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Half-holiday   Listen
noun
half-holiday  n.  A day on which half of the day is free from work or duty; a holiday of one half of a day.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Half-holiday" Quotes from Famous Books



... one of our truest poets, was born in Moorfields, London, in the year 1795. He was educated at a private school at Enfield. His desire for the pleasures of the intellect and the imagination showed itself very early at school; and he spent many a half-holiday in writing translations from the Roman and the French poets. On leaving school, he was apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton— the scene of one of John Gilpin's adventures; but, in 1817, he gave up the ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... you may do, and indeed can alone guide you to what ought to be done. I had a rather painful illustration of this the other day. A gentleman of wealth and position offered me the use of his grounds for some of my poor friends, whom I wanted to take out for a half-holiday. In the neighborhood of London, that is a great boon. But unfortunately, whether from his mistake or mine, I was left with the impression that he would provide some little entertainment for them; I am certain ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... and employers of labour were satisfied with a few hours spent at some of the old-style Tea Gardens, or the Crown and Cushion, at Perry Barr, Aston Cross or Tavern, Kirby's, or the New Inn, at Handsworth, &c. The Saturday half-holiday movement, which came soon after the introduction of the railways, may be reckoned as starting the excursion era proper, and the first Saturday afternoon trip (in 1854) to the Earl of Bradford's, at Castle Bromwich, was an eventful episode even in the life of George Dawson, who accompanied ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... dusk, and already Andre-Louis was being paid now by the lessons that he gave, the master allowing him one half of the fee in each case for himself, an arrangement which the assistant found profitable. On Sundays the academy made half-holiday; but on this Sunday such had been the state of suspense and ferment in the city that no one having appeared by eleven o'clock both des Amis and Andre-Louis had gone out. Little they thought as they lightly took leave of each other—they were very good friends by now—that ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... must think the wish for it to have come originally from himself; it was not very easy to find anything that would do, but ere long it occurred to her that she might enlist his love of music on her side, and asked him one day when he was spending a half-holiday at her house whether he would like her to buy an organ for him to play on. Of course, the boy said yes; then she told him about her grandfather and the organs he had built. It had never entered into his head that ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... One half-holiday afternoon Mugford and Diggory had gone down to Chatford. It was nearly dark when they started to come back, and the latter proposed the short cut ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... glass for the window was a want for which the forest could supply no substitute—it was agreed that all should take a half-holiday next day, and go down to the 'Corner' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... children came to me, and said, "Oh, do please take us out somewhere on our half-holiday, and show us some of the great sights of London." Remembering how it had once been my privilege to be one of a party invited to go over Westminster Abbey, under the guidance of the late Dean Stanley, and how, from his graphic descriptions, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... incline their hearts to rest, reflection, instruction, and a little music? The cheap excursions, the school feasts, the concerts given for the people, the increased brightness of religious services, the Bank holidays, the Saturday half-holiday, all point to the gradual recognition of the great natural law that men and women, as well as boys and girls, must have play. At the present moment we have just arrived at the stage of acknowledging this law; the next step will be that of respecting it, ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... ago we had a very narrow escape from fire; indeed, it seemed for some time as if the whole of the Mission would be wiped out. It was a half-holiday and our boys had gone fishing to the Devil's Pond, a favourite spot of theirs, about a mile away. Unfortunately Noah was seized with the idea of lighting a fire by which to cook the trout, the matches having been stolen ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... small sisters rose and scurried across the lawn; a neighbor came to the hedge and clapped her hands softly, clucking mystic monosyllables supposed to be of a soothing nature; neighboring children within hearing assumed half-holiday expressions and started with a rush to the side of the blatant afflicted one. Surveying all this through half-shut eyes and hearing the steady tramp of the oncoming relief corps, an expression of triumphant content rested for an instant of Genevieve Maud's face. Then she tied it up again ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... day in the beginning of June, and, being Wednesday, was a half-holiday. The girls of the Upper school, numbering seven in all, were assembled in the cherry garden. The cherry garden stood a little apart, to the left of the great general garden, and was entered by a low ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... he wanted some exercise. It was a half-holiday, and Clarke was quite ready for a game of tennis. Ferguson went down to the changing-room. The first