Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
And it was by no means bad; at anyrate it was always possible to get fruit, including loquats, strawberries, custard apples, bananas, oranges, and the passion-flower fruit, which is not enticing on a first acquaintance, and resembles an anæmic pomegranate. Eggs, too, were twenty-eight for tenpence; fish was at nominal prices. But there is nothing to do in Funchal save eat and swim or ride.
And though there were fifty against my great toe-nail fellows who have waited till we lit the straw under their very seats. Brother, brother, there is nothing to fear. They sell their lives for tenpence; and are we not fighting for our necks? We will pour into them like a deluge, and fire volleys upon their heads like crashes of thunder. But where the devil is the captain.
I longed for a home, for a wife. 'You were very poor once? 'Yes: I've lived on tenpence and a shilling a day. I've worked in the docks as a labourer. I went down there hoping to get a clerkship on board one of the Transatlantic steamers. I had had enough of England, and thought of seeking fortune elsewhere. 'I can hardly believe you worked as a labourer in the docks. 'Yes; I did.
This brought the total to six shillings and tenpence, and I was beset by a horrible temptation to add a shilling or two for candles; there was one young man among the three who looked as if he would have understood the joke. The father of the family looked at the bill, and remarked quizzically, "Bond Street prices, eh?" "Bond Street service," said I, curtsying demurely.
At this time, the man who used to come with cakes and apples for the boys to buy, came into the play-ground. Eaton took up a tart, and holding his hand out to Bentley, said: "Come, you may as well give me tenpence;" but Bentley held out sixpence, and said he would give no more. Eaton then tried to knock it out of his hand, but instead of his succeeding, the tart fell and was broke to pieces.
A good-looking girl will secure her regular customers, have her own regular and undisturbed beat, and will often earn from tenpence to a shilling a night; but the newspaper beats have to be bought, and often at a high figure, for competition is very keen, and the coveted corners where the greater number of gentlemen are to be met that require evening papers are highly prized.
Three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence halfpenny an ounce, therefore, is said to be the mint price of gold in England, or the quantity of gold coin which the mint gives in return for standard gold bullion.
Instead of selling them at tenpence, however, he sells them at ninepence half-penny; thereby making his customers a present of one half-penny, taking to himself only one half of the sum to which they have already consented as a just charge for the services which he renders. Evidently he grows rich.
The pay used to be tenpence a day; now it is one shilling and a pint of beer per day, and in some places fifteenpence.
But in the 16th year of Edward III. tenpence contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower weight, and was nearly equal to half-a-crown of our present money.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking