Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
Sympathy for the poor relation at one's door is a rare thing indeed. Increasing prosperity makes nations, as it makes men, more intolerant of growing adversity, and the poor man is apt to get more kicks than half-pence from the rich kinsmen under the shadow of whose palace he spends his life, and to whom his poverty, his relationship, and his dependence are a standing reproach.
The truth appears to be that the youthful Trollope, like a more famous fellow-novelist, began the world with more kicks than half-pence. His boyhood, he affirms, was as unhappy as that of a young gentleman could well be, owing to a mixture of poverty and gentle standing on his father's part, and, on his own, to "an utter lack of juvenile manhood" whatever that may be.
Bacon said of them he hoped they would be "like the late new half-pence, which, though the pieces are small, the silver is good."
I sank, simply sank, on all sides every way I turned; sank to my knees, sank to my waist, dived under in ignominy, never to rise again never! This was the climax! To accept half-a-sovereign in alms without being able to fling it back to the secret donor; scramble for half-pence whenever the chance offered, and keep them, use them for lodging money, in spite of one's intense inner aversion....
A log of wood about the size of a railway sleeper had to be sawn into twelve pieces, and each of these had to be chopped into four. For sawing and chopping one log in this manner the worker was paid ninepence. One log made two bags of firewood, which were sold for a shilling each a trifle under the usual price. The men who delivered the bags were paid three half-pence for each two bags.
It has also been compared with Faulkner's issue of 1725, in "Fraud Detected." Harding the Printer, Upon Occasion of a PARAGRAPH *IN HIS *News-Paper of Aug. 1st. Relating to Mr. Wood's Half-pence. By M.B. Drapier. AUTHOR of the LETTER to the SHOP-KEEPERS, &c.
If a dog can exchange his faculty for cigar carrying or his tricks against half-pence, why should he not exchange useful services, such as guarding a house or herding sheep, and so become self-supporting? Imagine a collie paid by the day, and, when his work was over, receiving twopence and going off to buy his supper. But the vista opened is too far-reaching.
"Let me see," he said; "you gave me in all two shillings and twopence. Well what did it all come to sponge-cakes so much, buns so much, biscuits," he went on murmuring to himself and touching his fingers to remind him "yes, it is very curious," he said, "it comes to just two shillings and three half-pence.
One belonged to the late Colonel F. Grant, and the other is in the British Museum. It has also been read with the collection of the Drapier's Letters issued by the Drapier Club in 1725, with the title, "Fraud Detected"; with the London edition of "The Hibernian Patriot" , and with Faulkner's text issued in his collected edition of Swift's Works in 1735. Concerning the *Brass Half-pence* Coined by
The boy who stood with his cap waiting for stray half-pence or pence to be dropped into it, had large blue eyes, which were turned with marvelous rapidity, first in the direction of one spectator, then in that of another.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking