallow. There are very few inclosures, scarce any meadow ground, and, so far as I could observe, a great scarcity of cattle. We sometimes found it very difficult to procure half a pint of milk for our tea. In Burgundy I saw a peasant ploughing the ground with a jack-ass, a lean cow, and a he-goat, yoked together. It is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Rene's departure keenly to heart, and who had grieved over the lad as though he were lost to him, had also suffered great anxiety on account of the scarcity of provisions within the fort. Now, added to these troubles, came these latest tidings of ill, and, as a result, the fever against which he was struggling overcame him, and he ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... 1913. In part the outbreak of war in August called off various supervisors and not a few workmen from excavations then in progress; in one case it prevented a proposed excavation from being begun. It also seems to have retarded the issue of some archaeological periodicals. But the scarcity of finds is much more due to natural causes. The most extensive excavations of the year, those of Wroxeter and Corbridge, yielded little; they were both concerned with remains which had to be explored in ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... at the chateau, because the poor people there were suffering so much, and she could help them. She has subscribed twenty thousand francs for their relief, in the scarcity of the winter. It is a great deal to earn by one's pen: a novel of several volumes sold for only fifteen thousand francs, as I mentioned before. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... University insisted upon maintaining a non-sectarian character, but this did not imply any lack of religious training or supervision,—quite the contrary, as has been suggested. The scarcity of representatives of the cloth on the first Board of Regents did not pass unremarked, and it was but a short time before several clergymen, one a Catholic priest, became members of the governing body, to offset the preponderance ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... Fraternities and companies, I approve of, as merchants' bourses, colleges of druggists, physicians, musicians, &c., but all trades to be rated in the sale of wares, as our clerks of the market do bakers and brewers; corn itself, what scarcity soever shall come, not to extend such a price. Of such wares as are transported or brought in, [628]if they be necessary, commodious, and such as nearly concern man's life, as corn, wood, coal, &c., and such provision we cannot want, I will have ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... guard—his power was only that which the Serbian or French authorities would give him. He issued many orders to the mayor, some of which were very questionable, as for instance when he sent provisions out of the Banat to Hungary. This produced so great a scarcity that the flour-mill employees thought it was the time to go on strike; they demanded 80 per cent. increase in wages, without undertaking to go back to work if they received it. "I am not a politician," said the harassed mayor, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... brother Germain were waiting for Ambrose. With two such aides he could afford to smile at the mysterious scarcity of labor which ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... rather about their physical existence than their political one—provisions are become enormously dear, and bread very scarce: our servants often wait two hours at the baker's, and then return without bread for breakfast. I hope, however, the scarcity is rather artificial than real. It is generally supposed to be occasioned by the unwillingness of the farmers to sell their corn for paper. Some measures have been adopted with an intention of remedying this evil, though the origin of it is beyond the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... follows:—"There was formerly a time when the Gauls surpassed the Germans in bravery, and made war upon them; and, on account of their multitude of people and scarcity of land, sent colonies beyond the Rhine. The most fertile parts of Germany, adjoining to the Hercynian forest, (which, I observe, was known by report to Eratosthenes and others of the Greeks, and called by them Orcinia,) were accordingly occupied by the Volcae ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... 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 ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food were thus enabled to ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... inlets and retreated at full gallop towards the jungle, offering a splendid side shot at about a hundred paces. The leading cow plunged head-foremost into the grass as the four-ounce struck her through both shoulders. She was a fine young cow, and we cut some steaks from her in case we should find a scarcity of provisions at Minneria and, quitting the shores of the lake, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... invariably induced sterility in the plant." Although his formula is deficient in that food is selected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and although it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact proportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains an important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... on the eastern shore of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin—not to mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits of the sacred bird—the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near approach of the time when the only rare specimens would be found in the glass cases of the museums, ending his talk with a graphic description of the great wooden platters of boiling-hot terrapin ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... introduce our readers. One of those true old English Halls, now unhappily so rare, built in the time of the Tudors, and in its elaborate timber- framing and decorative woodwork indicating, perhaps, the scarcity of brick and stone at the period of its structure, as much as the grotesque genius of its fabricator, rose on a terrace surrounded by ancient and very formal gardens. The hall itself, during many generations, had been vigilantly and tastefully preserved by its proprietors. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... from duties upon all articles exposed to sale. The king has lands cultivated by farmers 14 who are obliged to supply his household and troops; the surplus after the support of their own families is deposited in matamores[28], these are stores to be used in time of scarcity: the matamores are about six feet deep. The king often gives gold-dust, slaves, &c. to his favorites, but the royal domains are never given. Lands not very fruitful are common pastures. Moors pay no duties; they say they will not bring goods if compelled to pay duty, but the ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... this one home the actual damage was comparatively slight, though there might have been more if a passing British steamer had not put the submarine to flight. Suffering of another and more far-reaching sort was that due to the economic situation. The comparative scarcity of food in the world and the profiteering of foreign merchants in Liberia by the summer of 1919 brought about a condition that threatened starvation; nor was the situation better early in 1920, when butter retailed at $1.25 a pound, sugar at 72 cents a pound, and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... skin. In fact, the reputation of fruits and fresh vegetables for "purifying the blood" and "clearing the complexion" is really well deserved. The keenness of our liking for fruit at all times, and our special longing for greens and sour things in the spring, after their scarcity in our diet all winter, is a true ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... word "baptize" is derived, is used in the New Testament in the sense of washing [Mark 7:4] and sprinkling. [I Cor. 10:2] The baptism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost [Acts 2:41] and of the Philippian jailor [Acts 16:33] could hardly have been by immersion, on account of the scarcity of water available for such a purpose. When Jesus was baptized, He "came up out of the water"; [Matt. 3:16] but it is quite probable that He stood in the stream while John ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... best of these. He was a native of Patavium (Padua), a man of rhetorical training, who spent most of his time in Rome. The historical value of his work cannot be overestimated, on account of the scarcity, and in many cases the utter lack, of other historical documents on the times of which he wrote. His style is spirited, and always interesting. His accuracy, however, is not to be compared with that of Caesar. Only thirty-five out of the one hundred and forty-two ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I lingered in Antwerp. The political state of things became worse than ever, increased to its height by the scarcity of food consequent on many deficient harvests. I saw groups of fierce, squalid men, at every corner of the street, glaring out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... statement were true or false than that we should be able to get a useful lesson from it. A wise man should consider history a tissue of fables whose morals are well adapted to the human heart.] under the pressure of great scarcity, decided to invent sports and other amusements with which to cheat their hunger, and they passed whole days without thought of food. Your learned teachers may have read this passage time after time without seeing how it might be ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods. Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw, the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... vessel for a third voyage, it became requisite to give her a considerable repair; and among many other things there was an absolute necessity for her being fresh coppered; but from the pretended scarcity of copper sheathing in the colony and other circumstances that opposed the measure, we found more than a common difficulty in effecting it. The cutter was careened at a place appointed for the purpose on the east side of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... sufficiently close investigation of conditions will demonstrate how baseless the hope must be. Countries not yet thickly populated would be in much the same condition as the countries of western Europe a century ago, the similarity being due to the relative scarcity of good land communications. A part—probably not a very large part—of the articles required by the people dwelling on and near the coast in one section would be drawn from another similar section. These articles could be most conveniently and cheaply transported ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... breadth. Surface of the plains. Geology of the Darling. Woods. Gum acacia abundant. Grasses. General character of the natives. Their means of existence. Nets used by them. Superstitions. Condition of the females. Singular habits of a rat. Security of a species of ants. Birds. Fishes. Apprehended scarcity of water on leaving the Darling. Six of the cattle dead from exhaustion. Rest of two days at Fort Bourke. Visited ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... wintry day that Pocahontas made her first visit to the colony. Though they might lack most of the necessities of life, there was no scarcity of fuel. A huge bonfire was blazing at an open space where two streets were destined to meet in the future. Over some embers pulled away from the centre of the flame a pitch-kettle was heating and its owners, while waiting for its contents to melt, were warming a ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... This scarcity of food, coupled with the incessant sinking of supply ships by enemy submarines, the rigid censorship of imports, and all those other factors that bring about the high cost of war, has made the Englishman sit up and take notice of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... compelled to tread, the first with branches broad at the top and tapering downward, so that it was impossible to mount it; upon it fell a fount of limpid water. From its branches a voice cried, "Of this food ye shall have a scarcity. In the primal age, acorns furnished sweet food and each rivulet seemed nectar." Towards the next tree, grown from a twig of the tree of knowledge, the gluttons stretched eager hands, but a voice cried, "Pass on; approach not!" Such desire for food was excited by these tempting fruits, that the gluttons ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... returned. 'My brothers,' he said, 'the electors do not know by sight; it is my influence which returns them.' The appeal was irresistible, and 'We are three' was as imperative with Melbourne as 'We are seven' was with the Duke of Newcastle. The scarcity of the commodity enhances its value, and now that nominations are swept away, the few who are still fortunate enough to possess some remnants are great men; and Segrave's three brothers, thrown (as they would without scruple have been) into the opposite ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... last crop of corn in France has been so short, that they apprehend want. Mr. Necker desires me to make known this scarcity to our merchants, in hopes they would send supplies. I promised him I would. If it could be done without naming him, it would be agreeable to him, and probably advantageous ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... battery, that nobody ever dreamed of disputing his authority, and the two guns were entirely under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I went forward and offered my services, which, in the scarcity of men, (so many having been killed,) were not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns backwards and forward, and load them. The captain kept running from one to the other, pointing them, and admirably well too; for every shot took effect within a circumference ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... a strong fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the neighbourhood with his incursions. Robert and William, with their joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity of water; when the elder, hearing of his distress, granted him permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes of wine for his own table. Being reproved by William for this ill-timed generosity, he replied, WHAT, SHALL I SUFFER MY BROTHER ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... settled down on them. Already their lands and cattle had been harassed to yield provision for the army and large towns; already their best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-waggons; already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... weather records are accessible should still find satisfaction in the fanciful lunar rule, is an interesting case of intellectual survival." [345] No marvel that the "heathen Chinee" considers lunar observations as forecasting scarcity of provisions he is but of the same blood with his British brother, who takes his tea and sends him opium. "The Hakkas (and also many Puntis) believe that if in the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth month (mid autumn) there are clouds obscuring the moon before midnight, it is a sign that oil ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... mind; but the sheets of blotting-paper must be of a wheaten color and in circular sheets about two feet in diameter. This peculiar kind of bread is, we may suppose, the natural result of a great scarcity of fuel, a handful of tezek, beneath the large, thin sheet-iron griddle, being sufficient to bake many cakes of this bread. At first I start eating it something like a Shanty town goat would set about consuming a political poster, if it - not the political poster, but ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... been no scarcity of food; the forest teemed with game, and if the labourers fancied deer, bear or birds, it was only necessary to go a short distance from the encampment in order to ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... means; but to be instructed is this, to learn to wish that everything may happen as it does. And how do things happen? As the disposer has disposed them? And he has appointed summer and winter, and abundance and scarcity, and virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole; and to each of us he has given a body, and parts of the ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... Though this scarcity of fuel, which had prevailed for ages in that part of Italy, had rendered it necessary to pay attention to the economy of fuel, and had occasioned some improvements to be made in the management of heat; yet ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... many of the trials which mark the history of most of the settlements in regions to which few travelers found their way and commerce seldom came. Remote from sources of supply, and difficult of access, it had known the time when its population, scanty as it was, suffered from the scarcity of food. Sullivan's successful expedition against the Six Nations did not suffice to keep it from the alarm of savage attack that never came. The immense forest shutting in the hamlet on every side had (p. 005) terrors to some as real as were its attractions ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Three Rivers and Montreal; and, at best, they were in great danger, since when brought down in boats at night they were apt to be intercepted, while the difficulty of bringing them by land was extreme, through scarcity of cattle and horses. Discipline was relaxed, disorder and pillage were rife, and the Canadians deserted so fast, that towards the end of August two hundred of them, it is said, would sometimes go off in one night. Early in the month the disheartening news came of the loss of Ticonderoga ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... lands, of the Morus Multicaulis, of the California fever, and the Cuba hallucination. They are periodical outbreaks of commercial enterprise, unavoidable in the very nature of things, and never long, nor safely postponed; growing out of a plethora—never out of a scarcity—a plethora of wealth and population, and corresponding, in the regularity of their returns, with the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... sign of the recent importation and comparative scarcity of honest livelihoods, that we should think so much how we come by our money, and so little how we part with it, as if we were free to waste, provided we do not steal. Now, my manuals of political economy (which ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... towards the Pole more than neutralized this increase, and consequently the daylight became very short. There was thus very little to be seen. At night time the cold became very keen; but as there was no scarcity of clothing on board, the colleagues, well wrapped up, remained a good deal on deck thinking over their plans of escape, and watching for an opportunity. Little was seen of Robur; since the high words that had been exchanged in the Timbuktu country, the engineer had left off speaking to his ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... only uniform in value, but so equally distributed that they may be easily attainable when needed. Every change in their value is a virtual change in the value of the vast variety of obligations which are measured and liquidated by them; and every apprehension of their scarcity or disappearance, by whatever cause excited, is an apprehension of embarrassment on the part of all those who have debts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... countries struck themselves out of the list of civilized nations. Innumerable reports from expelled or fugitive people prove this, and official reports confirm them. Also the press of neutral, neighboring countries, such as Switzerland, Holland, and Italy, is full of similar complaints. Owing to the scarcity of news from Russia, the facts known so far only concern Petersburg, where German and Austrian men and women, residents or transients, were beaten and stoned in the streets. Here were also some cruel mutilations and murders. The beautiful building of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... Two main parties and all the lesser ones. Disease and scarcity. Fray Geronimo arrived from St. Thomas. He had stories. The Viceroy grew dark red, his eyes lightened. Yet he believed that what was told pertained to men of Margarite, not to that cavalier himself. He wrote to Margarite—I do not know what. But presently a plan arose in ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... time after. As we sailed southward we came to many uninhabited islands, which were overgrown with fine large cocoa nuts. As I was very much in want of provisions, I brought a boat load of them on board, which lasted me and others for several weeks, and afforded us many a delicious repast in our scarcity. One day, before this, I could not help observing the providential hand of God, that ever supplies all our wants, though in the ways and manner we know not. I had been a whole day without food, and made signals for boats to come ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... 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 ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... propriety of exacting from them the retention as a part of their reserve either the whole or a part of the gold interest accruing upon the bonds pledged as security for their issue. I have not reflected enough on the bearing this might have in producing a scarcity of coin with which to pay duties on imports to give it my positive recommendation. But your attention is invited ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... The scarcity of hogs at Otaheite may be owing to two causes; first, to the number which have been consumed, and carried off by the shipping which have touched here of late years; and, secondly, to the frequent wars between the two kingdoms. We know of two since ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... (he says) that impressed me was that in the great cities of Cinemaland there is, outwardly at least, little or no sign of scarcity. On the contrary, at the various hotels and restaurants, as well as several private entertainments that came under my observation, a note of almost wanton luxury appeared to be aimed at. Evening dress is worn whenever possible, and the costumes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... and snowdrifts were piled so high against the walls of Quebec that it looked 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
... dairy-farming is conducted on pure pastures, the cows are altogether dependent upon the grasses; and in winter, the animals suffer much from scarcity of food. This is the very worst system of cow-keeping, but it is prevalent amongst many small farmers in Ireland, and is to be met with even in England and Scotland. I am strongly of opinion that it would be far more economical ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... and it was well they did, for the new camp was ill supplied with food, and we found ourselves in a region of growing scarcity as we approached the Iditarod. The ptarmigan seem to have supplemented the meagre stocks in the Iditarod during this winter of 1910-11 as effectively as the rabbits did in the Fairbanks camp in the scarce winter of 1904-5. In place after place the whole creek valley, where it was ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... 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 astonishes ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... Mirandola assures us in his treatise, De Auro, that a man, who was not rich, finding himself reduced to the last extremity, and without any resources either to pay his debts or procure nourishment for a numerous family in a time of scarcity, overcome with grief and uneasiness, fell asleep. At the same time, one of the blessed appeared to him in a dream, taught him by some enigmatical words the means of making gold, and pointed out to him at the same moment ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... circumnavigation of the globe. It was our intention to go directly to Monterey and present our official documents, as well as our respects, to your illustrious Governor, but owing to contrary winds and a resultant scarcity of provisions, we were under the necessity of putting into the nearest harbor. The Juno is navigated by Lieutenant Davidov and Lieutenant Khovstov, of the Imperial Navy of Russia; by gracious permission associated with the ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... readiness and watched the leg. It was difficult to judge the position of the native's body, and the scarcity of ammunition made us hesitate before firing a shot. The leg was pushed farther out of the leafy tangle, and as it came toward him a change passed over Holman's face. He handed his revolver to me, crouched on his thighs ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Owing to scarcity of petrol several fire-brigades have had again to resort to horses. In consequence people who have fires are requested to place their orders at once, as they can only be dealt with in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... and thirst were speedily satisfied, but the money scarcity was not so easily remedied. All the score were out of employment, with the exception of the three sword makers, whose trade the uncertainty of the times augmented rather than diminished. To cheer up Roland, who was a young fellow of unquenchable geniality, they ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... rapid maturing of its seeds (in a month or less), seems to be the only plant not completely destroyed by the cattle, although the latter are very fond of it and eat it freely, both green and when dried on the ground. As a further effect of the abundance of cattle and the scarcity of food for them, the young willows, which, even so late as ten years ago, formed one of the characteristic features of the river and its banks, growing thickly in the bed of the stream, and often forming impenetrable jungles on its ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... or timbered Land. In general, Illinois is abundantly supplied with timber, and were it equally distributed through the State, there would be no part in want. The apparent scarcity of timber where the prairie predominates, is not so great an obstacle to the settlement of the country as has been supposed. For many of the purposes to which timber is applied, substitutes are found. The rapidity ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... opihi-koele at the rocky beach; every edible thing in the sea was taken away. This was the first stroke of Ku-ula's revenge on the King and the people of Hana who obeyed his mandate; they suffered greatly from the scarcity of fish. ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... to 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... the Count would be highly advantageous to any of us, particularly at this period of high prices and culinary scarcity. He never ate nor drank; or, at least, he was never seen to do so! It is said that boarding house regime in these days is rapidly accustoming a considerable class of our fellow-citizens to a similar condition, but I can scarcely ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... them, in the hopes that they may leave me alone, but it's of no use. Their impudence is astonishing. When my husband is in I retreat to my room, but he is often away, and then I am obliged to put up with them. And the scarcity of money prevents us from doing much business, but we are obliged to pay our workmen all the same. As far as I can see, we shall be obliged to dismiss them, as we shall soon have to meet several bills. Next Saturday we have got to pay ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sad beings, whose most appropriate place was by the side of death-beds. These sisters of Notre Dame were brisk, energetic women, of lively temperaments. Finding the building which was preparing for them not yet provided with doors and windows, from the scarcity of mechanics, they themselves set about planing, glazing, and painting, to make every thing neat and comfortable. Wilkes, in his account of his exploring expedition, speaks regretfully of the poor appearance the Protestant missions presented, when compared ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... those districts in which the coffee-plantations are subject to their incursions, where they fry the rats in cocoanut-oil or convert them into curry." Both he and Dr. Kellaart mention the migratory habits of this animal on the occurrence of a scarcity of food. Kellaart says that in one day on such visits more than a thousand have been killed on one ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the scarcity of fodder, people interested in agriculture and cattle rearing have very often imported foreign grasses and fodder plants into this country, but so far no one has succeeded in establishing any one of them ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... book-selling kiosks send in reports of the sale of the various newspapers, etc., to eliminate the waste of over-production, a very important matter in a country faced simultaneously by a vigorous demand for printed matter and an extreme scarcity of paper. ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... The scarcity in the present year and the small supply of the past years have given this city occasion to resolve upon an innovation which we greatly fear will be its total ruin. The city petitioned me for the execution of a decree of your Majesty given in the year 1593, which has not as yet been given force ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... rivers in the northern part of the province, and only the rivers Champoton, and the Uzumacinta with its branches, in the south-western portion; but there are several small lakes in the centre of Yucatan, and a large number of artificial ponds in the central and southern districts. The scarcity of water is the one great natural difficulty to be surmounted in most parts of the country; but a supply can commonly be obtained by digging wells, though often at so great a depth that the cost is formidable. The result is that the number of wells is small, and in the cities of Merida ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... records that the scarcity of medical men may have compelled surgeons in Virginia to practice internal medicine: surgeons prescribed medicine with the same frequency as doctors. The surgeons, however, did not abandon the treatment of wounds, fractures, and dislocations; ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... People who are fond of the bustle and gaiety of Nizza or Mentone in their better days can hardly find much to amuse them in San Remo. It is certainly quiet, and its quiet verges upon dulness. A more serious drawback lies in the scarcity of promenades or level walks for weaker invalids. For people with good legs, or who are at home on a donkey, there are plenty of charming walks and rides up into the hills. But it is not everybody who is strong ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Villa-sierra, Don Fernando de Valenzuela, [149] while he was in the fort of Cavite; and, when that gentleman ordered that he be given more than six times its value, the Indian told him that what he wanted was to be given eighty cavans of rice, [150] and that in a time of so great scarcity it was not to be had for two pesos per cavan. But they have this curious peculiarity, that they are just as happy if these things are not given to them as if they had been given. For they have little or no esteem ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of bed, and a good fair average is four-fifths of a pound. This would give over a thousand pounds of mushrooms a season from this cellar when it is in full running capacity. But as the aim is to have a steady supply of mushrooms from October until May, and not a flush at any one time and a scarcity at another, only two beds are made at a time, allowing a month ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... went by it happened that hard tunes with a scarcity of food struck "Frying-Pan Tickle," the hospitable name of the cove where Sally was reared. Fish were scarce, capelin never struck in, fur could not be got. This particular season every kind of fur had been scarce. A forest ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... a week after the affair at Lexington and Concord, Governor Gage refused the request of the people to leave the town, but the growing scarcity of provisions compelled him ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Their only time for study was such of the year as was not needed for the tilling of the niggardly soil or spent in the care of the flocks. And even the little they were able to learn was easily lost on account of the scarcity of books. Neff first addressed himself to learning the patois, and then, as he went from village to village, made ordinary teaching a part of his pastoral functions. At the beginning of his second winter he resolved to undertake the training of teachers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... world had been such that a constantly diminished quantity of currency in relation to the output of other commodities had caused a steady fall in prices, it is obvious that there might have been a very considerable check to the enthusiasm of industry. It has indeed been contended that the scarcity of precious metals which, with the absence of an organised credit system, produced this result during the later Roman Empire was a very important cause of the decay into which that Empire fell. I do not feel at all convinced that this effect would necessarily have followed the cause. It seems to ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... compass of this small habitation is inhabited by many nations, different in language, fashions, and conversation, to which by reason of the difficulties in travelling, the diversity of speech, and the scarcity of traffic, not only the Fame of particular men but even of cities can hardly come. Finally, in the age of Marcus Tullius, as he himself writeth,[118] the fame of the Roman Commonwealth had not passed the mountain Caucasus, and yet it was then in the most ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... near the course of the Gila River to Fort Yuma, and then led over the Colorado Desert to Los Angeles. This path avoided all the high mountains, but much of it lay across deserts, where the heat and scarcity of water made it an impracticable ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... that there will be a scarcity of labour? And that they can continue to blackmail us into ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... campaign. On the 15th of October he ordered General Garfield to proceed to Washington with it and to explain personally to the Secretary of the War and the General-in-Chief the details of the actual condition of the army, its lines of communication, the scarcity of supplies and especially of forage for horses and mules, with all other matters which would assist the War Department in fully appreciating the situation. Garfield's term as member of Congress began with the 4th of March preceding, but the active ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... without resistance. But the commander made so vigorous a defence that he was under the necessity of besieging it in form. In a short time the garrison was reduced to extreme distress, both from scarcity of provisions and want of water, the aqueduct which brought water to the fort being destroyed by the enemy. During a sally made by the commander to obtain supplies, he and all his followers were slain. In this critical situation, Don Gabriel Cano, who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Henry, of Straffan, county of Kildare, had hit on an expedient to benefit the wool-growers in general, and his numerous tenantry in particular. Knowing that market value is in the direct ratio of demand and scarcity, he annually buried the wool shorn from his own sheep, lest it might interfere with the profitable sale of his tenants' fleeces. But, alas! this generous system of self-sacrifice did not "work well." The result was—though Squire Henry never suspected the existence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... a great Scarcity of it. There is a great Want of every Thing but wicked Soldiers. Good ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus |
