"Able-bodied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Russia. "But," I added, "it is not our custom to give to beggars save in special emergencies." I then gave him an account of certain American church organizations which had established piles of fire-wood and therefore enabled any able-bodied tramp, by sawing or cutting some of it, to earn a good breakfast, a good dinner, and, if needed, a good bed, and showed him that Americans considered beggary not only a great source of pauperism, but as absolutely debasing to the beggar himself, in that it puts him in ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... remain the companion of the sort of people he was now among, he would not care to live. And gradually another idea took shape in his mind—he would emigrate! He saw some printed papers in the village post-office, telling of government grants of land to able-bodied young men, and giving the cost of the passage out, and various details, and he calculated that in a year, by scrupulous economy, he might earn about half the sum required, for the farmer had told him that if he continued to do well he would raise his wages at the end of ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men and citizens. The ministers of Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of enlisting the young and able-bodied monks in the Imperial armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria, which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported, that a considerable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... 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 ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... 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 of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... meeting-house. A rumor, which no one attempted to trace or authenticate, spread from lip to lip that the British regulars had landed on the coast and were marching upon the town. A scene of indescribable terror and confusion followed. Defence was out of the question, as the young and able-bodied men of the entire region round about had marched to Cambridge and Lexington. The news of the battle at the latter place, exaggerated in all its details, had been just received; terrible stories of the atrocities committed by the dreaded "regulars" had been related; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... is a delusion and a snare. He has no interest except his wages, and he is a breeder of discontent. If the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men who are working for scant wages in cities, or inanely tramping the country, could see the dignity of the labor which is directly productive, what a change would come over the face of the country! There are nearly six million farms in this nation, and four millions ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... enquired for them, with a touch of sarcasm. "So far," she said, "the population Maumsey, appeared to be quiet exceptionally able-bodied." ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... executive power, of any police power, to enforce the decrees of the court. In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect. In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing his safety are devised, it is both foolish ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... shooting-box, where Guy was entertaining a select company of friends, Flora Billingsgate greeted me with a saucy smile. Guy was even squarer and sterner than ever. His gusts of passion were more frequent, and it was with difficulty that he could keep an able-bodied servant in his family. His present retainers were more or less maimed from exposure to the fury of their master. There was a strange cynicism, a cutting sarcasm in his address, piercing through his polished manner. I thought ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... she exclaimed triumphantly. "Throwing away all that perfectly good time amounts simply to murdering 163 harmless old men of seventy, or 326 able-bodied men of thirty-five, or 1,630 innocent little children of seven. If that isn't atrocity, what is? I think Mr. Hoover or Admiral Grayson, or somebody, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... appetite, which I attributed, in great measure, to the "saeva mephitis" of the bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the exportations from the cabin. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied passengers, one of whom observed, not inaptly, that Momus might have discovered an easier way to see a man's inside than by placing a window in his breast. He needed only have taken a salt-water trip in a packet boat. I am inclined ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... on either the quarter-deck or forecastle. She might have numbered fifty men for her crew, and if you had looked in board over her bulwarks you would have seen that her complement was made up of men. There were none there but real able-bodied seamen—sea dogs, who had roughed it in all weather, and ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... respects, wholly failed to secure, ours absolutely provides. As to the unfortunates who are born lazy, our system has certainly no miraculous power to make them energetic, but it does see to it with absolute certainty that every able-bodied person who receives economic maintenance of the nation shall render at least the minimum of service. The laziest is sure to pay his cost. In your day, on the other hand, society supported millions of able-bodied loafers in idleness, a dead weight on the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... our people, in the average, are habitually idle because (as they say) they can find no employment. They look for work where it can not be had. They seem to be, or they are, unable to do such as abundantly confronts and solicits them. Suppose these to average but one million able-bodied persons, and that their work is worth but one dollar each per day; our loss by involuntary idleness can not be less than $300,000,000 per annum. I judge that it is actually $500,000,000. Many who stand waiting to be hired could earn from two to five dollars per day ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Windeatt has 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 or ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... of neighbouring workhouses. The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must be boarded out. The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies. If these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by County authorities. ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... milch cows, and a tent, to every ten of their number. For each wagon there was supplied a thousand pounds of flour, fifty pounds of rice, sugar, and bacon, thirty of beans, twenty of dried apples or peaches, twenty-five of salt, five of tea, a gallon of vinegar, and ten bars of soap. Every able-bodied man was compelled to carry a rifle or musket. His wagon served for bed and kitchen, and was occasionally used as a boat in crossing the streams. A day's journey averaged about thirteen miles, with a rest at noon to dine and to allow the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Nor Paul himself (not the saint, but he Of 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 ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 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 S. of a conversation with Colonel Hawley, commanding at Fernandina, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... expected to join in any movement against constituted authority. But instead of gaining any accession of forces here, the Stockbridge party found the place almost deserted. Even the small boys, and the dogs were gone, and apparently a large part of the able-bodied ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... which has already become very active between rival manufacturers will erelong effect a material reduction of price; and we trust also that our legislators will perceive the necessity of adopting a strict military organization of all the able-bodied men in the State, and providing them with weapons, with whose use they should be encouraged to make themselves familiar—apart from military drill and instruction—by the institution of public shooting-matches for prizes. The absolute necessity of stringent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... seldom purchased negroes for this article alone. If the women, offered in the market, exceeded twenty-five years of age, we made a deduction of twenty per cent.; but if they were stanchly-built, and gave promising tokens for the future, we took them at the price of an able-bodied man. The same estimate was made for youths over four feet four inches high; but children were rarely purchased at the factories, though they might be advantageously ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... skipper to patch it up and bring it to New York if possible, and he advised his correspondents to stay by the yacht as long as there was anything in the larder, but if they were impatient, he offered them transportation on any vessel that would take able-bodied seamen. He must be excused from commanding, because he had been assigned to shore duty. Carmen and Miss Tavish wrote that it was unfair to leave them to sustain all the popularity and notoriety of the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Here, under pretense of coal-mining and iron-working, they brought members of their Brotherhood, workmen from the national gun-works; and these, teaching hundreds of others the craft, and working day and night, in double gangs, have toiled until every able-bodied man in the whole vast Brotherhood, in America and Europe, has been supplied with his weapon and a full accompaniment of ammunition. The cost of all this was reduced to a minimum, and has been paid by each member of the Brotherhood setting ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the Committee to introduce a clause allowing out-door relief in all cases of able-bodied paupers married previously to ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... their seats no longer for the purpose of festivity, but to fix, in the hasty manner customary among these prompt warriors, where they were to assemble their forces, which, upon such occasions, comprehended almost all the able-bodied males of the country,—for all, excepting the priests and the bards, were soldiers,—and to settle the order of their descent upon the devoted marches, where they proposed to signalize, by general ravage, their ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... able-bodied men are generally unfit for promoting the prosperity of the colony. A very large proportion of them are slaves, just liberated. Accustomed to be ruled and taken care of by others, they are no better than mere children, as respects the conduct ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... proceeded with all caution and celerity to make his arrangements, and we beg the Colonel not to regard it as a breach of confidence in us to say, that the guns were in such a position and so well managed, that had there been any attempt to have assaulted the camp, there would not have been able-bodied traitors enough left, to have carried the killed and wounded to secure retreats. Almost any officer, perhaps, less cool than Col. Sweet would have blustered about in such a manner as to have rendered himself not only positively offensive to the citizens, but would ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores. Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach, and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates' nest at Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining inhabitants of the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... hauling the lowest and aftermost square sail more to windward. 'Weather crossjack brace!' sings out the timekeeper, whose duty it is to rouse the watch as well as strike the bells that mark the hours and halves. The watch tramp off and lay on to the weather brace, the A.B.'s (or able-bodied seamen) leading and the O.S.'s (ordinary seamen) at the tail. Some one slacks off the lee braces and sings out 'Haul away!' Then the watch proceed to haul, with weird, wild cries in minor keys that rise ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... All right, jolly, well, and through with the difficulty. My father pleased about the Burns. Never travel in the same carriage with three able-bodied seamen and a fruiterer from Kent; the A.-B.'s speak all night as though they were hailing vessels at sea; and the fruiterer as if he were crying fruit in a noisy market-place - such, at least, is my FUNESTE experience. I wonder if a fruiterer from some place else - say Worcestershire ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... prepared to maintain here to-night and shall always maintain, although this is a subject on 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, as I am, thus uncompromising, and quite prepared to find ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... mode of raising these troops, referring to a letter I wrote to Col. Townsend on the subject on the 29th of September. In that letter I explained the difficulty of raising such troops in Missouri, unless it be done without regard to the claims of loyal slave- owners. I also recommended that all able-bodied negroes be enlisted, receipts given as a basis for payment to loyal owners, and suggested that those of unquestioned loyalty might be paid at once from the substitute fund. No answer has been received ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... profusion of flowers in the forests, the bright green meadows, and the broad fields of newly springing wheat, offered a perpetual charm; and as we passed along, the women and negroes watched us with conflicting sentiments of interest. All the white men capable of bearing arms, and every able-bodied negro, had been swept along by the rebel army in its retreat, and none but women and children and aged negroes were now left along the route. At every house the alarmed white people threw out the white flag in token of submission, as though their protection from injury depended ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... devastation. It is horrible to think of the frightful suffering caused by every great battle. Immediate death on the field might reasonably be welcomed as an escape from the suffering arising from wounds, the terrible mutilations, the injuries that rankle throughout life, the conversion of hosts of able-bodied men into feeble invalids, to be kept by the direct aid of their fellows or the indirect aid of the people at large through a ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... business disaster. "War prices" for grain fell rapidly, the markets were stocked with more manufactured goods than impoverished Europe could absorb, while the English labor market was glutted by the influx of several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and sailors in quest of industrial employment. As early as 1821 Mr. Huskisson, a cabinet colleague of Mr. Canning, had endeavored to lighten the burden of British manufactures by reducing the import duties upon the raw material used ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... one of those who watched. News of the disaster had been brought to the village by the lightkeeper's assistant, and Ellery and most of the able-bodied men in town had tramped the three miles to the beach, facing the screaming wind and the cutting blasts of flying sand. As they came over the dunes there were times when they had to dig their heels into the ground and bend forward to stand against the freezing gale. And, as they drew ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to the devil. If you were an able-bodied man, I'd get you, too—just to have a pair of you. Yelping, snapping curs, both of you." He played the dog as ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... as to our whereabouts. Your boys can say, in one village, that we are marching towards Tours; in another, that we are massed in the neighbourhood of Saint Florent; in a third that they hear that the order is, that all able-bodied men are to go west to oppose the force coming from Nantes, which has already taken Clisson, and carried Monsieur de Lescure and his family, ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... him mentally, decided that he was an able-bodied man and therefore fightable, and threw his right leg over the cantle with a quite ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... their villages. Samar has scarcely any other means of communication besides the navigation of the coast and rivers, the interior being roadless; and burdens have to be conveyed on the shoulders. An able-bodied porter, who receives a real and a half without food, will carry three arrobas (seventy-five pounds at most) six leagues in a day, but he cannot accomplish the same work on the following day, requiring at least one day's rest. A strong man will ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled and gasping for life; and, indeed, almost all the cries were like those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish.... I stood on a pew seat, as did a young man in the opposite pew, an able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman; but in a moment, while he seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropt with a violence inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I heard afterwards ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... these 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 ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... in her blush and to smile in her smile; Twelve groomsmen supported the eminent groom To scowl in his scowl and to gloom in his gloom. The rites were performed by the hand and the lip Of his Grace the Diocesan, Billingham Pip, Assisted by three able-bodied divines. He prayed and they grunted, he read, they made signs. Such fashion, such beauty, such dressing, such grace Were ne'er before seen in that heavenly place! That night, full of gin, and all blazing inside, Sir Impycu blackened ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... 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 profit by it. Even so, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... is crooked can't be made straight, and what is wanting can't be supplied; though these things are done every day and every hour. Why any able-bodied lady of my acquaintance, even those at my own house, limited as is their experience of the world's devious ways—Jane, I mean, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... bright gems and golden bit, always ready in his hand. The rustic people, who dwelt in the neighbourhood, and drove their cattle to the fountain to drink, would often laugh at poor Bellerophon, and sometimes take him pretty severely to task. They told him that an able-bodied young man, like himself, ought to have better business than to be wasting his time in such an idle pursuit. They offered to sell him a horse, if he wanted one; and when Bellerophon declined the purchase they tried to drive a bargain with ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... such extensive plans as to entertain, at one time, twenty-five thousand guests. All this is to accommodate the vast throngs that take their sacred pilgrimage once in a year under an arrangement by which one tenth of the able-bodied go each thirty-nine days, ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... fire, and while she was away Mbonga dickered with Bukawai about the price. Ten goats, he said, was a high price for an able-bodied warrior. He also called Bukawai's attention to the fact that he, Mbonga, was very poor, that his people were very poor, and that ten goats were at least eight too many, to say nothing of a new sleeping mat and the copper wire; but Bukawai ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Jim Halloween. With three good able-bodied lovers at yo' beck an' call, it's a downright shame to die an old maid just from pure contrariness. It's better arter all, to eat dough that don't rise than to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... and their fathers, practised economy in every way possible, even to hiring out the able-bodied poor who had to earn the cost of their keep by spinning worsted, &c., and they thought so much of the bright moonlight that they warehoused the oil lamps intended for lighting the streets for a week at a time when the moon was at its ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... you didn't turn up at roll-call, I bound you," Webb drawled. "Say, do you know a young gal like her ain't strong enough to lick scholars as sound as they ought to be licked, and thar is some talk about appointin' some able-bodied man that lives close about to step in an' sort o' clean up two or three times a week. I don't know but what I'd like the job. A feller that goes as nigh naked as you do would be a blame good thing ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... 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 are the theme of every village. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... right that they should desire. He had very little compassion, Hugh saw, for failure and error. If a parishioner was in trouble, the vicar tended to say he had no one to blame but himself for it. Hugh felt that he did not wish to be in his friend's parish. If one was able-bodied and sensible, one was put on a committee or two; if one was unfortunate or obscure, one was invaded by a district visitor. If one was a Dissenter, one would be treated with a kind of gloomy courtesy—for the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that was the man's name, was so far recovered of his wound that he was to be discharged from the hospital and placed with the other able-bodied prisoners. The hospital at that time occupied an old convent. The day before Juan was to be discharged, Mrs. Smith managed her cases so that for a time no one else was left in one of the rooms ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... of Salem, Boston, New York, and Baltimore, crowds trooped after the fifes and drums with a strapping recruiting officer to enroll "all gentlemen seamen and able-bodied landsmen who had a mind to distinguish themselves in the glorious cause of their country and make their fortunes." Many a ship's company was mustered between noon and sunset, including men who had served ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... sweep projected into the water. To each bench were chained three luckless slaves—seventy-five down each side, and a hundred and fifty in all. The benches were intended for four rowers apiece, and could at a pinch accommodate five. The supply of able-bodied prisoners was small, and the Indians refused to undertake the work at a wage, so three men were compelled to manage oars that were a heavy tax on the strength of four. There was a slight compensation in this—the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... cattle went roaming over the burnt pastures, and found nothing to eat. Many of them perished, and the greater part of what remained, though in miserable condition, the Highlanders had to sell perforce. Most of the able-bodied men were engaged in this latter business at a distance from home, when the dreaded term-day came on. The pasturage had been destroyed before the legal term, and while, in even the eye of the law, it was still the property of the poor Highlanders; but ere disturbing them in their dwellings, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... expect a fellow to be always tied to his wife's apron-strings! He doesn't tell you everything. We like to have a free foot once in a while. Why, my wife's glad when I get off for a day or two—coaxes me to go away herself! And as for anything happening to Alexander—well, an able-bodied man can look out for himself every time; there's nothing in the world to be anxious about. He's meant to wire to you and forgotten to do it, that's all. I did that myself last year, when I was called away ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... 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 of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... river to Njole, where there is another risk of the affair collapsing, by the French authorities declining to allow me to proceed. On we paddled, M'bo the head man standing in the bows of the canoe in front of me, to steer, then I, then the baggage, then the able-bodied seamen, including the cook also standing and paddling; and at the other extremity of the canoe- -it grieves me to speak of it in this unseamanlike way, but in these canoes both ends are alike, and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... I shall take the Liberty to make an humble Proposal, that whenever the Trunk-maker shall depart this Life, or whenever he shall have lost the Spring of his Arm by Sickness, old Age, Infirmity, or the like, some able-bodied Critick should be advanced to this Post, and have a competent Salary settled on him for Life, to be furnished with Bamboos for Operas, Crabtree-Cudgels for Comedies, and Oaken Plants for Tragedy, at the publick Expence. And to the End that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... reality. He held the bridle with its bright gems and golden bit always ready in his hand. The rustic people who dwelt in the neighborhood and drove their cattle to the fountain to drink would often laugh at poor Bellerophon, and sometimes take him pretty severely to task. They told him that an able-bodied young man like himself ought to have better business than to be wasting his time in such an idle pursuit. They offered to sell him a horse if he wanted one, and when Bellerophon declined the purchase they tried to drive a bargain with him for his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in order. Henceforth every male able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order fixed by their ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... baseness, cupidity, and blank folly. First, I may glance—and only glance—at the unredeemed, hopeless villains who are the immediate hangers-on of the Turf. People hardly believe that there are thousands of sturdy, able-bodied men scattered among our great towns and cities who have never worked, and who never mean to work. In their hoggish way they feed well and lie warm—the phrase is their own favourite—and they subsist like odious reptiles, fed from mysterious sources. Go to any suburban ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... you're beginning (and I'm bound to say you're doing very well indeed, considering that you're not very big), you'll often have occasion to observe that some of the wild creatures, otherwise no fools, are more afraid of a bit of colored rag fluttering in the wind than of an able-bodied man who sits staring right at them, if only he doesn't stir a finger. But only let him wiggle that finger, his very littlest ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... This last statement is doubly incorrect. The whole number of persons killed and carried off during the August attacks did not much exceed one hundred and sixty;[48] and these were of both sexes and all ages, from octogenarians to newborn infants. The able-bodied men among them were few, as most of the attacks were made upon unprotected houses in the absence of the head of the family; and the only fortified place captured was the garrison-house at Winter Harbor, which surrendered on terms of capitulation. The instruments of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... winter!—the winter before Richard Boyce's succession to Mellor—when the farmers had been mostly ruined, and half the able-bodied men of Mellor had tramped "up into the smoke," as the village put it, in search of London work—then, out of actual sheer starvation—that very rare excuse of the poacher!—Hurd had gone one night and snared a hare on the Mellor land. Would the wife ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... passed round the belt of trees, the company of recruits became visible, consisting of the able-bodied inhabitants of the hamlets thereabout, more or less known to Bob and Anne. They were assembled on the green plot outside the churchyard-gate, dressed in their common clothes, and the sergeant who had been putting them through their drill was the man who nailed up the proclamation. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... camp upon Mount Tabor. She says: "Desolate were the open towns in Israel, they were desolate.... Was there a shield seen or a spear among forty thousand in Israel?... I—unto the Lord will I sing." Not until the fields of Israel were desert, forsaken of able-bodied men, did the woman Deborah arise for the glory of God. She refused to pose as a heroine, rejected the crown of victory, nor coveted the poet's laurel, meet recognition of her triumphal song. Modestly ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... sir. Then how many years is it since that poor old fellow was young, able-bodied, and vigorous, and started off into the desert with his party? It ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... In such a way the soldier grows to a beast, and the citizen to a coward. All this must be changed. The basic idea of this astounding Secretary is to form a National Army, furnished by conscription and informed by the spirit of the New Model of Cromwell. All able-bodied men between the ages of seventeen and forty should be drilled on stated days and be kept in constant readiness. Once or twice a year each battalion must be mobilised and manoeuvred as in time of war. The discipline must be constant and severe. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... de trouble is I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy, no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day—an' ever sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was open. An' des as soon as I felt like I could bring ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... an anesthetic this time but skimming along in electric motors enough like ours to be quite recognizable, each of us in a separate vehicle with one able-bodied lady on either side and three ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... but few of the bodies have been recovered. It is directly above the ruins and the bodies have floated down into them, where they burned. A walk through the town revealed a desolate sight. Only about twenty-five able-bodied men have survived and are able to render any assistance. Men and women can be seen with black eyes, bruised faces ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Danes of East Anglia were in correspondence with their countrymen at home and in France, and that there was danger that the peace of England would be disturbed. The thanes were therefore bidden to prepare for another struggle, to gather sufficient arms in readiness for all the able-bodied men in their district, and to call out their contingents from time to time to practise ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... immune from disease germs which attack a delicate one, so unquestionably have thousands of mental and moral weaklings been retarded from their best development by books that left no mark on healthy children. In spite of the probability that there are to-day alive many able-bodied men who cut their first teeth on pickles and pork chops, we do not question society's duty to disseminate proper ideas on the care and ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... formula, nasal and forcibly spasmodic in the best gull-catcher style, "p'raps you will ask why I, a able-bodied man, are asking for ass—ist—ance in your town. Friends, I answer, becorse I cannot get work and becorse I cannot starve. Any honest work I would be thankful for; but no one will give it ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... impassable forests from a land of safe refuge. There was, besides, distrust of each other; and fear, though no love, of General Walker. He was said to have the iron will and reckless courage of the true man of destiny. At one time, so they told us, a large body of fresh, able-bodied men, just arrived in Nicaragua, refused to join the filibusters on account of some disappointment about the amount of promised wages. General Walker led out his crowd of yellow men, whom the newcomers might have knocked down with the wind of their fists, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Mounted Police (who by the way are "mounted" in 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 ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... constables, headboroughs, and tything-men, to enter and, if need be, to break open the doors of any houses where they shall believe deserting seamen to be; and for the further increase and encouragement of the navy, to take able-bodied landsmen when seamen fail. This Act, which occupies four columns of the Gazette, and another of similar length and meaning for pressing men into the army, need not be quoted at length here; but caused a ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she bit him. But what can a woman do in the line of beating? Nothing! Her neighbors joined her, one, two, three; and all tried hard to take me out of the hands of the Catcher. What can a few women do against one able-bodied man? Nothing at all! That happened during the dinner hour. One of our neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman who happened rather to dislike me and my mother; they quarreled frequently. Perhaps on account of this very dislike she was not over-excited, and was able to ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... not," answered the stranger; "you are the stoutest and one of the most able-bodied men I have seen ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the kings of the earth their treasures, who is the chastiser of all foes, and who at one impetus can throw full five hundred arrows? Why, O king, doth not thy wrath blaze up at sight of Nakula, in exile, who so fair and able-bodied and young, is the foremost of all swordsmen? Why, O king, dost thou pardon the foe, O Yudhishthira, at sight of Madri's son, the handsome and brave Sahadeva in exile? Why doth not thy anger blaze up, O king, it sight of both Nakula ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... when the operative replied to the summons and walked into the private office; on the other hand, Latisan showed no animosity. He merely surveyed Crowley with an expression of mingled pity and wonderment, as if he were sorry for an able-bodied man who earned a living by the means which the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Richard B. Mason, the military governor of California, and from the Honorable Thomas O. Larkin, who had been the United States consul in California. The letters said not only that gold had been found, as before stated, but that 10,000 people (nearly all the able-bodied population of California) were out looking for more, and finding it, too! Sailors were deserting the ships and soldiers the ranks; servants were leaving the houses and merchants the stores, and the whole territory was wild. Congressmen ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... the town. We understood that these corps were called out annually to be exercised during seven days, and were reviewed on the last day of their exercise by the governor attended by his whole council. They appeared to be stout and able-bodied men, particularly those who composed the two corps of cavalry, and who were reputed to be excellent marksmen. Their horses, arms, and appointments were purchased at their own expense, and they were expected to hold them selves in readiness to assemble whenever ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... the way straight to Gashford's hut where, as he anticipated, the man named Bill had silently collected most of the able-bodied men of the camp, all armed to the teeth. He at once desired Gashford to put them in fighting order and lead them. When they were ready he went off at a rapid pace towards the stable ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... there was no chance whatever of the Iroquois venturing to attack such a powerful place as Gloucester. I told 'em that the redskins would go over their stockade at a squirrel's jump, and that as War Eagle alone had at least 150 braves, while there warn't more than 50 able-bodied men in Gloucester and all the farms around it, things would go bad with 'em if they didn't mind. But bless yer, they knew more than I did about it. Most of 'em had moved from the East and had never seen an Injun in his war-paint. Gloucester ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... 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 while ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... busy directing the labours of two able-bodied men and a charwoman, all of whom were toiling as they had never toiled before. The woman was dusting law books and the men were packing them away in boxes. The front room of the suite was in a state of devastation. A ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... good'll that do with two able-bodied men set on getting in? There isn't a door or ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... the impact. Before then Mrs. Singleton Corey had learned the feel of biting cold, when she waited on a bald nose of the hill while three shovels lifted the snow out of the road so that they could go on. Her unaccustomed ears had learned the sound of able-bodied swearing because the horseman had taken a short-cut over the hill and so had not broken the trail here for ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... purpose of MacDonald changed his own course in order to intercept his march. On the 23rd the Highlanders thought to overtake him, and arrayed themselves in the order of battle, with eighty able-bodied men, armed with broadswords, forming the center of the army; but Colonel Caswell being posted at Corbett's Ferry could not be reached for want of boats. The royalists were again in extreme danger; ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... to another, to become a draft animal, to be forced to lower himself to the level of an ox or an ass. It must have an insidious, demoralizing effect, too, upon the persons who ride in these little vehicles. I am not yet used to seeing able-bodied young foreigners, especially men, being pulled about by thin, tired, exhausted coolies. I feel ashamed every time I enter a rickshaw and contrast my well-being with that of the ragged boy between the shafts. I suppose I shall get over this feeling, think no more about it than ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... they do not die without priest. Still they maintain life along the way, keeping this side the Styx, still hearty, still resolute, "never better in their lives"; and again, after a dozen years have elapsed, they start up from behind a hedge, asking for work and wages for able-bodied men. Who ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... big 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
... branded hand? Do you remember the names of Lovejoy and Torrey? Should any of your number be arrested, you must collect together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your adversaries who are taking an active part against you. Let no able-bodied man appear on the ground unequipped or with his weapons exposed to view; let that be understood beforehand. Your plans must be known only to yourself, and with the understanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... each of whom becomes a collector about every six years." In many of the villages the artisans, day-laborers, and metayer-farmers perform the service, although requiring all their time to earn their own living. In Auvergne, where the able-bodied men expatriate themselves in winter to find work, the women are taken;[5217] in the election-district of Saint-Flour, a certain village has four collectors in petticoats.—They are responsible for all claims entrusted to them, their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... brought them down with rifle or tomahawk. Of the whole of that chivalrous band which had left the Raisin with Winchester two days before, all were slaughtered except forty who were taken prisoners and twenty-eight who escaped. The troops at Frenchtown, about six hundred able-bodied men, surrendered. Sixty-four wounded prisoners were ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... adversity has come down, severing the tie which attached Colonel Armstrong to his property, as it to him. Yesterday, he was owner, reputedly, of one of the finest plantations along the line of the Mississippi river, an hundred able-bodied negroes hoeing cotton in his fields, with fifty more picking it from the pod, and "ginning" the staple clear of seed; to-day, he is but their owner in seeming, Ephraim Darke being this in reality. And in another day the apparent ownership ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... cry was heard from the men watching at Milliken's Mills. The great ice jam had parted from Rolfe's Island and was swinging out into the open, pushing everything before it. All the able-bodied men in the village turned out of bed, and with lanterns in hand began to clear the stores and mills, for it seemed that everything near the river-banks must go before ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Orders, but he gave, nevertheless, the effect of adopting the language of the World, the Flesh and the Devil in order that he might the better spy out the land. He attracted, finally, to himself certain timid souls who preferred insincere comfort to none at all, but he was hotly rejected by more able-bodied persons. ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... brows. "Ah, but I'm Irish!" she said, seriously, "and the Irish hate to have to improve their minds. I imagine it takes an able-bodied mind to stand intensive cultivation," ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... "There'll be plenty of time for parsons when the doctors get through with me," she said. "Tell some of those able-bodied men back there to come here and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... to reassure her. "I do not think so. If one man alone lay between the thieves and jewels of that value—well, then we might perhaps apprehend such a catastrophe. But there were two—two able-bodied men, who were neither children nor fools. No," I went on, "my own opinion is that there may be reasons—reasons of which you are entirely unaware—which have led your father to bury himself and his clerk for the present, to reappear later. Men often have secrets, mademoiselle—secrets ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... that time, her two strong and able-bodied keepers, Thuman and Bayreuther, were utterly unable to restrain her. She surged straight forward for the front door of the Reptile House, and into that building she went, with the two keepers literally swinging ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... hide too highly to remain, my dear captain." Having gained the corner of the boulevard St. Denis, Lanyard pulled up. "One moment, by your leave. You see yonder the entrance to the Metro—don't you? And here, a dozen feet away, a perfectly able-bodied sergent de ville? Let this fateful conjunction impress you properly: for five minutes after you have descended to the Metro—or as soon as the noise of a train advises me you've had one chance to get ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means it lies in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to refute them. Arguments out of a pretty mouth ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... the murderous tomahawk, followed by the dexterous twist of the scalping-knife, and the snatching of the tuft of hair from the bleeding skull. That is all—but, no: there still remains a baby or two who must be caught up by the leg, and have its brains dashed out on the door-jamb; and if any able-bodied persons survive, they are to be loaded with their own household goods, and driven hundreds of miles over snows, or through heats, to Canada, as slaves. Should they drop by the way, as Mrs. Williams did, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... him, while we are on our 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
... by Guise of Anjou, and bade him shut the gates of the city, so that no one could pass in or out, and take possession of the keys. He was also to draw up all the boats on the river bank and chain them together, to remove the ferry, to muster under arms the able-bodied men of each ward under their proper officers, and hold them in readiness at the usual mustering-places to receive the orders of his majesty. The city artillery, which does not appear to have been as formidable as the word would imply, was to be stationed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... newspaper. Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, to be employed on the lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British regiments, dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month. By the rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent desertions from the New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not their valor or integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, firelocks, ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 300,000 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, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... they've done. Every able-bodied man in town is out in the hills trying to surprise Conklin's gang before they hit town ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... from their habit of travelling, and their consequent intercourse with strangers, have greatly the advantage, in the means of acquiring information. Mr. Birkbeck says that, in every village and town, as he passed along, he observed groups of young able-bodied men, who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers of Europe. This love of indolence, where labour is so profitable, is a strange affection. If these people be asked why they so much indulge in it, they answer, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... the net purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain 'Natural Enemies' of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men; Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the natives what was being done in the boat? Besides, we have but five men on board, including the master and mate, and one of them was disabled by a bad hand, so that if I had manned the boat, I should have left only three able-bodied men on board—it was a puzzle, you see, dear Uncle. Now I have entered into this long defence lest any of you dear ones should think me rash. Indeed, I don't want to run any risks at all. But there was no risk here, as I supposed, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a band—able-bodied, clean-minded men. We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... natives were among the first to submit, but a few years afterwards they were in open mutiny against their masters, who, they alleged, took their young men from their homes to form army corps, and busily employed the able-bodied men remaining in the district to cut timber for Government requirements and furnish provisions to the camp and to the Arsenal ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Gillespie came off to the ship again, with a gang of coolies under a native comprador. These were sent by the consignees to help discharge the cargo into a lot of small junks that they brought alongside; but the Chinamen made a poor show, contrasting their work with that of our stalwart able-bodied tars, one of whom thought nothing of handling a big crate as it was hoisted out of the hold which it took ten of the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor cheated—even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex—and valued loyalty above most ...
— Different Girls • Various
... house nearly finished," I said severely; for, because of the verandah and many promises, I was again hopeful for something approaching that commodious station home. "A few able-bodied men could finish the dining-room in a couple of clays, and make a mansion of the rest of the building ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... providing for their further employment, turn them loose into cities where only saloons welcome them and cash their checks, and where disease-infected lodging-houses are their only places of abode. Furthermore, standing armies take thousands of able-bodied men out of normal industrial relationships, and keep them in camps that become the congregating ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... 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
... negroes 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 use. Also several mulatto girls ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... school for the feeble-minded, cripples to the poorhouse. The able-bodied will have to get out and go to work ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... daughter might become a servant in the imperial household itself—though she could occupy only an humble position in the service. Certain farmers were privileged to wear swords. It appears that in the early ages of Japanese society there was no distinction between farmers and warriors: all able-bodied farmers were then trained fighting-men, ready for war at any moment,—a condition paralleled in old Scandinavian society. After a special military class had been evolved, the distinction between farmer and samurai still remained vague in certain parts of the country. In Satsuma and ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... able-bodied, Took this voman to the cell; To the cell vere she was quodded, In the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton |
