"Exorbitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... declared against the evils named, and also condemned the order to the Saints to gather in haste at Nauvoo, explaining that the purpose of this command was to enable the men in control of the church to sell property at exorbitant prices, "and thus the wealth that is brought into the place is swallowed up by the one great throat, from whence there is no return." The seceders asserted that, although they had an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... conversation to the end of my days, and would bind myself under penalties to be always enraptured by them; and, above all, that I would turn my back on all other women for ever for her sake. I did not object to these conditions because they were exorbitant and inhuman: it was their extraordinary irrelevance that prostrated me. I invariably replied with perfect frankness that I had never dreamt of any of these things; that unless the lady's character and intellect were equal or superior ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... sleepeth, without the circumstances, of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as one that noddeth in a chayre. For he that taketh pains, and industriously layes himselfe to sleep, in case any uncouth and exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a Dream. We read of Marcus Brutes, (one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murthered him,) how at Phillipi, the night before he gave battell to Augustus Caesar, he ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... foretold: the man and his wife died upon the same day, and the end of the week of mourning coincided with the eve of the Passover. The son in turn carried out his father's behest: he repaired to market, and there he met an old man who offered a silver dish for sale. Although the price asked was exorbitant, yet he bought it, as his father had bidden. The dish was set upon the Seder table, and when Rabbi Hanina opened it, he found a second dish within, and inside of this a live frog, jumping and hopping around gleefully. He gave the frog food and drink, and by the end of the festival ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the disabled veterans of the old army registers; from the professional assignees and wreckers of estates, who, by exorbitant fees and collusive sales of assets to convenient favorites, plundered debtor and creditor alike and made the system an engine of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... intercourse which may be accomplished by railways; however great animal speed, there cannot be a doubt that it would be considerably surpassed by mail steam carriages, and that the expense would be infinitely less. The exorbitant charge now made for small parcels prevents that natural intercourse of friendship between families resident in different parts of the kingdom, in the same manner as the heavy postage of letters prevents free communication, and consequently ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... from it a sense of desertion that was almost poignant, no human figure was to be observed going to and fro about the houses, and there was no sound of human industry or enjoyment. Only, on the top of the beach, and hard by the flagstaff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as white as snow was to be seen beckoning with uplifted arm. The second glance identified her as a piece of naval sculpture, the flgure-head of a ship that had long hovered and plunged into so many running billows, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Geoghegan's and Harry Hill's, while others circulate around such up-town, west-side houses as the French Madame's, the Haymarket and Tom Gould's. They usually live in furnished rooms, in houses owned by wealthy and respectable citizens, let to them by agents who lease them at exorbitant rents, paid in advance. In both the eastern, western and central portions of the city they may be found occupying rooms on the same floors with respectable families. These women seldom conduct the prey that they have allured to their home, but to some assignation house or fourth-rate ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... Britain and India to a contest. But her Man-Power cannot be utilised while she is a subject Nation. She cannot afford to maintain a large army, if she is to support an English garrison, to pay for their goings and comings, to buy stores in England at exorbitant prices and send them back again when England needs them. She cannot afford to train men for England, and only have their services for five years. She cannot afford to keep huge Gold Reserves in England, and be straitened for cash, while she ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... Rome, to pay St. Peter's penny (equivalent very near to a French crown) for every house in his dominions. The whole island soon followed his example; England became insensibly one of the Pope's provinces, and the Holy Father used to send from time to time his legates thither to levy exorbitant taxes. At last King John delivered up by a public instrument the kingdom of England to the Pope, who had excommunicated him; but the barons, not finding their account in this resignation, dethroned the wretched King John and seated Louis, father to St. Louis, King of France, in his place. However, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... this long course of English history were the claims of the monarchy more exorbitant than under James I. and Charles I., from 1603 to 1642, just when the tide of immigration began to flow towards America, and when the governments of the colonies were being established. "What God hath joined, then, let no man separate. I am the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... for reducing the exorbitant power of France be such, as may soon turn your wreaths of laurel into branches of olive: that, after the toils of a just and honourable war, carried on by a confederacy of which your majesty is most truly, as of the faith, styled Defender, we may live to enjoy, under your majesty's ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... is better to rule over your devoted and attached tribe of Shoshones than to indulge in dreams of establishing a western empire; and, even if you will absolutely make the attempt, why should we seek the help of white men? what can we expect from them and their assistance but exorbitant claims and undue interference? With a few months' regular organization, the Comanches, Apaches, and Shoshones can be made equal to any soldiers of the civilized world, and among them you will ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... the smaller traders and agriculturists, who were in competition with slave-labour and other false economic conditions, to say nothing of bad seasons, were frequently in the hands of the usurers. Though efforts were repeatedly made to check exorbitant rates of interest, they were apparently quite as ineffectual as with us. An almost standard charge was at the rate of one-twelfth of the loan, or 8-1/3 per cent, but another common rate was that of one per cent per month. Rates both higher and lower are known ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... who combines with Cheatly to supply young heirs with cash at most exorbitant usury. (See CHEATLY.)—Shadwell, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... which the Turks entered on the war. They stood alone confronting a Power which had vastly greater resources in men and treasure. Seeing that the Sultan had recently repudiated a large part of the State debt, and could borrow only at exorbitant rates of interest, it is even now mysterious how his Ministers managed to equip very considerable forces, and to arm them with quick-firing rifles and excellent cannon. The Turk is a born soldier, and will fight for nothing and live on next to nothing when his creed is in question; but that does ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... if we are to believe what we are told, was an ice machine which he started in partnership with another settler. The produce they sold to their companions at an exorbitant price, but not for long; whereafter the enterprising young man proceeded to buy some plots of ground, of whose prolificacy in diamonds he had good reason to be aware. It must be here remarked that Rhodes ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... Jack, as he fortified himself with a sandwich, "that any decent chap would know that we belonged to the union? We are going to form a housewives' league at dawn to-morrow, and then we will find the culprits. They will be offering us our own grub at exorbitant rates." ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... their position to enrich themselves by trade with the Kafirs. This abuse has sometimes occurred, and clearly ought to be checked by the home societies. But probably it does not disgust the wandering white trader any more than the fact that the missionary often warns the native against the exorbitant prices which the trader demands for his goods. They are blamed for making the converted Kafir uppish, and telling him that he is as good as a white man, an offence which has no doubt been often committed. A graver allegation, to which Mr. Theal has given some countenance in his historical ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... Australia to the mother-country only a little dearer. But the case has been entirely changed since Rowland Hill's plan came into operation. What seemed a moderate rate before that great improvement took place, is now an exorbitant charge, which no working-man will pay very frequently. In this, as in most other affairs, it is not the actual but the comparative cost of the article which makes it seem dear. To a person who has recently left his native land, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Sherman and the company joined.] A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony L200 at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants. [Laughter.] But I know not if any son of New England, oppressed by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... into consideration when the pay of the Army is under discussion. The regiment has been on the frontier ten years, and everything that we had that was at all nice had been sent up from St. Paul at great expense, or purchased in Helena at an exorbitant price. All those things have been disposed of for almost nothing, and when the regiment reaches Fort Snelling, where larger quarters have to be furnished for an almost city life, the officers will be ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... free, possibly on their paying a ransom accumulated by half starving themselves, and selling the greater part of their allowance of corn during a long period. Seventeen years later, they were a power in Rome; they had lent Julius Caesar enormous sums, which he repaid with exorbitant interest, and after his death they mourned him, and kept his funeral pyre burning seven days and nights in the Forum. A few years after that time, Augustus established them on the opposite side of the Tiber, over against ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... up the river are exorbitant of course, as they can only be brought up in canoes requiring long "portages." Here's the tariff at Sailor's Bar and other Bars:—"Flour, 100 dollars a-barrel, worth in San Francisco 11 to 12 dollars; molasses, 6 dollars a-gallon; pork, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... was, that he placed centinels at all the avenues, to prevent the people from selling us any refreshments, except at such exorbitant rates as we could not afford to give. His pretence for this extraordinary stretch of power was, that he was obliged to preserve their provisions for upwards of an hundred families, which were daily expected as a reinforcement to the colony. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the disadvantages of predigested foods have been noted, and their prices are usually so exorbitant that eggs at 2s. 6d. each would be cheaper. The remarks of Sollmann the great ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... Yermolai, on engaging Filofey, had stated that he could be sure that, fool as he was, he'd be paid... and nothing more! Filofey, fool as he was—in Yermolai's words—was not satisfied with this statement alone. He demanded, of me fifty roubles—an exorbitant price; I offered him ten—a low price. We fell to haggling; Filofey at first was stubborn; then he began to come down, but slowly. Yermolai entering for an instant began assuring me, 'that fool—('He's fond of the word, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... by the exorbitant prices that were charged for food. One storekeeper in Millville borough was charging $5 a sack for flour and seventy-five cents for sandwiches on Sunday. This caused considerable complaint and the citizens grew desperate. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... exorbitant and oppressive transportation charges have helped to keep these lands out of use, and some still lie idle and neglected, to excite the wonder of the social and economic student. To use the abandoned lands of the East, equal rates on agricultural ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... found that a cheque for a large amount had been abstracted from Arthur's desk, and further search discovered that nearly every article of value had been perloined during her illness. Their charges were so exorbitant, that it took nearly all the money she had to satisfy their demands, and when she mentioned the cheque, &c., they held up their hands in horror at the idea, that after all their kindness she should suspect them ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... her youth, her marriage, the kindness of the aged Brawford, the hundred millions that she had inherited, the obstacles that prevented her from obtaining the enjoyment of her inheritance, the moneys she had been obliged to borrow at an exorbitant rate of interest, her endless contentions with Brawford's nephews, and the litigation! the injunctions! ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... perhaps prevented, had there been an insight into the distinct nature and origin of the National Church and the Church under Christ! [3] To the ignorance of this, all the fierce contentions between the Puritans and the Episcopalians under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, all the errors and exorbitant pretensions of the Church of Scotland, and the heats and antipathies of our present Dissenters, may ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... of instruction. Since that time I have never employed a physician or paid out a penny for medicines. In view of these facts, do you think that the price of the book and teaching should be regarded as 'exorbitant,' 'out of all reason,' an 'imposition upon the public,' and many similar expressions, as are repeated over and over by numerous denouncers ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cherry picnic had been held in Silas Berry's orchard. Parties had come in great rattling wagons from all the towns about, and picked cherries and ate their fill at a most overreaching and exorbitant price. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... withheld from the people, or of information manufactured by the telegraph designed to affect the Bourse—the unprecedented number of placemen occupying seats in the Chamber of Deputies, yet receiving exorbitant salaries as incumbents of civil offices, one man being often in receipt of the salaries of several offices, though performing the duties of none—the fact that Ministers have maintained majorities by unblushing bribery in ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... present is the coldest winter since the year 1780-81; and yet I have not seen a close stove since I left New York. The tavern bills in these states are near one hundred per cent under yours. The exorbitant charges of your tavern-keepers are a disgrace to the country: I could never account for your submitting so quietly to ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... and unknown because they have discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of their heads is not understood. An artist's face is always exorbitant, it is always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call the beau-ideal. What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is neither labor ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... beach at Caistor, just as the ships were passing by, and had applied to some boatmen to convey him on board, which might have been soon accomplished, but they, discovering the emergency of his case, demanded an exorbitant reward which he was not at the instant prepared to satisfy; and, in consequence, they positively refused to assist him. Though he had travelled nine successive days, almost without rest, he could not be prevailed upon to withdraw from the agreeable ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... finest representative of Don Giovanni; that Miss ARNOLDSON shows great promise; that ALBANY is unrivalled; that MARIE ROZE is difficult to beat as Carmen; and that it is a pity that PATTI'S demands are so exorbitant; and having exhausted the list of operatic artists,—Madame and her daughters holding that certain Germans, with whose names we, unfortunately for us, are not even acquainted, are far superior to any French or Italian singers that can be named—there ensues a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... kindred matters. I arrived at the conclusion that, for the most part, they hold their lands, which are of very limited extent, in full property from the Crown, subject to certain annual charges of no very exorbitant amount; and that these advantages, improved by assiduous industry, supply abundantly their simple wants, whether in respect of food or clothing. In the streets of cities in China some deplorable objects are to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... Victor could feel, though he did not know how coldly unjust. For among the exorbitant requisitions upon their fellow-creatures made by the young, is the demand, that they be definite: no mercy is in them for the transitional. And Dudley—and it was under her influence, and painfully, not ignobly—was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... commodities, we have the express testimony of Ptolemy; for he informs us, that Maes, a Macedonian merchant, sent his agent through the entire route which we have just described. It is not surprising, therefore, that silk should have borne such an exorbitant price at Rome; but it is astonishing that any commodity, however precious, could bear the expence of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... advances by presenting her counter-claims, and for more than a month the negotiations pursued a difficult and tedious course. It must be admitted that, everything considered, Italy's claims were not particularly exorbitant. She claimed (1) a more extended and more easily defendable frontier in the Trentino, but she refrained from demanding the cession of the entire region lying south of the Brenner, as she would have been justified in doing from a strategic point of view; ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... quartered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single session of parliament had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate; the right of petition was grossly violated; arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments were grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason; if they do, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sir; if we get before us all the evidence that I intend we shall find ourselves forced into making a very unpopular report—far more unpopular than my book would have been, and far more subversive of the established order of things than at present you can have any idea. Even your coats, sir—exorbitant though their price now is—are going to cost you more as a result of this Commission, unless we can so arrange that in future a little less shall be paid for the 'cut' and a little more for the needle and thread that join the cuttings together. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... account for our loss of head. For, before we were well out of the machine, we had begun negotiations for its exclusive possession on the morrow; and by the time we were fairly installed in the inn at Shiwojiri, the bargain stood complete. In consideration of no exorbitant sum, the vehicle, with all appertaining thereto, was to be taken off its regular route and wander, like any tramp, at our sweet will, in quite a contrary direction. The boy with the horn was expressly included ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... to conceive, that those which are a part of themselves, and can in so great a Body, have no other interests, should (without the manifest hand of God were in it to infatuate all your proceedings) fall into such exorbitant contradiction to their own good, as a child of four years old would not be guilty of; and as this Pamphleter wildly suggests in pp. 6. 11. 27, &c. did they steer their course by the known laws of the ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... the cry of over-production! The inexorable law of supply and demand! The impossibility of our manufacturers longer competing in the markets of the world, against the cheap products of the pauper labor of Europe, while they are obliged by the unions, to pay such exorbitant wages here. This cry has grown more insistent, with each succeeding year. Nevertheless, the fact still remains, that but for the continuous opposition of the united labor organizations, long before this time, the wages paid in Europe, would govern the price of labor in this Republic. ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Sabellianism, one accused of. Sailors, their rights how won. Saltillo, unfavorable view of. Salt-river, in Mexican, what. Samuel, avunculus, 271. Samuel, Uncle, riotous, yet has qualities demanding reverence, a good provider for his family, an exorbitant bill of, makes some shrewd guesses, expects his boots, 245. Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking. Santa Anna, his expensive leg. Sappho, some human nature in. Sassycus, an impudent Indian. Satan, never ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... observations which no one in France except this man would have had the audacity to make. The Emperor, who was accustomed, as I have said, to examine at the end of every month the accounts of his household, thought the bill of the milliner in question exorbitant, and ordered me to summon him. I sent for him; and he came in less than ten minutes, and was introduced into his Majesty's apartment while he was at his toilet. "Monsieur," said the Emperor, his eyes fixed on the account, "your ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... during my lifetime that an exorbitant tax was placed on whisky. Before my era the interference with this refreshment was of the ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... his beaver, occupied himself in attending to his ranche, and was thus employed when news was brought to New Mexico of the exorbitant prices which sheep were bringing in California. He made up his mind to embark in a speculation in those animals by collecting a herd and driving it to that territory. He set out for the valley of Rio Abajo, which lies to the south of Santa Fe, and there, to his satisfaction, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... to the headsman, to whom he gave himself out as a great friend of the condemned man; and from whom he bought all the clothes of the dead man that was to be, for one hundred guilders; rather an exorbitant sum, as he engaged to leave all the trinkets of gold and silver ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... This, however, was not to be, and he was thunderstruck when Whyte arrived from England with the information that his first wife still lived, and that the daughter of his second was illegitimate. Sooner than risk exposure, Frettlby agreed to anything; but Whyte's demands became too exorbitant, and he refused to comply with them. On Whyte's death he again breathed freely, when suddenly a second possessor of his fatal secret started up in the person of Roger Moreland. As the murder of Duncan ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... eyes a summons and complaint against Peter Cheever. She glanced over it and found it true except that Zada L'Etoile was not named; Cheever's alleged income was vastly larger than she imagined, and her claim for alimony was exorbitant. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... That young patrician began to doubt his own identity when he was thus addressed—"Ketch on and do them yourself!" There was no redress, no possible remedy, and finally our compatriot humbled himself to a negro, and paid an exorbitant ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the king without a word of explanation being required or a single remonstrance uttered. Some of the kings laid claim to a divine origin and on the strength of the claim exacted and received from their subjects the respect due to deities. In these exorbitant pretensions they were greatly strengthened by the institution of taboo, which lent the sanction of religion to every exertion of arbitrary power.[648] Corresponding with the growth of monarchy was the well-marked gradation of social ranks which ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... but one. The whole country seemed in a stir about it, and it was evident that Strelsau was thronged. Rooms were all let and hotels overflowing; there would be very little chance of my obtaining a lodging, and I should certainly have to pay an exorbitant charge for it. I made up my mind to stop at Zenda, a small town fifty miles short of the capital, and about ten from the frontier. My train reached there in the evening; I would spend the next day, Tuesday, in a wander over ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... tactics of experienced dog thieves, only that in this case the demand was certainly exorbitant. Five thousand francs! But even so . . . I cast a rapid and comprehensive glance on the brilliant apparition before me—the jewelled rings, the diamonds in the shell-like ears, the priceless fur coat—and with an expressive shrug of ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... advice" and "that he thought it concerned him very little," and adding that "two bad things were before them, that it was unbearable" and that "he could suggest no other choice,"[10] that is, but to pay the bishop's tithes, however exorbitant, or not pay them, or possibly to make an end of him. It is clear also that the monk who was with the bishop was to blame for his exactions. But there is some excuse in the fact that Bishop John had been censured by Rome for his neglect in collecting the dues ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... Can't stand your prices. I can't stand your exorbitant prices. Now what do you have the heart to charge for dusting off those three old shirts and two and a half ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... soldier mostly needed, and always made great profits on his goods. Being excused from military duty, he could come and go at will. But the great danger was of his being captured or his tent raided by his own men, the risk therefore being so great that he had to ask exorbitant prices for his goods. He kept crackers, cards, oysters and sardines, paper and envelopes, etc., and often a bottle; would purchase all the plunder brought him and peddle the same to citizens in the rear. After the battle ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the Prince had just permitted, the right of worship in a Christian land to Calvinists and Lutherans? As a matter of course, therefore, Margaret of Parma denounced the terms by which Antwerp had been saved as a "novel and exorbitant capitulation," and had no intention of signifying her approbation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which goes the regular pace; the broad foreheads, short heads, and open nostrils show plenty of good breeding. The charges both for horses and Volante, if you wish to go out of the town, are, like everything else in Cuba, ridiculously exorbitant. An American here is doing a tolerably good business in letting horses and carriages. For a short evening drive, we had the pleasure of paying him thirty-five shillings. He says his best customers are a gang of healthy young priests, whom he takes out nearly ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... rude behavior of the officers. He knew that I was a stranger, and with a show of cordiality, for which I was very thankful, he invited me to accompany him to a quiet, respectable hotel, where the charges were not exorbitant. As his proposal suited my purse and my humor, I acquiesced willingly enough, little suspecting into what hands I had fallen. In less than an hour we were seated at a capital dinner, the best that I ever remembered to have eaten, so exquisite is the relish imparted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Without leave-taking, or any ceremony, they quitted Florence; nor did they rest until they had arrived in England and established themselves in a small house in London, where, by living with extreme parsimony and lending at exorbitant usances, they prospered so well that in the course of a few years they amassed a fortune; and so, one by one, they returned to Florence, purchased not a few of their former estates besides many others, and married. The management of their affairs ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... fully understood, and which was presented to him by a man at one time apparently animated with benevolent intentions, inasmuch as he wished to lend him money, but who subsequently showed his malevolence by asking to be repaid his loan with interest at an exorbitant rate. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... a pernicious violation of liberty and law can be excused only by the most imperious necessity; nor could it be defended on this occasion by the plea of impending danger or useful example. The legislature restrained the persons of the Directors, imposed an exorbitant security for their appearance, and marked their characters with a previous note of ignominy: they were compelled to deliver, upon oath, the strict value of their estates; and were disabled from making any ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... his price, and the demand, though somewhat exorbitant, was complied with, greatly to the satisfaction of the two youths, who were anxious to have it in the family as a memento of this, to them, important day. Sir William then ordered the tiger to be conveyed to the butchery, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... began to pester Magny. He presented himself at X—, and asked for further interest-hush-money; otherwise he must sell the emerald. Magny got money for him; the Princess again befriended her dastardly lover. The success of the first demand only rendered the second more exorbitant. I know not how much money was extorted and paid on this unluckly emerald: but it was the cause of the ruin of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... severity visited upon the Quakers in Massachusetts in the five years following 1656. These early Quakers, when not the veritable persons, were the ghosts of the old troublers of "the Lord's people in the Bay." Gorton, Randall Holden, Mrs. Dyer, and other "exorbitant persons," who had been found "unmeet to abide in this jurisdiction," could not be got ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... serail of Orfa I found nine old men. A heavy chain attached to rings around their necks fastened the one to the other, and twice daily they were driven to the watering trough just like cattle. The Turks had demanded of their tribe the exorbitant ransom of 150,000 piasters, of which one third had actually been offered. When I saw the old men, there was little chance of their ever being ransomed at all. The pasha, however, promised me that he would set them free. I do not know whether he kept ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... from the townsmen. The chancellor, Peter Flotte, foresaw this; he distributed among the public, instead of the original bull, a species of resume in which he had assembled, in a few lines, in the crudest terms, the most exorbitant pretensions of Boniface, at the same time suppressing everything which touched on the troubles of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him? If not, the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... energies to the raising of the money wherewith to publish my two operas, to which in all probability Tannhauser would shortly have to be added. I first applied to my friends, and in some cases had to pay exorbitant rates of interest, even for short terms. For the present these details are sufficient to prepare the reader for the catastrophe towards which I was now ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the family, saying, 'Money, or I make row.' Do you think it is to you, who are penniless, that they give credit? It's on my pocket that they were drawing,—on my pocket, because they believed me rich. They sold you at exorbitant prices every thing they wished; and they relied on me to pay for trousers at ninety francs, shirts at forty francs, and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... and '91; that the farmer's products have been refused a market within a year past because there was not money to handle them; that present rates of interest consume him; and that, with good security to offer, he is obliged to pay exorbitant rates for money and in many cases is ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... apartments were difficult to find and very expensive, and the cost of living had gone up so high that it was hard for the poor to make ends meet. It was almost impossible to get about in the city, as the war had reduced the number of cabs and the few that did business asked such exorbitant fares that only the rich could afford to ride in them. The street car situation was in a hopeless tangle. Even before the war there were not enough accommodations for the public, but since the opening of hostilities many of the cars had broken down and there were no mechanics to repair ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... the magistracy, thinking that by our gentleness we should overcome your ambition. But we perceive from experience that the more humble our behavior, the more concessions we make, the prouder you become, and the more exorbitant are your demands. And though we speak thus, it is not in order to offend, but to amend you. Let others tell you pleasing tales, our design is to communicate only what is for your good. Now we would ask you, and have you answer on your honor, What is there yet ungranted, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... allowed my valet to write my last; but he had such immense success that the rogue asked so exorbitant an increase of wages that, to my great regret, I was unable to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor" (Amos 4:1; 5:11-12; 2:6-7). Micah describes the strong and crafty crowding the peasant from his ancestral holding and the mother from her home by the devices always used for such ends, exorbitant interest on loans, foreclosure in times of distress, "seeing the judge" before the trial, and hardness of heart toward broken life and happiness (Micah 2:1-2; 2:9; 3:1-2). We cannot belittle the moral insight of ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... There was an amateur Richardson's show, a magician's tent, Cheap John's merry-go-rounds, and all sorts of amusements to be had by paying for them; and, above all, there was the bazaar, presided over by the ladies of Talbot, who succeeded in selling a large quantity of useless things at the usual exorbitant prices. There was also a large dancing-platform roofed with canvas, which was very well frequented. Most popular of all, perhaps, were the refreshment-bars, where the publicans gave the liquor free, but charged the usual prices for the good of the hospital fund; ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... philosophy, much of which has fortunately obtained proverbial currency. Shakespeare's conception of the Greeks followed traditional lines except in the case of Achilles, whom he transforms into a brutal coward. And that portrait quite legitimately interpreted the selfish, unreasoning, and exorbitant pride with which the warrior was credited by Homer, and ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the world to witness, that the Commons have shrunk from no labor; that we have been guilty of no prevarication, that we have made no compromise with crime; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have carried on with the crimes—with the vices—with the exorbitant wealth—with the enormous and overpowering influence ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... says Hutton, in his 'History of Derby,' "was the taste of the ladies, and the British merchant was obliged to apply to the Italian with ready money for the article at an exorbitant price." Crotchet did not succeed in his undertaking. "Three engines were found necessary for the process: he had but one. An untoward trade is a dreadful sink for money; and an imprudent tradesman is still more dreadful. We often see ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... in the London home of an Australian who has made his fortune in a silver-mine, and from being a habitue of colonial racecourses has lately developed into a patron of art and a purchaser of dubious 'old masters' at exorbitant prices. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... going to employ additional counsel," interposed Mr. Whitney, "allow me to suggest the name of P. B. Hunnewell, of this city; he is one of the ablest attorneys in the United States, particularly in matters of this kind. His fees are somewhat exorbitant, but money is no object with you ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... desirable things. But this institution of Private Property in land and naturally produced things, these obstructive claims that prevent you using ground, or moving material, and that have to be bought out at exorbitant prices, stand in the way. All these owners hang like parasites upon your enterprise at its every stage; and by the time you get your sound boots well made in England, you will find them costing about a pound a pair—high out of reach of ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... sea, made friends with the native chiefs of Uzegura, and succeeded in establishing it as a thoroughfare. Avarice, however, that fatal enemy to the negro chiefs, made them overreach themselves by exorbitant demands of taxes. Then followed contests for the right of appropriating the taxes, and the whole ended in the closing of the road, which both parties were equally anxious to keep open for their mutual gain. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... office at the Polls on the day of election. In this responsible position, he could find his way on important Committees, be able to squander the resources of the County, and by his vote and influence assist in passing the most exorbitant claims, of which, it is to be presumed, he received a ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... liberal commissions if he would dispose of expensive objets d'art to his friends. He entered in business relation with several firms and soon his rooms became a veritable bazaar for art curios of all kinds. Mrs. Jeffries' friends paid exorbitant prices for some of the stuff and Underwood pocketed the money, forgetting to account to the owners for the sums they brought. The dealers demanded restitution or a settlement and Underwood, dreading exposure, ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... of the invalid excepting the theurgist or song-priest, he being the only one who received direct compensation for his professional services. The cost of such a ceremony is no inconsiderable item. Not only the exorbitant fee of the theurgist must be paid, but the entire assemblage must be fed during the nine days' ceremonial at the expense of the invalid, assisted ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... has been matter of much speculation. The result has been (what was probably a main object) the sale of many fowls and eggs at exorbitant prices. When chickens have sold at fifty dollars per pair, and eggs at six dollars a dozen, some persons must have made money, while others lost it. Yet, there is some choice in the breed of hens. The kind makes less difference, ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... from four or five dollars per day; if a special bargain is made for a considerable period, it is customary to give a reduction on transient rates of ten or fifteen per cent. Among the small towns in the interior, at the houses of entertainment, which are wretchedly poor as a rule, the charges are exorbitant, and strangers are looked upon as fair game. This, however, is no more so than in continental Europe, where, though the accommodations are better, the general treatment is the same. The luscious and healthful ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the main chance you flog the exchange with many a stripe,' a mysterious passage generally supposed to mean 'if you exact exorbitant usury'. A little less enigmatic, but fully as forced ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Sir Charles Dilke was the President of the Local Government Board, no one cared how the poor lived or fared. They could reside in the most ramshackle tenements in insanitary slums, for which, by the way, they were charged exorbitant rents, far higher than what they would now pay for the well-ventilated and well-equipped self-contained houses of the London County Council and building companies which provide accommodation for the industrial classes. Sir Charles saw the abject and helpless condition of the people of London, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... rice, the monopolist is able to obtain a high price for the whole of a supply which does not exceed what is necessary to keep alive the whole population. Thus a monopolist of corn or rice in a famine can get an exorbitant price for a considerable supply. But after the supply is large enough to enable every one to satisfy the most urgent need for sustenance, the urgency of the need satisfied by any further supply falls rapidly, for there is no comparison between the demand of famine and the demand induced ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... this description: a somewhat sticky, candy-eating lady with a mania for card parties, who undoubtedly would have dyed her hair if she had lived. He was not inconsolable, but he had had enough of marriage to learn that it demands a somewhat exorbitant price for joys otherwise more reasonably ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... better than farming, we hear on all sides of farms thrown out of cultivation, and as a necessary consequence milk, butter, and so forth are scarce and poor, and in the neighborhood of Maritzburg, at least, it is esteemed a favor to let you have either at exorbitant prices and of most inferior quality. When one looks round at these countless acres of splendid grazing-land, making a sort of natural park on either hand, it seems like a bad dream to know that we have constantly to use ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... hours to pay a fine of $20,000 in gold, in default of which one hundred houses would be sacked. When the payment was made forty-seven houses had already been plundered. Instance after instance could be given of similar unjustifiable and exorbitant fines. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... McBrides, and she is a very charming woman. I am to give lessons in English and Latin to the younger daughter, too, but I shall have a little time to myself, and I shall be earning fifty dollars a month! Doesn't that impress you as a perfectly exorbitant amount? She offered it; I should have blushed to ask ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster |
