"Able-bodied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sick and on duty in Beaufort, and Colonel Montgomery had as yet less than one hundred and fifty); but to hold it, and also to make forays up the river, certainly required a larger number. We came in part to recruit, but had found scarcely an able-bodied negro in the city; all had been removed farther up, and we must certainly contrive to follow them. I was very unwilling to have, as yet, any white troops under my command, with the blacks. Finally, however, being informed by Judge ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... before the man appeared, and then he seemed to be in a great hurry, and did not see Cucurullo till the latter overtook him and spoke to him, for the hunchback had long legs and could walk quite as fast as any able-bodied young man. ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... the Single Tax would require several able-bodied "corollaries" to enable it to effect much of a reformation, to usher in the Golden Age. It were very nice to throw unused coal and oil lands "open to all on equal terms," have the government pipe off all their products for equal pay, then ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Fortune has decreed that seals and mackerel and even salmon to a large extent should not "strike in" along that shore. Bad seasons and the wretched trading system have impoverished the fishermen, while the opening of the southern mines has taken away some of the most able-bodied. Here and there a braver cottage still boasts a coat of whitewash and a mixture of cod oil and red dust on the roof. But for the most part there is a sombre, dejected look about the human part of the harbour that suggests nothing but ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... his country to receive a Frenchman, as he took this gentleman to be, replied in the least satisfactory manner possible, and in the short language of some seamen, 'Your footman's an Englishman, sir; has been pressed for an able-bodied seaman, which I trust he'll prove; he's aboard the tender, and there he will remain.' The foreigner, who, notwithstanding the politeness of his address, seemed to have a high spirit, and to be fully sensible of what was due from others ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... his troops, the inhabitants ridiculed his presumption, and were good enough to warn him of the hopelessness of his enterprise: a garrison composed of the halt and the blind, without an able-bodied man amongst them, would, they declared, be able successfully to resist him. The king, stung by their mockery, made a promise to his "mighty men" that the first of them to scale the walls should be made chief and captain of his host. We often ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his excursion to Palachocolas. There he found a fort erected at the lowest passage of the river, and forty-five miles from Savannah. Returning from this visit, as he entered Ebenezer he found eight of the most able-bodied men at work, with their minister Gronau, in constructing booths and tents against the arrival of the families. In furtherance of their labors, he laid out the town, and directed the carpenters, who had arrived also in ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... partly from the zealous spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his enterprise. The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men; a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince, and animated ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... 'Not much. They've been digging trenches all day about four miles back. It's too sickening. Pity we don't do like the Boches—conscript all the able-bodied civilians and make 'em do all this trench-digging in rear. Then we might be fresh for ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... are to contemplate, the expenses of this entertainment. They will certainly be over two hundred dollars and maybe three hundred; and three hundred dollars is more than the year's income of many a person in this room. There are able-bodied men here who work from early morning until late at night, in ice-cold cellars with a quarter of an inch of water on the floor—men who for six or seven months in the year never see the sunlight from Sunday afternoon till the next Sunday morning—and who cannot earn three hundred dollars in a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... towards America, and away from England. To the New World, where are more Irish than in Ireland (so they say) the poorer classes look with steadfast eye. To them America is the chief end of man, the earthly Paradise, the promised land, the El Dorado, a heaven upon earth. Every able-bodied man is saving up to pay his passage, every good-looking girl is anxious to give herself a better chance in the States. Nearly all have relatives to give them a start, and glowing letters from fortunate emigrants ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... stout able-bodied fellow, a fresh importation from the emerald isle, dressed in breeches open at the knees, long worsted stockings, rucked down to the ankles, and a great-coat with at least three capes, while a high-crowned black hat, the top of which opened ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... renewed in a much more oppressive form. Not only every laborer, but every member of a laborer's family above the age of fifteen, was required to pay what twould be eequal to the wages of an able-bodied man for at least several ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... was a military muster at Salem. Every able-bodied man, in the town and neighborhood, was there. All were well armed, with steel caps upon their heads, plates of iron upon their breasts and at their backs, and gorgets of steel around their necks. When the sun shone ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Militia appear to follow naturally after remarks on fire-arms. According to the most reliable information which I have been able to obtain, every able-bodied male between 18 and 40 years of age is liable to militia service. Those who do not serve are subject to a fine, varying in different States, from 3s. upwards; which sum helps to pay those who do duty. The pay of a private while on duty is about 10s. a-day, and that of officers in proportion. Formerly, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... generals then marched on to besiege Ju-ning Fu. The presence of the emperor gave energy to the defenders, and they held out until every animal in the city had been killed for food, until every old and useless person had suffered death to lessen the number of hungry mouths, until so many able-bodied men had fallen that the women manned the ramparts, and then the allies stormed the walls. The emperor burned himself to death in his palace, that his body might not fall into the hands of his enemies. For a few days the shadow of the imperial crown ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... maiden of twelve summers, removing her elegant hat and passing her tapery fingers lightly through her fair tresses, "how sad it is—is it not?—to see able-bodied youths and young ladies wasting the precious summer ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... the horrible consequences of parting with their wits in this manner. Before the drinking commenced, they appointed a few able-bodied Indians who were to remain sober and take care of the rest. They then deprived themselves of all their dangerous weapons—tomahawks, clubs, guns, arrows, and knives, and ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... of the people, affecting not only the features, but the frame. Five feet two inches on an average,—pot-bellied, bow-legged, abortively featured, their clothing a wisp of rags,—these spectres of a people that were once well-grown, able-bodied, and comely, stalk abroad into the daylight of civilization, the annual apparition of Irish ugliness and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... reason with George) they cannot. And figures prove to us, that, in the time consumed by five symphonic numbers, the startling number of four hundred and fifty hogs could be (and are daily) slaughtered, scraped, disembowelled, hewn, and packed. While forty or fifty able-bodied musicians are discoursing Beethoven's rambling "Eroica," it were possible to dispatch and to dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the performance of the "Sakuntala" overture might be ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... and egg party was joining in the fray. A stout yet still fairly able-bodied gentleman in white and black checks enquired: "What's the fellow up to? Ain't there no police here?" and it was evident that once more public opinion was rallying to ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... son. But one of these days, you mark my words, Mr L. Murchison will travel to Elgin Station with flags on his engine and he'll be very much surprised to find the band there, and a large number of his fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every factory whistle in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing of kids with tin ones. And if the Murchison Stove and Furnace Works siren stands out of that occasion I'll break in and ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... forth in silence and secrecy, with all the vigorous and able-bodied forces under his command, leaving the weary, the sick, and the infirm to the mercy of their enemies. The long column succeeded in making good their retreat, without exciting the suspicions of the Scythians. They took the route which they supposed ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Opera-house) could brisker be, There gathered a gloom around their glee— A shadow which came and went so fast, That ere one could say "'Tis there," 'twas past— And, lo! when the scene again was cleared, Ten of the dancers had disappeared! Ten able-bodied quadrillers swept From the hallowed floor where late they stept, While twelve was all that footed it still, On the Irish side of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... slight inclination. Sir Henry's inner mind decided against him—at once—instinctively. What was a stout fellow, who at any rate looked as though he were still of military age, doing with nonsense of this sort, at four o'clock in the day, when England wanted every able-bodied man she possessed, either to fight for her or to work for her? At the same time the reflection passed rapidly through his mind that neither the man nor the name had come up—so far as he could remember—before the County Tribunal of which ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was simple but practical. There was, it seemed, a marshy tract at a considerable distance from the capital which needed draining and reclaiming—a work which the more able-bodied of the Gnomes could carry out under strict control. So the majority were deported to the Maerchenlands, the remainder being employed in the Royal Kitchens as supernumerary and ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... knees supplicating the Creator for him? Who knows? We may have London in flames again, and a conflagration more fatal than the last, thou obstinate wench, before thou art a week older, and every able-bodied man called away from plough and pasture to serve the King, and desolation and famine where plenty now smiles at us. And is this a time in which to refuse a valiant and wealthy protector, a lover as honest as ever God made; a pious, conforming Christian, of unsullied name; a young ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... millions of dollars. But even this is inadequate to the wants of its people and its stock. Its small farmers are diverted from the cultivation of the soil. The conscript-law is drafting all the able-bodied white men ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... villages were not great, so that he would find no great difficulty in purchasing provisions. The dress he had brought with him was not altogether unfavourable for such a purpose, as he could easily pass as a sub-officer, whose duty it was to inquire whether the villages had each sent all their able-bodied men to the war. The only drawback to it would be that, if instructions for his arrest had been sent down to the villages along the road, as well as those by the river, they would have probably been directed to specially ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... plunder and rapine, drive into open space every living being they can muster, the two leaders step forward, and with critical decision inspect the extent and quality of their capture. Of the latter there are none but able-bodied, for the sufficiently hideous reason already set forth. These are drafted into gangs according to age or sex, and yoked together like oxen, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... a crew of ten, or at the most twelve, able-bodied and carefully picked men, with a full equipment for five years, in every respect as good as modern appliances permit of, I am of opinion that the undertaking would be well secured against risk. With this ship we should sail up through Bering Strait and westward along the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... got a capital part for you in the farce,[66] not a difficult one to learn, as you never say anything but "Yes" and "No." You are called in the dramatis personae an able-bodied British seaman, and you are never seen by mortal eye to do anything (except inopportunely producing a mop) but stand about the deck of the boat in everybody's way, with your hair immensely touzled, one brace on, your hands in your pockets, and the bottoms of your trousers tucked up. Yet ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... belonged to a firm at Carbonear, and employed, one way and another, all the people in the place, in number less than two hundred. The women worked at the fish-curing, along with the children and some old men, but the able-bodied men belonged mostly to the Labrador fleet, or manned a two-three small vessels that made regular voyages to the Island of St. Jago to fetch home salt for the pickling. My mother, besides working at the factory, kept a boarding-house ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... earth; it somehow took one's thoughts back to civilisation and crowded cities, and one felt that it was not just very certain if one would see such things again; and how little it would take to wipe us out, like gnats squashed on a vast window-pane! In the morning we sent the able-bodied man away to hunt, but his interest in us soon overcame his desire for game, and he returned, and presently made himself useful by carrying roots of bushes for our fire, for wood was hard to get, and the nearest tree hardly in sight. I presented the buck with ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... All able-bodied men are compelled to work and each year to give a few days' labor to keep the excellent roads in good repair; but they reap the reward of their industry and ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... custom of the youthful miners of Cornwall to test their strength by racing up the almost interminable ladders by which the mines are reached. This tremendous exertion after a day of severe toil affected them of course very severely, and in some cases seriously. Many an able-bodied man has by this means brought himself to a premature end. Among others, David Trevarrow excelled and suffered. No one could beat him in running up the ladders; but one day, on reaching the surface, blood issued from his mouth, and ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Burnap, or you are a dead man," repeated the soldier, who evidently had some scruples about depriving the infant Confederacy of an able-bodied recruit. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... imagination only, as there is nothing for the most gallant to stride here but Husky dogs), in making examination of the men below decks, got to their enquiries a technical reply that staggered them. One able-bodied seaman, busied with between-decks blubber, proved to be a medical man with degrees from two colleges. He subsequently made at the request of the Police a searching report on the state of health of the island community, adding suggestions for its improvement. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... heights about Neisse, for the first time. Directly on sight of whom, Commandant Roth assembled the Burghers of the place; took a new Oath of Fidelity from one and all; admonished them to do their utmost, as they should see him do. The able-bodied and likeliest of them (say about 400) he has had arranged into Militia Companies, with what drill there could be in the interim; and since his coming, has employed every moment in making ready. Wednesday, 11th, he locks all the Gates, and stands strictly on his guard. The inhabitants are ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... women old before their time, hurrying from tenement to shop, their hearts divided between the two cares of home and livelihood. Adelle recalled one of her first talks with the stone mason, in which he had crudely told her that her yearly income represented the total wages of four or five hundred able-bodied men and women, such as these, who worked from ten to sixteen hours a day for three hundred days each year, when they could, and all told earned hardly what she drew by signing her name to slips of paper as income from her ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... take no interest in all the pleasant rocks and bushes strewed over the country by the beneficent hand of Providence. He shacks along on his little old cayuse, with his mind occupied on how many things he can't do next, and he gits plumb disgusted. But suppose there's a chance of an able-bodied enemy, aided and abetted with a gun, a-hidin' behind each and every one of them rocks and bushes? Don't life take on an interest? I bet you money! The imaginations of that man's mind gets started up. Life becomes full of chances. The man, he's interested in his life because the other feller wants ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... answered the stranger; "you are the stoutest and one of the most able-bodied men I ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... his head and looked at Laverick incredulously. He was more than half inclined to believe that this was a practical joke. Were they not standing on the pavement in Chancery Lane, and was not he an able-bodied policeman of great bulk and immense muscle! Yet his companion did not look by any means a man of the nervous order. Laverick was broad-shouldered, his skin was tanned a wholesome color, his bearing was the bearing of a man prepared to defend himself at any ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... outbreaks whilst I was in Nicaragua, and the whole country was in a state of civil war for more than four months, nearly all the able-bodied men being drafted into the armies that were raised, but I believe there were not a score of men killed on the field of battle during the whole time; the town of Juigalpa was taken and retaken without any one ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... their women stolen until they again took up their march to the north. From the hundred that had formerly called Uglik "Father," there now remained only a score of women and children, a half dozen youths, and five able-bodied ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... direct employment of the great mass of the able-bodied people by the state, has an unavoidable tendency to paralyse industry, and to ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... stronger than in these opening years of the nineteenth century. The practice of impressing able men for the royal navy was as old as the reign of Elizabeth. The press gang was an odious institution of long standing—a terror not only to rogue and vagabond but to every able-bodied seafaring man and waterman on rivers, who was not exempted by some special act. It ransacked the prisons, and carried to the navy not only its victims but the germs of fever which infested public places of detention. But the press gang harvested ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... hopelessly at the group, which, with one or two exceptions, composed all the able-bodied men upon the farm. He saw at once that if the ricks were to be saved that night, or even the next morning, he must save them ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... a garrulous, gossipy set, as every one knows. They are able-bodied, not particularly fond of fish, and inclined to seek the neighborhood of man, rather than to come out here away from him. They make very good American rooks. So I am led to think it is their love of "neighboring" ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... for yourself," said the inner keeper. "The committee refuse in any circumstances to issue passes to able-bodied men. If you are able to work, you can earn your fare: plenty of work for willing hands. No use in arguing the matter, sir," he continued resolutely: "you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... weapons, the position of the White Kendah was serious indeed. As I think I have said, in all they did not number more than about two thousand men between the ages of twenty and fifty-five, or, including lads between fourteen and twenty and old men still able-bodied between fifty-five and seventy, say two thousand seven hundred capable of some sort of martial service. To these might be added something under two thousand women, since among this dwindling folk, oddly enough, from causes that I never ascertained, the males out-numbered the females, which ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... we lacked completely the practical experience necessary for adapting the military apparatus of our small force of regular soldiers to the requirements of a great national army. We felt that we could with the aid of money and common-sense transform a large group of able-bodied men accustomed to healthy exercise into a serviceable and even a victorious army, but we made a great mistake. The commissariat and sanitary service and especially the military train-corps would have to be created out of nothing. When in June the governor of one State reported that his infantry ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... must also be informed that a double-sleigh load of able-bodied men followed close behind the one in which Miss King was taken home. What this movement meant, I am not able very satisfactorily to conjecture. I venture the opinion, however, that the good folks supposed their victim would jump out ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... While he stuffed his pump-gun I smoked and thought. 'Unless you go slow, Mr. Larkin,' says I to myself, 'you'll get into plenty of trouble. Here you are, mixed up with something that you don't sabe pretty well. A rough canyon, two hound dogs and an able-bodied bear is a combination that you can work, but when you throw in a college boy and a gun that winds up like a clock and shoots till the cows come home, the situation looks kind of misty.' I didn't think much of the pump-gun, but for all I knew it might go off at ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... community of fruit growers the usual Japanese labor was not available; but when the fruit ripened, the banker, the butcher, the lawyer, the garage man, the druggist, the local editor, and in fact every able-bodied man and woman in the town, left their occupations and went out, gathered the fruit, and sent it ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... have a pretty fierce smell, but I didn't put much faith in it. I'd been in opium joints, an' I knew that a Chinaman would FATTEN on a smell 'at would suffocate a goat; an' when it comes to vigorous an' able-bodied odors, a billy-goat ain't ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... intonation, are much safer from the infliction of gallantries at the hands or lips of mortal men than those whose attributes are more pleasing; and it is safe to assert that many a male monster has been rooted to his seat in street-cars by the coldly intellectual eye of some not altogether able-bodied feminine person. The recent victories all along the line of women over men in examination-rooms, and their more or less successful ventures in the fields of law, medicine, and newspaper enterprise, would be more appalling to man and encouraging to the progressionists, ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... it out a hundred miles or more on the trail. You can try it that far and see how you like it. I'll furnish you your board. There are always plenty of bedrooms on the ground floor and in one of the wagons on rainy nights. You can take a shift driving a team now and then, and every able-bodied man has to do guard duty some of the time. You understand the dangers of the situation by this time. Here comes my man," he added, as the horse-dealer appeared, leading a string of mules up ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... and Cairo, Ill., as well as at Port Royal. Army chaplains found here new and fruitful fields; "superintendents of contrabands" multiplied, and some attempt at systematic work was made by enlisting the able-bodied men and giving work ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and ask him to give her the house which he had caused to be erected in Wineland, but he made her the same answer [as that which he had given Karlsefni], saying, that he would lend the house, but not give it. It was stipulated between Karlsefni and Freydis, that each should have on shipboard thirty able-bodied men, besides the women; but Freydis immediately violated this compact, by concealing five men more [than this number], and this the brothers did not discover before they arrived in Wineland. They now put out to sea, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... THE IDEA that it is nice to be 'weak' and 'delicate,' but they cannot get a more false idea! God meant women to be strong and able-bodied, and only by being so can they be happy and capable of imparting happiness to others. It is only by being strong and healthy that they can be perfect in their sexual nature; and it is only by being perfect in this part of their being ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... are two able-bodied men, and I always carry a brace of pistols—don't you?" spoke up the advocate, his professional zeal kindling at the prospect of stealing a march on ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... seem determined that so meritorious an action shall not escape the observation of those around if, for example, they have occasion to remove a stone to a little distance, which perhaps might be carried by two able-bodied men, a whole swarm gather about it, and, after a vast deal of palavering, lift it up among them, every one struggling to get hold of it, and bear it off yelling and panting as if accomplishing some mighty achievement. Seeing them on these occasions, one is reminded of an ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... with so scanty a garrison in time of war, under the exclusive laws. But, on the other hand, suppose this bill to be passed into law by this day month; declare war if you like the next day; and I assert that you will have no difficulty, within six weeks, to raise in that country 50,000 able-bodied, and what is better, willing-hearted, men, who will traverse the continent, or find their way to any quarter of the globe to which you may choose to direct their arms. The passing of this bill is worth to the British empire more, far more, and I ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in debt to Solomon for these wise sayings, and for the pains he took to have them preserved. The words which head this form a picture. It is harvest-time, and the old folks have been depending on their able-bodied son getting in all their corn, but they are doomed to disappointment. He sleeps when he should work. When others are toiling he is snoring, and his corn rots in the field because he does not carry it ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... three days of that singular condition which is no longer life and yet not death, I isolate the patient and, though this is not really essential to success, I give him a douche which will represent the shower so dear to the able-bodied Mollusc. In about a couple of days, my prisoner, but lately injured by the Glow-worm's treachery, is restored to his normal state. He revives, in a manner; he recovers movement and sensibility. He is affected by the stimulus of a needle; he shifts his place, crawls, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... among the mountains of freight the work went forward faster than ever. But the night had served to point the anger of the strikers, and the dock owners, becoming alarmed for the safety of their property, joined with Emerson in establishing a force of a dozen able-bodied guards, armed with clubs, to assist the police in disputing the shore line with the rioters. The police themselves had proved ineffective, even betraying a half-hearted sympathy with the union men, who were not slow to ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... out of Berlin was filled with women and children, hardly an able-bodied man. In one compartment a gray-haired Landsturm soldier sat beside an elderly woman who seemed weak and ill. Above the click-clack of the car wheels passengers could hear her counting: "One, two, three," evidently absorbed in her own thoughts. Sometimes she repeated the words ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had a huge camp-fire tended by the Bishop's numerous children. Near by was a smaller fire over which the good man's four wives, able-bodied, glowing, and cordial, cooked the supper. In little ways they sought to lighten his sorrow or to put his mind away from it. To this end the Bishop contributed by pouring him drink from a large ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... he thought that," cried Bessie. "No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn't entirely Teddy's fault. If there is anything in the world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, able-bodied child, it is hotel life. Teddy was egged on to all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the bell-boys up. If he'd stand on his head on the cashier's desk, the cashier would laugh first, and then, to get rid of him, would suggest that he go into ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... been clamouring about. Now the Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You may be sure if there's fighting to be done—black ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... peace as well as of war so to organize or class the militia as would enable us on any sudden emergency to call for the services of the younger portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families. Upward of three hundred thousand able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 26 years, which the last census shews we may now count within our limits, will furnish a competent number for offense or defense in any point where they may be wanted, and will give time for raising regular forces after ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... everywhere: not merely are they the domestic servants, but they are the hands in the factories, they run innumerable little shops, they unload the ships, they work the mines, they cultivate the farms. Possibly there are more able-bodied male slaves in Attica than male free men, although this point is very uncertain. Their number is the harder to reckon because they are not required to wear any distinctive dress, and you cannot tell at a glance whether ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... influence and counsel soon found themselves left far behind. In a short time he had become alcalde; his prestige outgrew the limits of the city, spread over the whole district, and eventually reached the capital of the province itself. He got able-bodied men exempted from military service; he winked at corruption in the city councils that backed him, although the perpetrators deserved to go to prison; he saw to it that the constabulary was not too energetic in running down the roders, the "wanderers," who, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to cover as much likely country as we could, and to let the dogs have a good time. As I have before indicated, they were thoroughly doggy dogs, and interested in everything—except able-bodied lions. None of the stick-at-your-heels in their composition. They ranged far and wide through all sorts of cover, seeking what they could find in the way of porcupines, mongoose, hares, birds, cats, and whatever else should interest any healthy-minded dog. If there happened to ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... because the audience evidently did not appear to appreciate or take kindly to the company from the California Theatre, and secondly on account of the rising wind which was beginning to blow up pretty fresh, and the tent was not sufficiently able-bodied to stand too much of a pressure from outside as well as from within. Consequently we rang down the curtain rather prematurely on the last act. It is nothing more than candid to allow that the audience was not as ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... could muster but about fifty able-bodied men, so sadly had fever and lack of proper food ravaged the garrison, the old soldier, who held the fighting qualities of the savages in great contempt, deemed this number amply sufficient for his purpose, and marched forth confidently at their head. They met with no enemy until they had ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... seem, few had a keener sense of their position, or could be so readily stung by insult, let it but proceed from a quarter towards which punishment might be directed with credit or honour. A hundred times Lord Downy had cursed his fate, which had not made him an able-bodied porter, or an independent labourer in the fields, rather than that saddest of all sad contradictions, a nobleman without the means of sustaining nobility—a man of rank with no dignity—a superior without the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... rustling and crackling behind us, and my daughter jumped up and ran into the cavern, crying, "Proh dolor hostis!" [Our author afterwards explains the learned education of the maiden.] But it was only some of the able-bodied men who had stayed behind in the village, and who now came to bring us word how things stood there. I therefore called to her directly, "Emergas amici," whereupon she came skipping joyously out, and sat down again by ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... never worn a busier or more prosperous appearance. With such a large population there should have been no reason for conscription, but when conscription was deemed requisite, there ought to have been no exemption on the ground of wealth. Every able-bodied drafted man ought to have been obliged to serve, without the privilege of a substitute, and no money payment should have secured release from service. The obligation to defend the country rests upon all, but if there is any distinction, the rich man has more interest ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... of Flamboyant Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of the Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the Butter Trade; the Garden of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing Astonishers; Ladies of Horror; Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden; Disciples ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... mind can judge of my feelings, struggling between inclination and duty. However, notwithstanding my wish to be in London, I obediently answered my benefactors that I would go in the vessel, and not leave them; and from that day I was entered on board as an able-bodied sailor, at thirty-six shillings per month, besides what perquisites I could make. My intention was to make a voyage or two, entirely to please these my honoured patrons; but I determined that the year following, if it pleased God, I would see Old England ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Tax Commissioners' Act, passed in the first year of the reign of his present majesty, measures, when unrolled, upwards of nine hundred feet, or nearly twice the length of St. Paul's Cathedral within the walls; and if it ever should become necessary to consult the fearful volume, an able-bodied man must be employed during three hours in coiling and uncoiling its monstrous folds. Should our law manufactory go on at this rate, and we do not anticipate any interruption in its progress, we may soon be able to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... specially detailed from the ranks to care for the freedmen at Fortress Monroe, he afterward founded the celebrated Port Royal experiment and started the Freedmen's Aid Societies. Thus, under the timid Treasury officials and bold army officers, Pierce's plan widened and developed. At first, the able-bodied men were enlisted as soldiers or hired as laborers, the women and children were herded into central camps under guard, and "superintendents of contrabands" multiplied here and there. Centres of massed freedmen arose at Fortress Monroe, Va., ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... neighbour. "Well, I'm off tomorrow, Leonard. Don't mention it to my folks, but if I can't get into the army, I'm going to enlist in the navy. They'll always take an able-bodied man. I'm not coming back here." He held out his hand and Leonard took it with ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... days before James was sufficiently recovered to be embarked—a delay which probably cost him his kingdom, for there can be no doubt that, on landing, he would have been joined at once by all the great clans, and by no small proportion of the able-bodied men of ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... In the case of able-bodied men smoking is associated with loss of lung capacity amounting ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... constant companion, and the Gordon girls, those indomitably jolly creatures, as occasional visitors; but as Miss Kate, the elder, expressed herself, "Laramie is nothing but one big hospital now. The women and children are the only able-bodied men in it." Nellie was kind and civil, and tried to be cordial to them, but they were "smart" enough to see she had no heart for rattling small talk and crisp comments on matters and things at the post, and much preferred to be left alone to her undisturbed confidential ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... not be eliminated, but its expression transformed and directed toward evils that need all its antagonism. To be angry aright is a good part of moral education, and non-resistance under all provocations is unmanly, craven, and cowardly.[11] An able-bodied young man, who can not fight physically, can hardly have a high and true sense of honor, and is generally a milksop, a lady-boy, or sneak. He lacks virility, his masculinity does not ring true, his honesty can ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... try to discriminate between an old epic belief in able-bodied ghosts and an Ionian belief in mere futile shades, in the Homeric poems. Everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth worshipping after they are burned; but, as Mr. Leaf says with obvious truth, and with modern instances, "men are never so inconsistent ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... overseer, makes a snug income, and spends a good part of his winters in Baltimore and New York. He laughs when you ask him if he regrets slavery. Nothing would induce him to take care of one hundred and fifty men, women, and children, furnishing perhaps thirty able-bodied men, littering the house with a swarm of lazy servants, and making heavy drafts on the meat-house and corn-crib, and running up ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... which it may be long before my views are included in any party programme—I say I shall always maintain that real security is not possible without citizen service, and that the training of every able-bodied man to be capable of taking part, if need be, in the defence of his country, is not only good for the country but good for the man—and would materially assist in the solution of many other problems, social and economic. But being, ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... able-bodied men in this household, so that we could take good care of ourselves, but I confess that I have had uneasy moments when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles from any help. There are one maid, an old manservant, the sister, and the brother, ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... the Royal Eagle, the Tiger, the Big Snake, the Little Snake, the Frog, the Alligator, and many others belonging to the Datus, who, on occasions like these, are bound to call on their servants, and a certain number of able-bodied men living in their kampongs, to man and fight in their boats. This is their service to the Government. The rajah supplies the whole force with rice for the expedition, and a certain number of muskets. The English ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... distribution of their products? The time is short. It is of the most imperative importance that everything possible be done, and done immediately, to make sure of large harvests. I call upon young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to accept and act upon this duty—to turn in hosts to the farms and make certain that no pains and no labor is ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... our prize long enough to attach a medal to his neck and send him away with our date, location, and name. If kept an hour or more on the deck of a ship these birds become seasick, and manifest their illness just as an able-bodied landsman, exhibits an attack of marine malady. Strange they should be so affected when they are all their lives ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... "you're a white man. I'll square things up with Captain Wilson. He can have the use of that sausage skin of a butler on the voyage home. I hope he'll just set those able-bodied wasters of footmen to shovel coal in the stokehole. I shan't say a word if he corrects the women with a rope's end every time they're seasick. I'm a humanitarian, Smith, opposed to executions and corporal punishment on principle, in a general way; but I'm not a hide-bound ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... potent, puissant, valid. resistless, irresistible, invincible, proof against, impregnable, unconquerable, indomitable, dominating, inextinguishable, unquenchable; incontestable; more than a match for; overpowering, overwhelming; all powerful, all sufficient; sovereign. able-bodied; athletic; Herculean, Cyclopean, Atlantean[obs3]; muscular, brawny, wiry, well-knit, broad-shouldered, sinewy, strapping, stalwart, gigantic. manly, man-like, manful; masculine, male, virile. unweakened[obs3], unallayed, unwithered[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... is the ability of the negro to bear these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may net for a year's work the fabulous sum of from fifty to eighty dollars. And this in a country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... informing him that, during the month of July previous, his plantation had been utterly ravaged by an expedition of British and Tories (Virginians who sided with England in the war) under Lord Dunmore. His buildings had all been burned; his wharf demolished; his livestock killed; and every one of his able-bodied slaves of both sexes had been carried off to Jamaica to be sold. The enemy had also destroyed his growing crops; cut down his fruit trees; in short, nothing was left of his once prosperous and valuable plantation but ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... days of David Williams and Mr. Michaelis seemed very remote—and spent some time and consideration in arranging it. Her costume was workmanlike and that of an hotel manageress in the morning; yet distinctly set off her figure and suited her character of an able-bodied, intellectual woman. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... our success inspired an overweening confidence, it also begat increased desire to enter the military service; and, but for our want of arms and munitions, we could have enrolled an army little short of the number of able-bodied men ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... is fit and wears no uniform is instantly suspected of espionage. I am grinding no axe. I am advocating nothing or attacking nothing. I am merely stating as a fact that, suspicious and contemptuous as we had been in Flanders of every able-bodied man who was not helping to defend his country, it seemed grotesque to us to find so many civilian men in the streets of the country to ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... could not hold it long. Secretly, steadfastly, and swiftly they had, therefore, during the long wintry nights, been constructing a half moon of solid masonry on the inside of the same portal. Old men, feeble women, tender children, united with the able-bodied to accomplish this work, by which they hoped still to maintain themselves after the ravelin ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... always in touch with his own social world, and he had leave sufficient to enable him to break the back of monotony. He drank, gambled, and orated; but his indulgences were little compared with the debauches of able-bodied seamen when, after months of sea-life, they reached port again. A ship in port at such a time was not a scene of evangelical habits. Women of loose class, flower-girls, fruit-sellers, and costermongers turned the forecastle into a pleasure-house where the pleasures were not always secret; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all. But the wicked speerit that's in ye, Peter McGuffie, made ye swim out where the river was running strongest and an able-bodied man wouldna care to go. And what for did ye forget yirsel and risk yer life?" But for the first time there was no bravery left in Peter to answer; his wickedness was beyond excuse, as he ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... exclaimed. "Here I am complaining, and just look at her! A stout, able-bodied man that will grumble over a mistake or two with a sight like that before his eyes ain't worth the powder and lead that it would take to kill him. Look what she's took on her young shoulders, and goes about with a constant smile and song on her red lips. Yes, Dixie Hart ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... set out from Tadoussac, the Montagnais arrived at Quebec, to the number of sixty able-bodied men, en route for the war. They tarried here some days, enjoying themselves, and not omitting to ply me frequently with questions, to assure themselves that I would not fail in my promises to them. I assured them, and again made promises to them, asking ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... other kinds of provision in the same proportion. The islanders brought much of their fruits to us in their little canoes, which are long and narrow boats, like troughs, hollowed out of single trees; but their cattle we bought on shore. I observed the people to be straight, well-limbed, and able-bodied men, of a very dark tawny colour. Most of the men, and all the women, were entirely naked, except merely enough to hide their parts of shame. Some few of the men wore long garments, after the fashion of the Arabs, whose language they spoke, and were likewise ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... doctor's hope was not mere pretending, something assumed but not felt. Yes, he knew it. And, for the first time since the accident which wrecked the Old Colony train and his own life, he began to think that, perhaps—some day, perhaps—he might again be a man, a whole, able-bodied man among men. When he submitted this thought to the cold light of reason, it was transparent and faint enough, but it was there, and it was one cause ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... can find enough to do," he said; "the Shakers need an able-bodied man; they only have those ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... utilizing all the land possible and that every one is fully supplied with food. But when we consider the great masses of people in the slums of all cities who are always underfed and whose constant thought is about their next meal; when we see hundreds of able-bodied men waiting in line until midnight for half a loaf of stale bread, surely it seems that there is a possibility of keeping all of the present farmers at work, if not of finding new fields for others, if we make our conditions such that there will be opportunities for every able-bodied worker to labor ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... very much excited about a new constitution and a change of government. I don't think the country in France (the small farmers and peasants) are ever much excited about the form of government. As long as the crops are good and there is no war to take away their sons and able-bodied men, they don't care, often don't know, whether a king or an emperor is reigning over them. They say there are some far-off villages half hidden in the forests and mountains who still believe that a king and a Bourbon ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... now they did not care, and it was a hard thing to find work, especially when a man grew old, and stiff about the joints. Now the Boards of Guardians would not give any relief unless the applicants were ill, or not able-bodied, and even then they were often required to break stones, and he was very much inclined to throw his spade in that old pond and go to the Union with the "missis" and all the lot for good. He had the rheumatism bad enough. It would serve them ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... "bummers" who come to Long Island in the winter for free quarters, and as soon as the weather is fine for out-door tramping in the summer, they go away to escape work in the institution, coming back again in cold weather, It would certainly be very easy to devise a law to make this impossible. No able-bodied person who is able to work, ought under any circumstances to be sent to the almshouse. People who are able to work and support themselves, and do not do so under their own direction, ought to be sent to the work-house, and compelled to do ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... are purely accidental and contrary to my principles. We shall wipe the floor of the mill-pond with the scalps of able-bodied British tars! I see Professor Edison about to arrange for us a torpedo-hose on wheels, likewise an infernal electro-semaphore; I see Henry Irving dead-sick and declining to play Corporal Brewster; Cornell, I yell! ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... a characteristic of our western aborigines, and which we instinctively accepted as a sufficient guarantee of their friendliness and good faith. Contrary to our preconceived idea of northern savages, they were athletic, able-bodied men, fully up to the average height of Americans. Heavy kukh-lankas (kookh-lan'-kas), or hunting-shirts of spotted deerskin, confined about the waist with a belt, and fringed round the bottom with the long black hair of the wolverine, covered their bodies from the neck to the knee, ornamented ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... 'business as usual,' but other things too: pleasure, luxuries, eating, clothes; everything as usual. I reckon that conscription is bound to come, and before the Hun gets put in his place nearly every able-bodied man in these islands will be forced ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... been very busy, dividing his attention pretty evenly between Mildmay and the finest specimen of the slain mammoths, the latter of which he had succeeded in nearly half-denuding of its skin. With the assistance of his two able-bodied friends this task was completed by dinner-time; and by the corresponding hour next evening not only was the enormous hide undergoing the first stage of preparation for the taxidermist, but the indefatigable ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... we counted the boats, the whole able-bodied population of Spaakenberg issued from small, peak-roofed houses to see what monster made so odd a noise. By twenties and by thirties they came, wonderful figures, and the air rang with the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... opportunity for remunerative employment, and the distribution of a portion of the congressional relief fund in this way was in entire harmony with the fixed policy of the commission to avoid pauperizing the people by giving money or food outright to able-bodied persons, and to afford them relief by furnishing them opportunity to work for a good wage. A further reason why the expenditure of money from this fund on the Benguet Road was appropriate is found in the fact that the region opened up is destined to play a very important part in the cure of ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... and numbers of soldiers who are discharged because disabled in the camps during winter. Thus McClellan's bloodless strategy deprived several thousands of their health, without in the least hurting the enemy. And daily I meet numbers of able-bodied Africo-Americans, who would make excellent soldiers. I decided to try to form a regiment of the Africo-Americans, and, after whipping the F. F. V.'s, establish, beyond doubt, the perfect equality of the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... indicated in the foregoing sketch of his occupations, and as perceptible to the summer boarder who watches his work from the piazza, although arduous and exacting, may be quite compatible with a happy life; and, when we estimate the promise of the occupation as offering a pleasant livelihood, no able-bodied man need be deterred by it. But when we add this long list of contingencies, and consider the ceaseless anxiety that they bring, we may well hesitate before adopting such a life for ourselves or desiring it for our children. No true estimate of the developed character ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... not enough to do in this house for two able-bodied women—and I'm one! Rose taught me how to make coffee yesterday, and toast and eggs are easy. Just look at that coffee! Real amber? It's an improvement for looks on what you've been brewing for yourself in ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Julfa such is not the case, and the ancient style of dress is so far maintained. One is struck by the great number of women in the streets of Julfa and the comparative lack of men. This is because all able-bodied men migrate to India or Europe, leaving their women behind until sufficient wealth is accumulated to export them ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... entire able-bodied population was soon called into military service, so that almost the whole church was in the army. At the North the churches at home hardly seemed diminished by the myriads sent to the field. It was amazing to see the charities and missions of the churches sustained with almost undiminished supplies, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... of your State, and Commander-in-Chief of its army, I call upon every able-bodied man of the State, without regard to age, to enlist in its service. I command him who can obtain a weapon to march with our armies. I ask him who can repair or forge an arm to make it ready at once for ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... every able-bodied man and attack the city of the Fung, say, on the night of the great festival when they are off their guard. I would blow in the gates of the city of Harmac, and storm it and drive away the Fung, and afterwards ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... the same moment, in order that the birds and other pests may not have the opportunity of turning their whole force upon the several parts in turn. The men now build on each patch a small hut, which is occupied by most of the able-bodied members of the roomhold until harvest is completed, some fourteen to twenty weeks after the sowing of the PADI, according to the variety of grain sown. They erect contrivances for scaring away the birds; they stick bamboos about eight ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... as long as rents are maintained at their present level. Were it possible for an English government to offer free grants of land as the Canadian government does, or even to fix rents and provide for the purchase of land as is the case in Ireland, multitudes of able-bodied men, wearied with the fierce struggle for bread in cities, would avail themselves of the opportunity; but under the present conditions of farm-tenure those who know the country best, know that, ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... fine ranch and lots of cattle and a comfortable home. He would plan these things sometimes in an expansive mood, whereupon Marthy would stare at him with her hard, contemptuous look until Jase trailed off into mumbling complaints into his beard. He was not as able-bodied as she thought he was, he would say, with vague solemnity. Some uh these days Marthy'd see how she had ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... anything near the truth, it may be said that a restoration of order would serve his Excellency very badly indeed. In point of fact he received something like eight shillings for every "head" of "recruited labour." He also received a commission from the same interested syndicates which exported able-bodied labourers, a commission amounting to six shillings upon every case of square-face, and a larger sum upon every keg of rum that came ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... laughed, "for lazy able-bodied persons." And she was gone in the darkness, to sit by ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... of Unorganized Labor.—A static assumption excludes enforced idleness on the part of able-bodied men. The changes which throw such men out of employment are not taking place, and there is no reserve of efficient but idle labor. In the actual state, which is highly dynamic, such a supply of unemployed labor is always at hand, and it is neither possible nor normal that ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... been at dead fault," was his sudden address, as he returned, to one of the party. "You assured me that old Snell and his two sons were the whole force that he carried, while I find two stout, able-bodied men besides, all well armed, and ready for the attack. The old woman, too, standing with the gridiron in her fists, is equal of herself to any two men, hand ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... numerous and profligate in Persia as vagrant monks used to be in Spain and Italy, became such a pest that one of the first acts of his successor, Mahomed Shah, was to direct that no beggars should be tolerated except the lame, the sick, and the blind, and that all able-bodied men appearing in dervish garb were to be seized for military service. The profession fell out of fashion then, and there are now comparatively few mendicant dervishes to be seen. Those that still wear the 'ragged robe' do not all appear to follow the rules of poverty, ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... to the people, being sparing in the use of punishments and fines, and making the taxes and levies of produce light, so causing that the fields shall be ploughed deep, and the weeding well attended to, and that the able-bodied, during their days of leisure, shall cultivate their filial piety, fraternal duty, faithfulness, and truth, serving thereby, at home, their fathers and elder brothers, and, abroad, their elders and superiors, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... will be offered for sale on Monday, September 10, at 12 o'clock, being the entire stock of the late John Graves. The negroes are in excellent condition, and all warranted against the common vices. Among them are several mechanics, able-bodied field-hands, plough-boys, and women with children, some of them very prolific, affording a rare opportunity for any one who wishes to raise a strong and healthy lot of servants for their own ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... the army of Christiern, and marvelled that it did not come. All servants, old men, monks, burghers, and prostitutes they sent away, that there might be fewer mouths to feed. Each day, too, their numbers were diminished through the desertion of able-bodied men who escaped through the gates or over the walls and made their way by one means or another to the Swedish camp. There being no longer possibility of driving off the enemy by force, they felt that their only ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... buy substitutes; but they need not have done so, for the law contained a provision intended, as Lincoln recorded, to safeguard poorer men against such a rise in prices. They could escape by paying 300 dollars, or 60 pounds, not, in the then state of wages, an extravagant penalty upon an able-bodied man. The sums paid under this provision covered the cost ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... almost speaking distance from each other, where sentinels kept watch for French frigates or privateers. Redoubts and towers were within musket-shot of each other, with watch-houses between, and at intervals every able-bodied man in the country was obliged to leave his trade to act as sentinel, or go into camp or barracks with the militia for months at a time. British cruisers sailed the Channel: now a squadron under Barrington, again under ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... drive the redskins into the arms of the British, the War Department had withheld its consent. Now that the ban was lifted, the people could expect the necessary measures to be taken for their defense. In no part of the country was the war more popular; nowhere did the mass of the able-bodied population show greater eagerness to ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... out of which France especially gathered a cause of triumph and indignation. What in some degree diminishes the triumph is, that while sailors were pressed in England, soldiers were pressed in France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied man, going through the streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by the crimps into a house called the oven. There he was shut up with others in the same plight; those fit for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold them to the officers. In 1695 there were thirty ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... not rush out of the hotel instantly to get into the fray. They did what a score of other able-bodied men of Bear Cat were doing—went in search of adequate weapons with which to oppose the bank robbers. Bear Cat was probably the best-equipped town in the country to meet a sudden emergency of this kind. In every house, behind the door or hanging ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... returned with a large troop of Indians, men and women, among the latter of whom were many of the wives and attendants of the Inca. The Spaniards had met with no resistance; since the Peruvian warriors, though so superior in number, excellent in appointments, and consisting mostly of able-bodied young men, - for the greater part of the veteran forces were with the Inca's generals at the south, - lost all heart from the moment of their sovereign's captivity. There was no leader to take his place; for they ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... counseled himself, in resignation. From what he had seen and surmised of Mrs. Hallam, he shrewdly suspected that the tune would prove an exceedingly lively one; she seemed a woman of imagination, originality, and an able-bodied temper. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... war. In Switzerland and other States an attempt is made to secure national defence by a system of militia, and to take account of political possibilities. The great European States maintain standing armies in which all able-bodied citizens have to pass a longer or shorter period of military training. England alone keeps up a mercenary army, and by the side of it a territorial army, whose ranks ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... pastoral peoples affect the whole tribe. All the able-bodied men are combatants, and all the women and children constitute the spoils of war in case of defeat. This fact is important, since the purpose of primitive conflicts is to enslave and pillage, rather than to acquire ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... three days, which will convey a correct ides of the character of the mate. One afternoon, while all hands were busily employed in heaving in the slack of the cable, a boat, pulled by two stout, able-bodied men, came alongside. One of the men came on board, and addressing the mate, said he had a letter which he wished to send to Liverpool. The mate looked hard at the man, and replied in a gruff and surly tone, "We can't receive any letters here. The ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... than 15,000 drachmae for a slave. After the great conquests of the Romans, in Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Greece, and the Orient, the market went down by reason of the multitude of human beings thrown upon it. An able-bodied, unlettered man could be bought for the price of an ox. Such were the men of Spain, Thrace, and Sardinia. Educated slaves from Greece and the East brought a higher price. We learn from Horace, that ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... board the Yarmouth man-of-war up the Baltic; it will not, therefore, be improper here to relate the occasion of that voyage, which was as follows:—He and his friend, Coleman, being at Plymouth, and appearing to be able-bodied men, some officers seeing them there, thought them extremely fit to serve his majesty, therefore obliged them to go on board the Dunkirk man-of-war: but they not liking this, Coleman pricked himself upon the wrists, between his fingers, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... think you had. From all that Harry tells me, I judge what with hunting up fashions and fabrics and corset-makers and all the rest of it, you have done the work, daily, of about two able-bodied men." ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... able-bodied man was enrolled in one or other of the regiments—even the girls and boys were made into regiments or attached to them, and though these did not fight, they carried the mats and cooking pots of ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... was not altogether free from anxiety. It was true that his ships were repaired, but many of his men remained on land to recover their strength, and but a small number of able-bodied seamen remained on board with him. The roadstead being lined with coral, great precautions were necessary to save the cables from being cut, but in spite of them, at new moon, a sudden tempest arose and broke the ship loose. The anchors ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... (added Socrates) that a corps of young able-bodied Athenians, accoutred with lighter arms, (33) and holding our natural mountain rampart in possession, would prove at once a thorn in the enemy's side offensively, whilst defensively they would form a splendid bulwark ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... pocket which bulges out so prominently?' 'What did your father do with that hundred guineas which he received on Monday from Jacob Jonson?' And, as his 'swallow' was enormous—as the Doctor would believe more fables in an hour than an able-bodied liar would invent in a week—naturally there was no limit to the slanders with which his 'Lives ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... but I felt like that young hawk at Glenfaba—do you remember it?—the one that was partly snared and came dragging the trap on to the lawn by a string caught round its leg. I had to cut it away, I had to, I had to! But you mustn't feel one single moment's uneasiness about me. An able-bodied woman like Glory Quayle doesn't starve in a place like London. Besides, I am provided for already, so you see my bow abides in strength. The first morning after my arrival Mrs. Jupe told me that if I cared to take ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... been so long unused to anything like warlike preparations that we find it difficult to arouse ourselves to a realization of the fact that every able-bodied man is liable to be called upon to render active service for his country; and when a war is raging within our borders, of whose termination the only thing that can be predicted with certainty is that it can be reached only through fearful suffering and destruction of life and property, is it not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... to the pavement, and, accompanied by the cook, drew off and left him to his fate. Their last glance showed them a stout, able-bodied seaman, with his head and arms confined in a jersey, going through contortions of an extraordinary nature to free himself, and indulging in language which, even when filtered by the garment in question, was of a singularly comprehensive and powerful description. He freed ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... Utrecht the country improves; we had hitherto travelled sometimes on Dyke tops, sometimes in Dyke bottoms which only required the efforts of a few able-bodied rats to let the water in upon us. It is quite surprising to see on what a precarious tenure Holland is held. Take but a Dyke away, overturn one dam, and see what discord follows—and this does sometimes happen. In 1809 the Ice broke through near Gorum ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... of place, it could not be blinked; and that she was so visible, in her able-bodied comeliness, her supremacy of dimples, her extremely good corset, increased the offense. So did also the native assurance of her eye—which had something at all times of a jovial sea-captain, with his foot ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall |
