"Pennyweight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the increased price of copper and expense of coinage, I have thought it would be for the benefit of the United States to reduce the weight of the copper coin of the United States 1 pennyweight and 16 grains in each cent and in like proportion in each half cent, and the same has since the 27th day of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... vultures proclaim the serpents fate by their cries, on which the hunters come up and flea the animal, taking out his gall, which is employed as a sovereign remedy for several diseases, given to the quantity of a pennyweight in wine; particularly against the bite of a mad dog, for women in labour, for carbuncles, and other distempers. They likewise get a good price for the flesh, which is considered as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... coin are articles of merchandise. Everybody who has gold has also his little buckskin pouch to hold it. Every store has its scales, and in these is weighed out the fixed amount for all purchases according to Troy weight. An ounce is valued at eighteen dollars, a pennyweight at ninety cents, and so on. It is amusing to notice how the friction of the scales is made by some men—particularly the Jews, whose name is legion—to work them no loss. In weighing in, the scale-beam bows most deferentially to the gold side; but in weighing out, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... that Editors may take the cake. I know One, the Father of a long Family, that will sit a whole June night without queeching in a Vessell of Refrigerated Water till he be Ingaged with hard Ice, that the Publick may be docked no pennyweight of the Sentiments incident to the Nativity. For we be like Grapes, and goe to Press in August. But methinks these rigours do postulate a Robur Corporis more than ordinary (whereas 'tis but one in ten if a Novelist overtop in ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disposed of his soul: still the horse was the vainer brute of the two; he was far worse beflounced, bebonneted, and bemantled, than any fair lady regnante crinolina. For the man, under the colour of a warming-pan, retained Nature's outline. But it was subaudi equum! Scarce a pennyweight of honest horse-flesh to be seen. Our crinoline spares the noble parts of women, and makes but the baser parts gigantic (why this preference?); but this poor animal from stem to stern was swamped in finery. His ears were hid in great sheaths of white ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Dunmore. "I know these fellows better than any of you, and Cato will never recover. I had a boy down on the Mary River, who was knocked down with low fever. Half a pennyweight of quinine would have put him to rights, but he had made up his mind to die, and when once they have done that, all the drugs in a doctor's shop won't do ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... the world. And what is a carat, pray? and whence its name? It is of Indian origin, a kirat being a small seed that was used in India to weigh diamonds with. Four grains are equal to one carat, and six carats make one pennyweight. But there is no standard weight fixed for the finest diamonds. Competition alone among purchasers must arrange their price. The commercial value of gems is rarely affected, and among all articles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various |