thing he saw was that his tennis shoes were gone. He thought it quite impossible that anyone should dare to bag his things. Fuming with ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... boys grumble because they only have a half-holiday every other day, and four months of the year vacation. It will be interesting to see which educational method is to produce the men who are to win the next Waterloo. No wonder that nearly seventy per cent. of those who reach ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... rates, herded about in conscript gangs under the hectorings of an overseer. Now—and it has seemed to come all in a moment—the humblest of them earn their 36s. 6d.; the head men their 40s.; their hours are down to fifty for the week, with a half-holiday on Saturday; delegates of their kind sit at a board in Trowbridge face to face and of equal worth with delegates of their employers. All matters affecting their status, housing, terms of employment can be brought before the board; and beside that, and behind it, like a buttress, there ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... irregular edges, and reflecting at length that it would be in much better condition if he had not given it a careless crushing in the corner of his carriage the day before. It had been sunshiny, pleasant weather, and he had taken Nan for a long drive in the Saturday half-holiday. He had decided, before starting, that she should manage the reins and he would think over one or two matters and read a while; it had been a great convenience lately that Nan understood the responsibility ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... anyone you did so. You may rely on that." Mr. Pellew gave his cigar a half-holiday to say this seriously, and Miss Dickenson felt that his type, though too tailor-made, was always to be relied on; you had only to scratch it to find a Gentleman underneath. No audience ever fails to applaud the discovery on the stage. Evidently there ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... was a half-holiday, so the children could trim and chatter to their heart's content, and the little girls ran about sticking funny decorations where no one would ever think of looking for them. Ben was absorbed in his flags, which were sprinkled all down the avenue with a lavish display, suggesting ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... spend a day with my little girls—that is, when you can obtain leave," he said.—"Ah, Mrs. Merriman! it will be very unlike you to be over strict with your young people. They must all come to the Rectory. When is your next half-holiday?" ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... Being a half-holiday, prayers were read at the end of morning-school. And now the time was come. Harry walked to Mr Prichard's desk, who conducted him at once across the room to Dr Palmer. The latter looked over his spectacles, surprised. Indeed, ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... There was a half-holiday every Wednesday and Saturday. Every Saturday upper boys who had friends might go out from Saturday till Sunday night, and lower boys were allowed to do the same every other Saturday. These events were of course greatly looked forward to from week to week. Not the least agreeable feature ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... gave the servants a half-holiday to get the pretty Avice into the castle again for a few hours, the better to observe her. While she was pulling down the blinds at sunset a whistle of peculiar quality came from some point on the cliffs outside the lawn. He observed that her colour rose slightly, though she bustled about as ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... a housemaid, no," explained Mr. Churchouse. "She is the daughter of my housekeeper, Mrs. Dinnett. Mrs. Dinnett has been called to Chilcombe, to see her old mother who is, I fear, going to die, and so Sabina, with her usual kindness, has spent her half-holiday at home to look after me. Sabina lives here. She is Mrs. Dinnett's daughter and one of the spinners at the mill. In fact, Mr. Best tells me she is his most accomplished spinner and has genius for the work. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... spends his Saturday half-holiday at home now. The rest are away. Alec and Bob are off on the hill by the timber lot, trying Mr. Ferry's toboggan with him—it's just come. Uncle Tim has gone over to see how they're making ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... Charles had his part to play. One condition of the statute was that the wearing-apparel and personal matters retained were not to exceed twenty pounds sterling in value. "It was necessary, as a matter of form, that the clothes I wore should be seen by the official appraiser. I had a half-holiday to enable me to call upon him, at his own time, at a house somewhere beyond the Obelisk. I recollect his coming out to look at me with his mouth full, and a strong smell of beer upon him, and saying good-naturedly that 'that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... grand fancy fair was to be held in the town-hall for the benefit of the infirmary, and we had all promised to work for it; so that nobody was offended when Miss Grantley made known that she intended to give a half-holiday every day for a week, that we seniors might be her guests from two o'clock to eight, and all work together in the garden parlour, or out in the orchard ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... afternoon,—the day on which members of Parliament dine out,—and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... Misses Palmer were to spend at Lyndon's Landing turned to rain in the afternoon. The children had a half-holiday, and so the weather was a double misfortune; and after "What shall we do?" had been asked in every minor key of querulous despondency, they eventually grouped themselves, some sitting, some lying on buffalo robes scattered on the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... oneself, yet incumbent without any shadow of doubt on one's neighbour; Still there were some who might possibly urge that the world was at peace, and the time was not ripe yet for it,— Besides the undoubted fact that a patriot who was asked to sacrifice his Saturday half-holiday might legitimately inquire what he was likely to get for it; So on the whole while they recognized quite (what a metre this is, to be sure!) that the Minister's scheme was replete with attraction, They decided to wait for a while (what ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... aroused him. "Footling is he that is content with Zwanssee. Next half-holiday skurshon I'll crib ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... district such as the Cotswolds it is inevitable that the game of cricket should be somewhat neglected. Men who work day after day in the open air, and to whom a half-holiday is a very rare experience, naturally seek their recreations in less energetic fashion than the noble game of cricket demands of its votaries. The class who derive most benefit from this game spring as a rule from towns and manufacturing ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... when my father had enquired about terms and asked whether he might see the system at work. "How unfortunate that you should have called on a Saturday afternoon. We always have a half-holiday. But stay—yes—that will do very nicely; I will send for them into school as a means of ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... half-holiday for the opening of the hospital, and as Amherst and Justine turned into the street, parties of workers were dispersing toward their houses. They were still a dull-eyed stunted throng, to whom air and movement seemed to have ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... "To-morrow is half-holiday, you know, dear, and I've talked with Cleena. She wishes you to come and spend the night at 'Charity House,' and we'll fix things about ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in one another's studies. On the last occasion, it had been an old quarry away out on the downs. This had been proved by the not-to-be-shaken testimony of three school-house fags, who had wandered out one half-holiday with the unconcealed intention of finding the League's place of meeting. Unfortunately for them, they had found it. They were going down the path that led to the quarry before-mentioned, when they were unexpectedly seized, blindfolded, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... 'The next half-holiday Bob Middleton would do it for sixpence or a shilling; he could take the wheelbarrow and get a load at a time. I declare I wouldn't mind fetching it myself, if I thought papa ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... "Passed by the Censor" on it, and one of those cartridge-cases you sent me, and I said, "That's proof," and he dried up. He did look sick. I hope you'll get the V.C. or something—the Head'll be sure to give us a half-holiday. Young Smith, who pretends to read the Head's newspaper when he leaves it lying about—you know how he swanks about it—said the Precedent or General Joffre had given a French kid who was only fourteen and had enlisted and killed a lot of Huns, till ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... was convenient to his shop; and just opposite lived the Carews, father and son, once the most prosperous and prominent family in the neighbourhood. It was the custom of Pinetucky to take a half-holiday on Saturdays, and on one of these occasions Squire Inchly, instead of going to his shop or to the store, sat in his porch and smoked his pipe. After a while Miss Jane brought out her sewing and sat with ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... up, and the few craft which came in from the sea rarely proceeded beyond Parkhurst; so that we had a long, uninterrupted stretch of water for our boats, which, as soon as ever the spring set in, and the weather became too hot for football and hare and hounds, appeared in force every half-holiday on ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... studied the workings of the English "Saturday half-holiday," which employees earn by working an extra half-hour on the five previous days. A visit was made to the Tangye Bros. Engine Works at Soho, near Birmingham, which absorbed the engine works of Boulton and Watt. It was Boulton who said to Lord Palmerston visiting Soho, ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... others beyond he was not known and was not generally popular. Gladstone, Charles Canning, Handley, Bruce, Hodgson, Lord Bruce and Milnes-Gaskell set up a Salt Hill Club. They met every whole holiday or half-holiday, as was convenient, after twelve, "and went up to Salt Hill to bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine." It is startling to hear from such an authority as James Milnes-Gaskell that "in all our meetings, as well as at almost every time, Gladstone went ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... be unacceptable to His Majesty were it not so," said the fish. "Well, now, I was going to a football match, it being a half-holiday; but under the circumstances, I will put it off, and escort you to the Palace. This ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... mother. We went up to the gardens to get some mulberries for our half-holiday feast; and Ronaldson came out and told us we must ask leave first, for the ladies were come. The Squire came home at nine o'clock last night, and Mrs. Egremont and all, and only sent a telegram two hours before to have ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... moment when the French Admiral blew up, reach the limit of what is imposing to the imagination. And our naval annals owe some of their interest to the fantastic and beautiful appearance of old warships and the romance that invests the sea and everything sea-going in the eyes of English lads on a half-holiday at the coast. Nay, and what we know of the misery between decks enhances the bravery of what was done by giving it something for contrast. We like to know that these bold and honest fellows contrived to live, and to keep bold and honest, among absurd and vile surroundings. No reader can forget ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to feter in our very quiet way this dear day. We are all out of mourning; the younger children are to have a half-holiday, Alice is to dine for the first time in the evening with us; we shall drink the Archduke and Archduchess's healths; and I have ordered wine for our servants, and grog for our sailors to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... a big seven-passenger car, belonged to Mollie, and the four Outdoor Girls, having secured a half-holiday from their work at the Hostess House, were ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope

... the department was lax. Insurance was easy. Statistics were not in demand. History was dead. Old Kauffman, the efficient and perpetual clerk, had requested an infrequent half-holiday, incited to the unusual dissipation by the joy of having successfully twisted the tail of a Connecticut insurance company that was trying to do business contrary to the edicts of the great ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... a bad old girl, is she?" he admitted when Sheila had been given a half-holiday and was riding on the black horse beside Hilliard on his Dusty across one ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... Loan drive was declared a half-holiday. The guards were doubled at the gates, and watchmen moved among the crowds; but strangers were admitted if they looked plausible, and several motor-loads of them rolled in. Some of them carried bundles of circulars and posters and application ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... grease-mottled board seat and lurid odor of gasoline. But sparrows splashed in the pools of sunshine; in a lull the darky's voice came again, chanting passionately, "In de spring, spring, spring!" and Carl clamored: "I've got to get out to-day. Terrible glad it's a half-holiday. Wonder if I dare ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... reception of GIULIA RAVOGLI as Orpheus; double recall after three of the four Acts; house insisting on having "Che faro" all over again. Orchestra, under Signor BEVIGNANI, admirable. Recreations of Demons and Furies, when let out of Gates of Erebus for a half-holiday, peculiar, not to say eccentric. Demons lie on rocks, with silver serpents round their necks as comforters, claw the air, and trot round in circles, after which they exhibit Dutch-metalled walking-sticks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various

... within a mile of Brackenfield, and had arranged with Mrs. Morrison that the two girls should spend every alternate Wednesday afternoon at her house. Wednesday was the most general day for exeats; it was the leisurely half-holiday of the week, when the girls might carry out their own little plans, Saturday afternoons being reserved for hockey practice and matches, at which all were expected to attend. The rules were strict at Brackenfield, and enacted that the girls must be ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... After dinner, a half-holiday having been given the school-children, Teddy stole out to the woods. When out of sight he began a brisk conversation with himself, as was his wont; and it may give us an insight into his ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... forego supper for three days, Hallett's room being sentenced in addition to pay for the mending of the cracked pane. Lastly, and this was the part of the sentence that roused the whole school, all—boarders and day-boys alike—were to forfeit the next half-holiday. ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... Literature," and this gives place to the production of a Shakesperian play that ultimately overpowers and disorganizes the whole curriculum. Ethical lessons and the school pulpit flourish, of course. A triennial walk to a chalk-pit is Field Geology, and vague half-holiday wanderings are Botany Rambles. "Art" of the copper punching variety replaces any decent attempt to draw, and an extreme expressiveness in music compensates for an almost deliberate slovenliness of technique. Even the ladies' seminaries ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... the war, a young girl of sixteen heard late one afternoon that her only brother had been killed. She had a moment of desperate distress; but there was a big family to be helped by her small earnings, and the next morning punctually she was back at work. In this same work-room the women have one half-holiday in the week, without reduction of pay; yet if an order has to be rushed through for a hospital they give up that one afternoon as gaily as if they were doing it for their pleasure. But if any one who has lived for the last year among the workers and small tradesmen of Paris should begin ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... permission to found the Politics Class described in our previous book. Suffice it to say here that the class was a voluntary body of some thirty or forty senior boys, that met once a week on a half-holiday evening to hear informal lectures from one or other of us, and occasionally from one or other of our colleagues, on questions of the day. Sometimes the topic was purely general—"Competition and Co-operation," "The Spirit of the Reformer," or the like. Sometimes a historical topic was traced rapidly ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... desk to write letters and make out bills. Not that there was much of either sort of clerkship necessary; but Bruce, like Chaucer's Man of Law, was so fond of business, that he liked to seem busier than he was. As it happened to be a half-holiday, Annie was sent with the rest of the children into the garden to play up ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... The Mayors of the places along the route would send delegations to meet them and escort them to the town hall, where the speech-making would begin. At Wilmington, Del., the city council declared a half-holiday; the Mayor and officials met them at the edge of town and escorted them to the town hall, which was crowded, and they were obliged also to hold street meetings for hours. They reached Philadelphia ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... to all this Mr. Peacocke could only say that it was impossible. This happened on Friday afternoon, Friday being a day on which the school was always very busy. There was no time for the doing of anything special, as there would be on the following day, which was a half-holiday. At night, when the work was altogether over, he showed the letter to his wife, and told her what he ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... the year's decay. They were clamorous for an expedition to the hills, before the calm stillness of the autumn should be disturbed by storms. They gained permission to go on the next Wednesday—the next half-holiday. They had won their mother over to consent to a full holiday, but their father would not hear of it. Mrs Bradshaw had proposed an early dinner, but the idea was scouted at by the girls. What would the expedition be worth if they did not carry their dinners with them in baskets? ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... woke that Saturday morning, about the time Titania began to dust the pavement-boxes, in no very world-conquering humour. As it was a half-holiday, he felt no compunction in staying away from the office. The landlady, a motherly soul, sent him up some coffee and scrambled eggs, and insisted on having a doctor in to look at his damage. Several stitches were taken, after which he ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... virtue, and deserving of contempt. Upon this theory all laws which punish the person who works or plays on Sunday have been passed. Does God cease work one day in seven, or is the work that He does on Sunday especially different from that which He performs on Tuesday? The Saturday half-holiday is not "sacred"—the Sunday holiday is, and we have laws to punish those who "violate" it. No man can violate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play. Only running ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... said Gawtrey, as he took the head of the table, "come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear these infernal instruments; and more ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... cigarettes. His language shocked his father before he was twelve, and by that age, what with touting for parcels at the station and selling the Bun Hill Weekly Express, he was making three shillings a week, or more, and spending it on Chips, Comic Cuts, Ally Sloper's Half-holiday, cigarettes, and all the concomitants of a life of pleasure and enlightenment. All of this without hindrance to his literary studies, which carried him up to the seventh standard at an exceptionally early age. I mention these things so that you may have no doubt at all concerning the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... true. There were no breakers out beyond the said selvage-wave, because the wind had fallen a great deal, and seemed to have given up the idea of making any more white foam-crests for the present. But there would be more wind again in the night, said authority. It was only a half-holiday for Neptune. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... the most important functions of Gompers has been that of national lobbyist for the Federation. He was one of the earliest champions of the eight-hour day and the Saturday half-holiday. He has energetically espoused Federal child labor legislation, the restriction of immigration, alien contract labor laws, and employers' liability laws. He advocated the creation of a Federal Department of Labor which has recently developed into a cabinet ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... This was a half-holiday, and the classes broke up at twelve o'clock. Cassandra hoped to have a talk with Ruth before she went home, but when she looked round for her little favorite she could not find her anywhere. The foundationers were standing ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... flew swiftly by and the month of May was gone. Summer was early that year, and the first day of June dawned sultry and still over the sweltering city. It was a half-holiday at the Chestnut School, so Peace returned home at noon, hot, perspiring, but radiant at the thought of no more lessons till the morrow. She came a round-about way in order to pass the great gates of the stone mansion, hoping to catch a glimpse of the well-known chair under the lilac bushes; ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... talk about anarchism and its dangers go everywhere and anywhere to get their information, except to us, except to the fountain head. They learn about anarchists from sixpenny novels; they learn about anarchists from tradesmen's newspapers; they learn about anarchists from Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday and the Sporting Times. They never learn about anarchists from anarchists. We have no chance of denying the mountainous slanders which are heaped upon our heads from one end of Europe to another. The man who has always heard that we are walking plagues has never heard our reply. I know that he will ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... disgust and remorse. Later in the afternoon, to raise his spirits, he took his skates and went to Wickens's pond, where, it being Saturday, he found the ice crowded with the Alton students and their half-holiday visitors. Fairholme, describing circles with his habitual air of compressed hardihood, stopped and stared with indignant surprise as Smilash ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... house-fly had become a matter of common talk among scientists, and Lionel (like all great men, a little before his time) had pleaded hygiene in vain. He was smacked hastily and bundled off to a preparatory school, where his aptitude for smuggling sweets would have lost him many a half-holiday had not his services been required at outside-left in the hockey eleven. With some difficulty he managed to pass into Eton, and three years later—with, one would imagine, still more difficulty—managed ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... must set you some punishment. I shall give the butler instructions to hand you a note from me at three o'clock to-morrow." (The next day was a half-holiday.) "In that note you will find indicated what I wish you to ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... then, we've a half-holiday. 'Tis the first idle time we've had in three weeks. Up before dawn, and to bed before star-rise! I tell you it makes the hours spin fast. How shall we ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... the deacon chirruped to Dobbin, and they rode away. At the same moment came a shrill whistle from the street, and Monty ran to the gate. Bob Turner and a lot of boys were waiting near, rods over their shoulders and fish-hooks in their pockets, intent upon a Saturday half-holiday at their favorite sport. Besides their tackle they had great sacks of burlap, or canvas, because when they had caught all the fish in the river they expected to gather all the chestnuts in the woods. In any case, they ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... which the discovery caused him was swallowed up in unbounded indignation. "Deceitful, dishonourable boys," he exclaimed, "henceforth my treatment of you shall be very different. The whole form, except Russell and Owen, shall have an extra lesson every half-holiday; not one of the rest of you will I trust again. I took you for gentlemen. I was mistaken. Go." And so saying, he motioned them to ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... letter, but it did him good. The next day he returned to the office decidedly refreshed. In fact, he put in one of the best weeks there since he had taken his position. When Saturday came he was sorry that it was a half-holiday: he would have liked to work even ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... bird in a field when he saw it distressed her, though he laughed at her for being such a simpleton as to care for a half-dead bird. This recalled to his mind a circumstance that had happened at school, when he and some of his schoolfellows had gone for a walk into the country one half-holiday; and he began to relate how they had caught a pigeon sitting on its nest up a tree, and how, regardless of its fluttering and piteous cries, they had carried it off, and its nest also. Then he told with much laughter how they had unearthed a ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples

... myself up. Is it the monkeys' half-holiday? Yes! They are imitating boys playing cricket. Their ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... titbit flavour; for Saturday, as a rule, wore splashes of gold and yellow upon its latter end, being a half-holiday associated with open air and sunshine, but now, Monday already in sight, with lessons and early bed and other prohibitions by the dozen, hearts sank a little, a shadow crept upon the sun. They had a grievance; some one had cheated them of a final joy. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... and no play makes Jack a dull boy' is already an accepted maxim, is exemplified by the numerous holidays and the way in which they are spent. There must be pretty nearly a dozen public holidays in the year. Saturday is always a half-holiday. Nine till five are the accepted hours for the clerk; half-past nine till six for the shop-assistant. The eight-hour system is generally accepted in all classes of manual labour. Some shops are open on Saturday evenings; but there is a strong movement to abolish this ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... would be few club matches, the new captain thought that the "school games" might benefit from this very lack. Anyhow it was "a unique chance to build them up on a sound basis." He believed in doing everything to encourage in-school football, meaning by that the half-holiday games, the side-matches, cup matches, and such games as Prefects v. School, Boarders v. School, the House matches, etc. He realised that the first three XV's only include 45 boys, and that there were 600 others whose claims to consideration were equally great. Moreover, good in-school ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... his letter,—on a Wednesday, which with him had something of the comfort of a half-holiday, as on that day he was ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... half-holiday, Ethel and Millicent decided that they would try to collect a scratch team for some ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... authorities, Mr. Pickwick resolutely protested against making his appearance in the public streets, surrounded and guarded by the officers of justice, like a common criminal. Mr. Grummer, in the then disturbed state of public feeling (for it was half-holiday, and the boys had not yet gone home), as resolutely protested against walking on the opposite side of the way, and taking Mr. Pickwick's parole that he would go straight to the magistrate's; and both Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman as strenuously objected to the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... had given his apprentice a half-holiday, and was standing outside his house, speaking to some customers, when he suddenly heard a great noise, and turning round he saw that good St. James in the box was running towards the cathedral from which the procession was emerging. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... twelve weeks. The cooks of the one week drive up the cows and water the horses the next week, and then there is no extra work, that is, nothing but the regular daily work from 9.30 A.M. after school to 1 P.M. Wednesday is a half-holiday, Saturday a whole holiday. There are six milkers, one of whom is responsible for the whole. One receives 2s. 0d. per week, his chief mate 1s. 6d., and the other four 1s. each. They take it in turns, three each week. This is the hardest work in one sense; it brings ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... earlier than usual, and went slowly home. Dick was there before her; he had been taking a half-holiday. He had made the tea and toasted the bread for a little surprise. He came up and said, "Why, Sene, your hands are cold!" and warmed them for her ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... parched lips. He had been bowling at the nets, and the day was hot. 'Hullo! Pillingshot, you young slacker, why aren't you changed? Been bunking half-holiday games? You'd better ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... and Mr Jinkins came home to dinner arm-in-arm; for the latter gentleman had made half-holiday on purpose; thus gaining an immense advantage over the youngest gentleman and the rest, whose time, as it perversely chanced, was all bespoke, until the evening. The bottle of wine was Mr Pecksniff's treat, and they were very sociable indeed; though full of lamentations on the necessity ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... rations have been dealt out on Saturday. So Saturday has come to be considered a holiday, or half-holiday at least. Early in the morning the roads are covered with blacks on foot, horse back, mule back and in various vehicles, on their way to the store or village, there to spend the day loafing about in friendly discussion with neighbors. The condition of the crops has little preventive influence, ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... agreeable impression I retain of my school-days at Boulogne is that of the long half-holiday walks we were allowed to indulge in. Not the two-and-two, dull, dreary, daily procession round the ramparts, but the disbanded freedom of the sunny afternoon, spent in gathering wild-flowers along the pretty, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... a fair sample of Todd's usual half-holiday. Feeling no heart for any serious work for the Perry, he had spent it in reading half a worthless novel, and skimming through a magazine, and feeling muddled and discontented in consequence. He had the uneasy feeling that ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... significance with the working man to-day as distinguished from the professional man. We are not speaking of the wasteful and idle rich. So I repeat that here it is a matter of adjustment and that there is no principle involved. Now, as regard to hours. You ask an eight-hour day and a Saturday half-holiday. That, too, is a ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... Saturday afternoon, a half-holiday, when the rivals met in the back yard of Henry's house, armed with old brooms for lances, and with shields made out of barrel heads. The chargers backed up against the fence, the champions mounted and ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of the situation disturbed me more or less during the forenoon; but fortunately it was a half-holiday, and I was able to leave the office shortly ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... less than child's play, were deadly in their monotony, their long indoor hours, and the vibrant clamour amid which they were performed. Her own vigorous young frame resisted valiantly; yet the Saturday half-holiday, the Sunday of rest, could scarcely renew her for the ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... George. So when Tim and Isaac reached Bowling Green it was an excited crowd that they found there, gathered about the leaden statue of King George III; men and half-grown boys, with here and there a soldier enjoying his half-holiday. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... frequently whitewashed, and to have a sufficient number of windows, though these provisions applied only to apprenticed operatives. In 1819 an act forbade the employment of any child under nine years of age, and in 1825 Saturday was made a half-holiday. Night work was forbidden in 1831, and for all under eighteen the working day was made twelve ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... group-struggle is the result, in which the individuals, as individuals, play no part. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master Builders' Association that it demands an increase of the wage of its members from $3.50 a day to $4, and a Saturday half-holiday without pay. This means that the carpenters are trying to give less for more. Where they received $21 for six full days, they are endeavoring to get $22 for five days and a half,—that is, they will work half a day less each week ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London



Words linked to "Half-holiday" :   holiday



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