"Poll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a Peer is to appear." Those Radicals been protesting that talk about necessity for prolonging Session over week all a flam. Simply meant to make it impossible for our delicate friend, the British Workman, to get to poll. Peers must show they mean business, by turning up with regularity ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... so small That he soon got a fall, And tumbled down into a hole; He was not much hurt, But covered with dirt— There Jemmie lay rubbing his poll. ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... taxes include the property tax, which is quite low, one and a half per cent. Every male adult pays a poll tax of one dollar, a school tax of two dollars, and a road tax of two dollars. The following is the detail of the internal taxes for the two ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... men of the woods, was a hard old nut, called and known among them as—Old Tantabolus! He was a wiry and hardy old rooster; though his frosty poll spoke of the many, many years he had "been around," his body was yet firm and his perceptions yet clear. The old man was a grand spinner of yarns; he had been all around creation, and various other places not set down in the maps. He had been a soldier and sailor: been blown up ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... long lock upon the shaven poll is a very ancient practice: we find it amongst the old Egyptians. For the Shushah or top-knot of hair, see vol. i. 308. It is differently worn in the several regions of the Moslem world: the Maroccans of the Rif country ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Suppose there should be proposed some general and stern limitation of the franchise? Such an onerous qualification must needs apply to black and white alike. Who would be first to object to it? It would be the politicians of the North, who could not afford to exact even a prepaid poll-tax as a test for a vote. In time the North will need to free her white slaves, already turbulent and rebellious. In time she will have to pay for them, as we of the South have paid. After that great civil war which is yet to come, the men of the North may perhaps understand more fully the ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Fox. The election, which began on the first of the month, had now gone on more than three weeks: ten thousand voters had polled; and it was even expected that, since the voters were exhausted, the books would be closed, and Wray, who was second on the poll, Lord Hood being first, would ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... read; and if a poor man who belonged to an estate went away to a town, his lord could have him brought back to his old home. Any tax, too, fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. One tax, especially, called the poll tax, which was made when Richard was sixteen, vexed them greatly. Everyone above fifteen years old had to pay fourpence, and the collectors were often very rude and insolent. A man named Wat Tyler, in Kent, was so angry with a rude collector as to strike him dead. All the villagers ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... crept in, which found its culmination in that remarkable man, Akbar the Great, who entertained the teachers of all faiths and encouraged a fearless discussion of their respective merits. Dr. Wherry writes: "The tolerance of Akbar, who not only removed the poll-tax from all his non-Moslem subjects, but who established a sort of parliament of religions, inviting Brahmans, Persian Sufis, Parsee fire-worshippers, and Jesuit priests to freely discuss in his presence the special tenets of their faith and practice, was remarkable. He went farther, and ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... though I had no tools; and no one could say that I did not earn it by the sweat of my brow. When the rain kept me indoors, it was good fun to teach my pet bird Poll to talk; but so mute were all things round me that the sound of my ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Birmingham, The.—The knights of the pole (or poll) have always been noted for getting into mischief, and it is not therefore so very surprising to find that in March, 1327, a royal pardon had to be granted to "Roger, the barber of Birmingham," for the part he had taken in the political disturbances of that time. Was he a Con., ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... roam? Oh, had I stay'd, and said my prayers at home! 160 'Twas this the morning omens seem'd to tell: Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell; The tottering china shook without a wind, Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of Fate, In mystic visions, now believed too late. See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs! My hands shall rend what ev'n thy ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... looked down Like china moons upon the crowd. They saw him slowly shake his head, The thing denied that it was dead, While from the blacks arose a babblement of prayer. Surely the head must stop— Not till the fire caved! Then from the very top The loosened poll came with a leap, Bounding three times, it took the river-steep; Down, down the river bank—all they Ran after it like school boys for a ball. God! How the thing could roll! It seemed the devil kicked the leaping poll. At last it stopped at ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... it should be outlawed, and placed the duty of executing the ban upon all territories within ninety miles of the offender. It also passed a bill for taxation, called the "common penny," which combined features of a poll tax, an {76} income tax and a property tax. The difficulty of collecting it was great; Maximilian himself as a territorial prince tried to evade it instead of setting his subjects the good example of paying it. He probably derived no more than ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... cloak with his lips and disappeared. A moment later his curly black poll came stealing round the door-jamb, half-way down, like the head ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... demonstration, the meeting ended with the decision "that the matter should not be entertained until the end of that day twelve months." When that time came round the people were once more called together. The money was still refused, and it was ordered that a poll of the town should be taken. The poll showed a great majority against granting the money, and the result of this decision was that the baths and wash-houses had to remain in their unfinished state ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... election, we have known him to feed his masters (the S.A. party), upon flapdoodle, fabricating the mess out of imaginary native votes of confidence for his masters' delectation, and leaving them to discover the real ingredients of the dish, at the bottom of the poll, when ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber, and she, having been too rash with the shears in one place, had snipped off the rest of his curly black locks "to match;" until he showed a perfect convict's poll, giving his ears all the better chance, and bringing out the rather square contour of his jaws to advantage. He had the true Irish-Norman face; a skin of fine texture, fair and freckled, high cheekbones, straight nose, and wide blue eyes that ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... he opened the cage door and let your canary fly away, and twisted poor Poll's neck because she said, ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... government which is the slave's government also." "I do not hesitate to say," he adds, "that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts." That is what he did: in 1843 he ceased to pay the poll-tax. The highway-tax he paid, for he said he was as desirous to be a good neighbour as to be a bad subject; but no more poll-tax to the State of Massachusetts. Thoreau had now seceded, and was a polity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for what I know, and will give me one of their black-eyed young women for a wife; but I'll see them all triced up at their own yard-arms before I changes my religion, or forgets my own faithful rosy-cheeked Poll at home." ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... my time does not allow me to visit Italy at any other season than just in summer. We are in the midst of our canvass for the general elections. My son Augustus is to be returned for my old place Szecseny without opposition on the 21st. On the following day we go to the poll at Gyoengyoes, a borough which is to send me to Parliament. It is a contested election, therefore rather troublesome and expensive, though not too expensive. Parliament meets with us on the first of September. Thus my holidays are ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... put in my ticket they would put me in jail, and send me to the penitentiary. I had already agreed with a white man, who owed me $50, to pay my tax, and he said he had done it, but when I found him, and he found what was the matter, he said he had not paid it. They demanded $4.50 poll-tax, and I paid it and put in my vote. They were determined that I should not vote, and I was determined that I would vote for Grant any way, as I was the president of the club. They told me if I would vote for Seymour ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... benefits which he conferred on the Galli, previously exhausted by extreme want, are most especially evident from this fact, that when he first entered the country he found that four-and-twenty pieces of gold were exacted, under the name of tribute, in the way of poll-tax, from each individual. But when he quitted the country seven pieces only were required, which made up all the payments due from them to the state. On which account they rejoiced with festivals and dances, looking upon him as a serene sun which had shone ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Tsar. Land had been allotted to each peasant family sufficient, as supposed, for its support, besides paying a fixed yearly sum to Government. Much of it, however, is so bad that it cannot be made to afford a living and pay the tax, in fact a poll tax, not dependent on the size of the strip, but on the number of the souls. The population in Russia has always had a great tendency to migrate, and serfdom in past ages is said to have been instituted to enable the lord of the soil to be responsible for the taxes. "It would have been ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Hair Sprigs, Garnet & Pearl Hair Sprigs." In the Salem Gazette and various Boston papers I read of "black & coloured plumes & feathers." Other hair ornaments advertised in the Boston News Letter, of December, 1768, were "Long and small Tail Garnets, Mock Garland of all sorts and Ladies Poll Combs." Steel plumes, pompons, aigrettes, and rosettes all were worn on the head, and artificial flowers, wreaths of ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... then," said the Chief Organiser; "I have promised the agent down there that he shall be able to display posters announcing 'Platterbaff is Out,' before the poll opens. He said it was our only chance of getting a telegram 'Radprop ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... woodpecker. So having taken the head of an eel-spear and fastened it to his nose to make a bill, he climbed as well as he could—and bad was the best—up a tree, and tried to get his harvest of rice. Truly he got none; only in this did he succeed in resembling a Woodpecker, that he had a red poll; for his pate was all torn and bleeding, bruised by the fishing-point. And the pretty birds all looked and laughed, and wondered what the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... animal had stopped frequently to grovel on the snow. About half a mile from the knoll, Mr. Edwards came upon the beast, in a fir thicket, making distressful sounds, and quite helpless to defend itself. A blow on the head from the poll of the axe finished the creature; and, taking it by the tail, Mr. Edwards dragged it to the house. The carcass was lying in the dooryard ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... has been made above, consists of two ornamental plants, with leaves and flowers, fashioned from gold and silver, and their value is estimated at about $5000. The sum necessary to defray the cost of these gifts is raised by means of a banchi or poll-tax, to which every adult male contributes; and the return presents, sent from Bangkok, are of precisely the same value, and are, of course, a perquisite of the Raja. The exact significance of these gifts is a question of which very different views are taken by the parties ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... the spear then after Ferbaeth so that it hit the hollow of his poll, and came out at his mouth in front, so that he fell back ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... practically without exception, stalwart supporters of the policy of participation in and responsibility for the Provisional Government, and known to be ardent believers in the Constituent Assembly. Chernov, with 810 votes, led the poll; Breshkovskaya came next with 809; Kerensky came third with 804; Avksentiev had 799; Bunakov 790; Vera Finger 776, and so on. Nineteenth on the list of thirty elected came the venerable Nicholas Tchaykovsky, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... and withdrawal could no longer be delayed. The death of Strafford was immediately followed by the conclusion of a pacification between the two countries; and the sum required for the disbanding of both armies was provided by a poll-tax. Meanwhile the Houses hastened to complete their task of reform. The civil and judicial jurisdiction of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the North, the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... day before the poll Mr. Jenkins's polling cards were delivered. They were headed, "Vote for Jenkins and Kill Profiteering. Give up this card at your polling-station for free samples of silks in my great blouse offer. I sell for 9s. 11-3/4d. a blouse usually priced at two guineas. Not more than six sold ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... and capitalists, have spoken for themselves by their petitions and voices here to-night. It remains only for me to speak for the more numerous class of our fellow-citizens who pay but two dollars poll-tax. Yet they are as good citizens, have and feel as deep interest in the growth, prosperity, and progress of our city, as their more fortunate neighbors; and in the name and behalf of the mechanics, the laborers, the great mass of men that build our cities, and whose labor contributes ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... to go—and won't go," replied the Major with a commiserative glance at me. "Says he doesn't know a duck from a poll-parrot—nor how to load a shotgun—and couldn't hit a house if he were inside of it and the door shut. Admits that he nearly killed his uncle once, on the other side of a tree, with a squirrel runnin' down it. Don't want ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... of such poll-books it shall appear that a majority of the legal votes cast at said election be in favor of the 'Constitution with no slavery,' then the article providing for slavery shall be stricken from this Constitution, and slavery shall no longer exist in the State of Kansas; except ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... those who live on the spoil of a public is not to be wondered at. He was, however, the means of checking the rage and injustice of taxation in his time, and the nation owed much to his valour. The history is concisely this:—In the time of Richard Ii. a poll tax was levied of one shilling per head upon every person in the nation of whatever estate or condition, on poor as well as rich, above the age of fifteen years. If any favour was shown in the law it was to the rich rather than to the poor, as no person could ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... him let all thy vengeance fall; On me you but misplace it: Remember how he called thee 'Poll' — But, ah! he dares ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... again. You must wait, dear, wait, and I must work and work; and before the week is out, as sure as God sees me, I'll have made you happy. O you may think me broken, hounds, but the Deacon's not the man to be run down; trust him, he shall turn a corner yet, and leave you snarling! And you, Poll, you. I've done nothing for you yet; but, please God, I'll make your life a life of gold; and wherever I am, I'll have a part in your happiness, and you'll know it, by heaven! and ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... they were electors whom Murphy and Dick in their zeal for their party were going over to greet with hearty welcomes and bring up to the poll the next day. By no means. They were the friends of the opposite party, and it was with the design of retarding their movements that this night's excursion was undertaken. These electors were a batch of plain citizens from ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... could not be composed of moderate men. The electoral districts would be, some of them, in purely agricultural places, and in these the parson and the squire would have almost unlimited power. They would be able to drive or send to the poll an entire labouring population. These districts would return an unmixed squirearchy. The scattered small towns which now send so many members to Parliament, would be lost in the clownish mass; their votes would send to Parliament no distinct members. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... with that night-school in Poll Ghyll, for instance?' he said, with another note in ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in my time, and I've played the deuce with men! I'm speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then: My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast of the ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... o' the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband was, though Miss Jinkins says (she 't was Poll Bingham), she says, I never found it out till after he died, but that 's the consarndest lie, that ever was told, though it 's jest a piece with everything else she says about me. I guess if everybody could see the poitry I writ to his memory, nobody wouldn 't think I dident set store by him. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... any other means than by the Rate-book; for if there be no list of tax-payers in the hands of any person, mere menial servants, vagrants, pickpockets, and scamps of all sorts might not only come to the poll, but they might poll in several parishes or places, on one and the same day. A corrupt rich man might employ scores of persons of this description, and in this way would the purpose of reform be completely ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... consciousness. Perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate, it gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of clapping and applause by three hits running in the gold—a feat which among the Brackenshaw archers had not the vulgar reward of a shilling poll-tax, but that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast. That moment was not only a happy one to herself—it was just what her mamma and her uncle would have chosen for her. There was a general falling into ranks to give her space that she might advance conspicuously to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... in all his terrors. They listened for a moment, but only heard the rain pelting against the windows and the wind howling among the trees. The explosion was soon explained by the apparition of an old negro's bald head thrust in at the door, his white goggle eyes contrasting with his jetty poll, which was wet with rain, and shone like a bottle. In a jargon but half intelligible he announced that the kitchen chimney had ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... before the close of the poll, Mr. Bradlaugh was leaving the same night for America, having barely time to catch the boat at Liverpool. I drove round with him before leaving, on a visit to some of the polling stations. He had paid me a modest sum for my services, but he found ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... Bureau, protected by the bayonet, were voting to enfranchise themselves, disfranchise their former masters, ratify a new constitution, and elect a legislature to do their will. Old Aleck was a candidate for the House, chief poll-holder, and seemed to be in charge of the movements of the voters outside the booth as well as inside. He appeared to be omnipresent, and his self-importance was a sight Phil had never dreamed. He could not keep ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... though they made the greatest appearance in the field, and cried the loudest, the best of it is they are but a sort of French Huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturalised: who have not lands of two pounds per annum in Parnassus, and therefore are not privileged to poll. Their authors are of the same level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's stage, or to be masters of the ceremonies in a bear-garden; yet these are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... justifying their conduct. Congress then had a prestige which it does not now possess, and its utterances then received consideration not now accorded. Whenever presidential electors were voted for directly by the people, the poll was small compared with the vote for members of Congress. Moreover, there was then a feeling that the Cabinet should be regarded as a bureaucracy, and for a long period this conception tended to give remarkable permanence to ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... stood for Parliament himself. He stood as a Conservative at a General Election and spoke eloquently to enthusiastic meetings. The wire-pullers prophecied an overwhelming majority, when shortly before the poll, at one of his meetings, he suddenly declared himself to be an Independent, and made a speech violently in favour of Home Rule and conscription. The result was that the Liberal Imperialist got in by a huge majority, and the man who gave good ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... his head till his dirty, yellowish poll nearly touched his gray knees that were covered with callouses. Amid the close-packed, silent audience a smothered phrase rose to the ears of the interpreter. Hamoud, turning away his face, cast forth ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... he was candidate for the borough of Haslemere, which he had represented in former Parliaments; but on the close of the poll, the numbers were found to be for J. Moore Molyneaux, 75; Philip Carteret Webb, 76; Peter Burrel, 46; ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... that it was in vain to look for the defence of his seat to his patron. He called upon Mr. O'Connell to fulfil his engagement "by fighting the battle so long as a bad vote for the petitioners remained on the poll, or, at all events, to the end of the session." Mr. O'Connell, however, either could not, or would not defend him; and Mr. Raphael was unseated along with his colleague, on which he published the whole transaction to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the green herbage, and basks unmolested in the sun, he crowds perhaps as much enjoyment into one summer hour as a parrot, however pampered and erudite, spreads over a whole drawing-room life spent in saying "How dye do" and "Pretty Poll." ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... excuse himself," replied the king as he scratched the poll of Cleopatra's parrot, parting its feathers with the tips of his fingers. "Lysias, the Corinthian, is sitting below, and he says he does not know where his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fish house. Honest boys, first thing, before I got a good look around, I thought I had died, and was amouldering in my grave. The three men were hanging over me, ajabbering like so many monkeys or poll parrots. Then the big fellow with the black beard began to throw all sorts of questions at me, which I ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... these good mouth-filling phrases, "Materialistic Conception of History," "Class-Conscious Proletariat," "Class Struggle," and "Revolutionary Socialism," with no more accurate idea of their meaning than our pious friends have of the theological phrases they keep repeating like so many poll-parrots. ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... passed them with apparent unconcern, till one little brute ventured to bite him in the back of the leg. This was a degree of wanton insult which could not be patiently endured; so turning round, he ran after the offender, and seized him by the poll. In this manner he carried him to the quay, and holding him for some time over the water, at length dropped him into it. He did not, however, intend that the culprit should be drowned. Waiting till he was not only well ducked, but nearly sinking, he plunged in and ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... inquisitive body, and when not in his room was continually poking about town, hearing all the news, and prying into everything that was going on; this was particularly the case about election time, when he did nothing but bustle about him from poll to poll, attending all ward meetings and committee-rooms; though I could never find that he took part with either side of the question. On the contrary, he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath—and plainly proved one day to the satisfaction of my wife, and three ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the very heart of the county-seat, and refused to move or to plot, and called it Methuselah's addition. He came out in spring regularly for nine hundred years after he got too old to work out his poll-tax on the road, and put in his time telling the rising generation how to make a good road. Meantime other old people, who were almost one hundred years of age, moved away and went West where they would attract attention and command ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... a pronounced individualist, carrying out Emerson's doctrine by becoming independent of others' opinions. What he thought right, he said or did. He disapproved, for example, of slavery, and consequently refused to pay his poll tax to a government that upheld slavery. When he was imprisoned because of non-payment, Emerson visited him and asked, "Why are you here, Henry?" Thoreau merely replied, "Why are ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... does not depend, like his predecessors, on the fifth of the booty taken from the enemy, and the fines imposed for violations of the scharyat, but has introduced a regular system of taxation. A poll-tax to the amount of a silver rouble, or its value in kind, is levied on every family; one tenth of the produce of the land goes into the public treasury; the property of every person dying without direct heirs, falls to the government; and the wealth accumulated in the mosques and ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... it had "been found very easy to the subjects of this colony, and no ways burthensome to the traders in slaves." The additional reason for continuing the law was, "that a competent revenue" might be raised "for preventing or lessening a poll-tax."[167] And in 1738, this law being "found, by experience, to be an easy expedient for raising a revenue towards the lessening a pooll-tax, always grievous to the people of this colony, and is in no way burthensom to the traders in slaves," it was re-enacted. In every instance, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... from her work for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun, to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads and bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man, sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs, men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who came rather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that they ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... however, insisted on a personal answer. Miss Aline came in and stood shyly while Sir Bunny pointed out the advantages of his proposal—the estates joined, the parish under control, and the family name changed by poll deed to Minto-Bunny-Bunny. ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... time. Thus, too, he was quite magnificently depicted by the court painter, Radoux, wearing a tasselled cap, and holding a sheet of music-paper in his hand. His wife—the Frau Kapellmeisterinn—born Josepha Poll—was not a helpmeet for him, being addicted to strong drink, and therefore, during her last years, placed in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... surrendered it only as it regards imports and exports. In relation to every other object within their jurisdiction, whether persons, property, business, or professions, it was secured in as ample a manner as it was before possessed. All persons, though United States officers, are liable to a poll tax by the States within which they reside. The lands of the United States are liable to the usual land tax, except in the new States, from whom agreements that they will not tax unsold lands are exacted when they are admitted into the Union. Horses, wagons, any beasts or vehicles, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check with someone: "I keep polling him, but he's not answering his phone; he must be swapped out." 3. To ask. "Lunch? I poll ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the Mississippi there were about twenty barges, which averaged 100 tons burden, and more than three months was occupied in ascending from Orleans to Louisville with West India produce, the crew being obliged to poll or cordelle the whole distance. Seldom more than one voyage to Orleans and back was made within the year. In 1817, a steam-boat arrived at Louisville from New Orleans in twenty-five days, and a public dinner and ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... several hours, during which the chiefs took it in turn to speak. The most brilliant speaker of the gathering was a chief called Tati. The chief point of discussion was the imposition of an annual poll-tax at the rate of five measures of oil per man. Then came a question as to the taxes which were to be levied, whether they should be on behalf of the king, or on behalf of the missionaries. After some time, we arrived at the conclusion that the first question ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the field, and in two minutes was on Poll, the bay, bare-backed, and with only a halter by way of rein. He diminished ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... service, the signal was given, and the cars started, when Miss Hobbs, thinking it was needless to keep up a longer lookout, reentered, and was surprised to find a nice-looking young man by her side. He wore a heavy yellow watchguard, yellow kid gloves, and a moustache to match, patent-leather boots, a poll-parrot scarf, and a brilliant breast-pin. Ann Harriet was delighted to have such a companion; and her wish that he would enter into conversation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the torrent of her words Alarmed cat, monkey, dogs, and birds: All join their forces to confound her; Puss spits, the monkey chatters round her; 30 The yelping cur her heels assaults; The magpie blabs out all her faults; Poll, in the uproar, from his cage, With this rebuke out-screamed her rage: 'A parrot is for talking prized, But prattling women are despised. She who attacks another's honour, Draws every living thing upon her. Think, madam, when you stretch your lungs, That all your neighbours too ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... when he keeps up a conversation so spiritedly; and it is certainly singular to observe how accurately a well-trained bird will apply his knowledge. A friend of mine knew one that had been taught many sentences; thus, "Sally, Poll wants her breakfast!" "Sally, Poll wants her tea!" but she never mistook the one for the other; breakfast was invariably demanded in the morning, and tea in the afternoon; and she always hailed her master, but no one else, by "How do ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... fighting friend of Mr. Figsby, has just arrived, with three brace of duelling pistols, and a carpet-bag full of powder and ball. This looks like business. I have heard that six of Mr. Figsby's voters have been locked up in a barn by Griggles' people. The poll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... same as a poll parrot," cut in her husband. "Comes natural when you're handlin' wet trawl line in February. Can't seem to get no ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... not, perhaps, be found to be without some influence upon the future fortunes of her boyish admirer, we have thought it worth while to be thus particular in describing them. The other bona roba, known amongst her companions as Mistress Poll Maggot, was a beauty on a much larger scale,—in fact, a perfect Amazon. Nevertheless though nearly six feet high, and correspondingly proportioned, she was a model of symmetry, and boasted, with ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... though not altogether exhausting, the chief national character-types. In the year of King Richard II's accession (1377), according to a trustworthy calculation based upon the result of that year's poll-tax, the total number of the inhabitants of England seems to have been two millions and a half. A quarter of a century earlier—in the days of Chaucer's boyhood—their numbers had been perhaps twice as large. For not less than four great pestilences (in 1348-9, 1361-2, ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... when she was not satisfied with my ardours, if it please ye!—I remember the motion: but her back was towards me at the time.* Are these watchful ladies all eye?—But observe what follows; 'I wish it had been a poll-axe, and in the hands ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... prose-and-poem man. It has been said, with authority, that Thackeray never illustrated any articles but his own; but that is wholly incorrect. If you open Volume VIII., at p. 266, you will find a drawing of his showing Jack Tar and his Poll waltzing an accompaniment to an article on the "Debate on the Navy," which was written by Gilbert a Beckett. To the same writer's chapter on "The Footman," in his series of "Punch's Guide to Servants" (p. 40, Volume ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... of the face at the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing. A bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for by the explanation. "I have had ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It was evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy massive features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of sense ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... put in, who was old, and had a white poll; "they've something they call the calendar—it's an invention of their own—and everything is to be arranged according to that; but it won't do. When spring comes, then the year begins, and I reckon according ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... was to recommend the repeal of the tax of four pounds of tobacco per poll which formerly had been levied for the Governor's use. The Assembly acknowledged this as "a benefit descending unto us and our posterity ... contributed to us by our present Governor." Berkeley abolished certain other valuable emoluments ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... person who has been served in the United State army or navy, and has been honorably discharged from the service, if otherwise qualified to vote, shall be debarred from voting on account of his being a pauper, or, if a pauper, because of the non-payment of a poll tax,—an act which obviated many of the evils of double taxation by providing that, when any person has an interest in taxable real estate as holders of a mortgage, given to secure the payment of a loan, the amount of which is fixed and stated, the amount of said person's interest as mortgagee ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... successor of his father, who had begun before his death the movement for settling his people in America. The charter gave to all freemen a voice in making the laws. Among the first laws passed was one giving to every human being upon payment of poll-tax the right to worship freely according to the dictates of his own conscience. America thus became the refuge for those who had any peculiarity of religious belief, until to-day no doubt more varieties of religion may be found here than almost anywhere else ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... press. At every election in which there are only two candidates a dozen papers discover with amazement this astounding coincidence in the figures: that the decrease in, say, the Liberal vote subtracted from the increase in the Conservative vote is exactly equal to the increase in the poll. If there should happen to be three candidates for a seat, the coincidences discovered are yet more numerous and astonishing. Last Christmas a paper let itself go still further, and dived into the economics of the plum pudding. A plum ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... Government. The officials, alas, soon supplied this deficiency. A few days before the Presidential election in July, 1910, when making a speech in Monterey, Madero was arrested as a disturber of the peace and thrown into prison, where he was kept until the close of the poll. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... party; but he also has very bitter enemies—enemies with influence. Taking this into consideration, and believing that the success of the party was more important than the success of any individual, I was in favor of nominating some man who would poll the entire Republican vote. This feeling did not grow out of any hostility to any man, but simply out of a desire for Republican success. In other words, I endeavored to take an unprejudiced view of the situation. Under no circumstances would I underrate the ability and influence of ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... about the boundaries of his estates for the patrimony of St. Peter. They consider that he and his predecessors have grossly wronged them at different times; and now last of all, by calling in foreign invaders; and they are at the gates of Rome laying waste the country, and demanding a poll-tax as ransom. ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... county. In order that he might attain this honour he had allowed himself to be talked by the men of Hamersham and Guestwick out of his old family politics, and had declared himself a Liberal. He had never gone to the poll, and, indeed, had never actually stood for the seat. But he had come forward as a liberal politician, and had failed; and, although it was well known to all around that Christopher Dale was in heart as thoroughly conservative as any of his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Ods, my little heart! Miss, why so impatient? Hav'n't you as genteel a parlour as any lady in the land could wish to sit down in?—The bed's turn'd up in a chest of drawers that's stain'd to look like mahogany:—there's two poets, and a poll parrot, the best images the jew had on his head, over the mantlepiece; and was I to leave you all alone by yourself, isn't there an eight day clock in the corner, that when one's waiting, lonesome like, for any body, keeps going tick-tack, and is ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... the poor man failed to pay, a garrison (garnison) was lodged upon him. A man in blue, with a gun, came and sat by his fire, slept in his bed, and laid hands on any money that might come into the house, thus collecting the tax and his own wages. The amount levied by the poll-tax and accessories was from thirty-six to forty-two million livres a year.[Footnote: Bailly, ii. 307. Necker, De l'Administration, i. 8. Mercier, iii. 98, xi. 96. Mercier thinks that the capitation was more feared than the dixieme, and than the entrees, because it attached more ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... falls into another difficulty; for a proclamation being issued, that all betwixt thirteen and sixty was to pay Poll-money; word was sent his father, that if he would pay it, he should have his liberty; which was no small temptation. But this he absolutely refused, and also told his father plainly (when urged by him to do it) that, if one plack (or four pennies) would do it, he would not give ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... a wearisome day to me; but before its close it became abundantly evident that if the electors were allowed to exercise a free discretion and vote according to their consciences, I should have headed the poll by a large majority. However in Ireland man proposes ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... "'Dear Poll—I'm starting behind the grays for London, on my way, as you know ere this, to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead by Gregory on Bess—she being fast enow for my purpose—which is to get thee straight out of the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... sweet that unseen bird? Lovelier could no music be, Clearer than water, soft as curd, Fresh as the blossomed cherry tree. How sang the others all around? Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound, With Pretty Poll, ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... attentions always acceptable to a pretty vain girl of her class. Both would officiously help her to catch and bridle her horse, carry her pail, or assist her in the hay-field. And this was as often done to hear the smart answers that pretty Poll would return to their gallant speeches, for the girl possessed no small share of wit, and her natural talents were in no way inferior to ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie |
