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Collector   Listen
noun
Collector  n.  
1.
One who collects things which are separate; esp., one who makes a business or practice of collecting works of art, objects in natural history, etc.; as, a collector of coins. "I digress into Soho to explore a bookstall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector."
2.
A compiler of books; one who collects scattered passages and puts them together in one book. "Volumes without the collector's own reflections."
3.
(Com.) An officer appointed and commissioned to collect and receive customs, duties, taxes, or toll. "A great part of this is now embezzled... by collectors, and other officers."
4.
One authorized to collect debts.
5.
A bachelor of arts in Oxford, formerly appointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings in Lent.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Collector" Quotes from Famous Books



... who alone had survived the Black Death in an isolated village. Ibsen had with many others become interested in popular folk-tales and ballads. It was from Faye's Norwegian Folk-Tales (1844) that he took the story of "The Grouse in Justedal." His interest was so great that he even turned collector. Twice during this period he petitioned for and received small university grants to enable him to travel and "collect songs and legends still current among the people." Of the seventy or eighty "hitherto unpublished legends" which he collected on the first of these ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... case of the Silver Heels, the Secretary says that the Collector of the Port of New York informed him that a representative of the Spanish Consul stated to him that he did not desire the vessel to be seized at the dock, but captured after departure therefrom. It was not, therefore, so much negligence on the part ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 60, December 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... becoming an obsession with you!" urged Morrison. Sylvia remembered what Page had said about his irritation years ago when Austin had withdrawn from the collector's field. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... in the place of the Victory Bond salesman," Abe exclaimed, "which if you want to give me any hypocritical cases for the sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way you practically snap the head off a collector for a charitable fund enough times to appreciate how you would behave towards a Victory Bond salesman, so go ahead on the basis that you are the tough ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass

... classified under any collector, naval officer, surveyor, or appraiser in any customs district shall be designated "The ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... a wealthy collector of curiosities gave her a very large sum indeed for Paganini's ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... for the conquest of Judaea, which is described at length by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 16. The coins of Vespasian exhibiting the captive Judaea (Judaea capta), are probably familiar to the reader. See Harphrey's Coin Collector's Manual, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... of the sixteenth century I went to Rome, and took my jewels with me. They were then a wonderfully fine collection of gems, some of them of great antiquity and value; for, in gradually gathering them together, the enthusiasm of the collector had possessed me, and I often traveled far to possess myself of a valuable jewel of which I had heard. I remained in Rome as long as I dared do so, and then prepared to set out for Egypt, which I had ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... attractive. Colonel Baxter was a collector of Colonial antiques and knick-knacks and the house was furnished with genuine old furniture that delighted his heart and kept the spirit of Colonial times in ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... and began to transfer her wars oversea, the heroic verse decayed under the influence of the higher culture. For a civilised and literary society to have preserved its ancient lays and ballads is the rarest of lucky chances; the enthusiastic collector, like Percy or Walter Scott, is generally born too late, for indeed all antiquarianism is a very modern task. And poetry of this sort must decay under what Shakespeare calls 'the cankers of a calm world': while it also tends to disappear ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... of years later, I met the enthusiastic collector in the house of the other party to the dialogue, and learned with her that our hostess was renowned for her treasures of old china, and actually the author of a book ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... certain alarm that the insect-collector finds himself for the first time confronted by the Garden Scolia. How is he to capture the imposing creature, how to avoid its sting? If its effect is in proportion to the Wasp's size, the sting of the Scolia must be something terrible. The Hornet, though ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... local government.[106] It adopted the Northern system of dividing counties into townships,[107] with a justice of the peace exercising his authority only within his township. Other elective offices introduced at this time were county supervisors, a county clerk, collector, assessor, overseer of the poor, and overseer of roads. All these officials—some serving the township and others the county—were salaried, and greatly increased the size of the governmental apparatus formerly centered in the county court. The Board of county supervisors ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... him, but as the case stood, and remembering the very excellent speech made by General Belknap at the Chicago reunion of December, 1868, he authorized me to communicate with him to ascertain if he were willing to come to Washington as Secretary of War. General Belknap was then the collector of internal revenue at Keokuk, Iowa. I telegraphed him and received a prompt and favorable answer. His name was sent to the Senate, promptly confirmed, and he entered on his duties October 25,1869. General Belknap surely had at ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... discovered another way of diminishing the power of the barons. In the early part of his reign the sheriffs of the counties were still selected from the great landowners, and the sheriff was not merely the collector of the king's revenue in his county, but had, since the Conquest, assumed a new importance in the county court, over which in the older times the ealdorman or earl and the bishop had presided. Since the Conquest the bishop, having a court of his own for ecclesiastical matters, had ceased ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... enthusiastic collector," said the Marquess; "but I fear I have not inherited his taste, and have ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... given one horrified glance at the strange creatures, and then, with a howl of fear, had fled up the steps at the end of the platform. The children could see that he was explaining something or other to the ticket collector, for that worthy came to the barrier and ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... levy taxes; create corporate debt; impose tax on licenses; enact ordinances, and prescribe fines or other punishment for the violation thereof; appoint a collector of taxes, and other officers; disburse all money collected or received for the corporation; lay off and keep in order streets and public grounds; provide necessary buildings, a fire department, water works, cemeteries, etc.; abate nuisances; establish election districts; ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox

... distinctions in the qualities of different teas, as of black and green, are still matters of uncertainty and controversy among many dealers of teas, as well as among unscientific travelers and some untraveled scientists. The enthusiastic collector of writings upon tea by self qualified experts, will find himself involved in a maze of contradictory assertions and opinions from which there is no escape save by the exercise of judicial powers, by an independent exercise of his own judgment, in separating truth from error. And unless ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... been in 1809—I can give you the exact date by reference to some old papers if necessary—Monsieur Bon was Collector of Customs at St. Pierre: and my grandfather was doing business in the Grande Rue. A certain captain, whose vessel had been consigned to my grandfather, invited him and the collector to breakfast in his cabin. My grandfather was so busy he could not accept the invitation;—but Monsieur ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... "That orchid-collector was only thirty-six—twenty years younger than myself—when he died. And he had been married twice and divorced once; he had had malarial fever four times, and once he broke his thigh. He killed a Malay once, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... to appoint a collector of the contributions for masses during that year of 1636; for one was lacking in the cathedral, from which arose certain troubles. The cabildo resisted him, refused to obey the act for the appointment of one, and denied that the archbishop ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... equally opposed to war, and to capital punishment. He wrote, "testified" and "suffered" for these principles. "In the time of the Civil War he allowed his cattle to be sold by the tax-collector, not feeling free to pay the direct war-tax." His biographer enumerates further his hospitality, his fondness for books, his humor, and mentions with a pride characteristic of the Quaker that he "was often entrusted ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... Princess Betsy, a good-natured fat man, an ardent collector of engravings, hearing that his wife had visitors, came into the drawing room before going to his club. Stepping noiselessly over the thick rugs, he ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... had, prior to the meeting of the Convention that framed the Nullification Ordinance, ordered General Scott to Charleston to look after "the safety of the ports of the United States" thereabouts, and had sent to the Collector of that port precise instructions as to his duty to resist in all ways any and all attempts made under such Ordinance to defeat the operation of the Tariff laws aforesaid. Having thus quietly prepared the arm of the General Government ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... "too poetical" and that some of his inferences were "inaccurate." That was as might be. What mattered was that the mental attitude of Hearn was so largely right. He did not approach Japan as a mere "fact" collector or as a superior person. What he brought to the country was the humble, studious, imaginative, sympathetic attitude; and it was only by men and women of his rare type that peoples were interpreted one ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... of a collector of old books, and it had been closed and left precisely as its former owner had arranged it, so far as could be judged by its present appearance. A faded Turkey carpet covered the floor; sun-rotted ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... to be called upon to return to Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, but we must do so, since the book has gone forth with our recommendation. Praise, it is needless to point out, implied trust in the biographer as an accurate collector of facts. This, we regret to state, Mrs. Gaskell proves not to have been. To the gossip which for weeks past has been seething and circulating in the London coteries, we gave small heed; but the Times advertises a legal apology, made on behalf of Mrs. Gaskell, withdrawing the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... even a finer specimen of vigorous age. Then his books— for he is collector of customs, a post which he has held for twenty-five years—would amaze many a younger clerk or scribe; and he is amused, but apparently gratified, when we ask for his autograph, which he obligingly writes for each in a firm, clear, and fine hand. He says of the ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... rivers, straight to the door of the magazines. It would be better for your Majesty to have charge of them than the encomenderos, for they are so near the Indians that they never fail to gather in a harvest of some kind—either in services, or some other thing. Being so near the governor, no collector would dare to treat the Indians badly. For the above reasons I think that I shall place this in execution as opportunity offers, unless I am so strongly opposed in this as in other things, that I would be embarrassed in it—although I cannot see what arguments they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... has, however, no shadow of a doubt that all the pieces procured by him came from the graves as reported by his collectors. The question of the authenticity of the gilding will not be satisfactorily or finally settled until some responsible collector shall have taken the gilded objects with his own hands from their undisturbed places in tombs known to ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... story was occupied by the families of two independent gentlemen, whose simplicity of mind was only equalled by that of their mode of life. A collector, who occasionally acted as broker, lived in the second story, and had his offices there. The third story was rented to a very rich man, a baron as people said, who only appeared there at long intervals, preferring, according to his own account, to live on his ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... character of the man was not unexceptionable, that of the woman notoriously infamous; she, whose testimony chiefly influenced the jury to condemn him, afterwards retracted her assertions. He always himself denied that he was drunk, as had been generally reported. Mr. Gregory, who is now, 1744, collector of Antigua, is said to declare him far less criminal than he was imagined, even by some who favoured him; and Page himself afterwards confessed, that he had treated him with uncommon rigour. When all these particulars are rated together, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... quantities hitherto unknown from the vast pitchblend deposits of Ho-Nan—which industry we control. He visited China arrayed in his shroud, and he travelled in a handsome Egyptian sarcophagus purchased at Sotherby's on behalf of a Chinese collector." ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... person has been taxed beyond his proportion, though both must pay in the mean time, yet if they complain, and make good their complaints, the whole parish is reimposed next year, in order to reimburse them. If any of the contributors become bankrupt or insolvent, the collector is obliged to advance his tax; and the whole parish is reimposed next year, in order to reimburse the collector. If the collector himself should become bankrupt, the parish which elects him must answer for his conduct to the receiver-general of the election. But, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... of Carmyle, he was born in November 1755, in the mansion of the paternal estate, in the parish of Old Monkland, and county of Lanark. Commencing his career as a merchant in Glasgow, he was in 1796 elevated to the Lord Provostship of the city. He afterwards accepted the office of Collector of Customs at Borrowstounness, and subsequently occupied the post of Collector at Port-Glasgow. His death took place ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... of mind. About the time of the assembling of Congress Mr. Preston King of New York (the same rotund gentleman with whom, in the National Convention of 1860, I conducted Mr. Ashmun to the chair), who had been a Senator of the United States and had been appointed Collector of Customs by President Johnson, committed suicide by jumping into the North River from a ferry-boat. He had been a Republican of the radical type, and when he took the office he supposed the President to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... pleasant place to ramble up. There were plenty of birds about, and of a tolerable variety of species; but very few of them were gaily coloured. Indeed, with one or two exceptions, the birds of this tropical island were hardly so ornamental as those of Great Britain. Beetles were so scarce that a collector might fairly say there were none, as the few obscure or uninteresting species would not repay him for the search. The only insects at all remarkable or interesting were the butterflies, which, though comparatively few in species, were sufficiently ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... England about 1730, where he worked at his trade of brickmaking and building. Our hero's great-grandfather was a patriotic sailmaker, who assisted at a certain historic entertainment, when tar, feathers, and hot tea were administered gratis to his Majesty's tax-collector at Boston. His wife, Abigail, was a lady of character and maxims, who saved some tea for her private use when three hundred cases were emptied into Boston Harbour, and exhorted her family never to eat brown bread when they could get white, and ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... there appeared in genteel circles the first traces of the tastes subsequently displayed by the dilettante and the collector. They admired the magnificence of the Corinthian and Athenian temples, and regarded with contempt the old-fashioned terra- cotta figures on the roofs of those of Rome: even a man like Lucius Paullus, who shared the feelings of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... drink or two," said Drudge, "and a few stamps, as he is a collector. He become friendly with me, and I asked him about the house. He was very frank, but he said ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... house. Here they lived many years, unknown to any of the neighbouring villagers, otherwise than by the appellation of the 'Ladies of the Vale.' No persuasions could ever get them from this retreat. A lady from Ireland told the collector of these articles the following anecdote relative to these female friends:—An Irish nobleman (Lord Fingal) happening to be travelling in the neighbourhood of Llangollen Vale, and having heard much of Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby, felt a desire to see and ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin

... the first solo player in Vienna. At the time we are speaking of he was a member of the Imperial Orchestra and a professor at the Conservatorium. He often gave concerts with Mayseder, and was called the Mayseder of the violoncello. Chopin, on hearing him at a soiree of the well-known autograph collector ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... another man. It is but little to ask," the old man went on, bitterly, "that my name should be over the door—that men should own themselves debtors to the Bardi Library in Florence. They will speak coldly of me, perhaps: 'a diligent collector and transcriber,' they will say, 'and also of some critical ingenuity, but one who could hardly be conspicuous in an age so fruitful in illustrious scholars. Yet he merits our pity, for in the latter years of his life ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... illustrious relative of the Hon. Henry Michael Perceval, whose family possessed it from 1815 to 1833, when it was sold to the late Henry Atkinson, Esquire, an eminent and wealthy Quebec merchant. Hon. Mr. Perceval, member of the Executive and Legislative Council, had been H. M.'s Collector of Customs at Quebec for many years, and until his death which took place at sea, 12th October, 1829. The Percevals lived for many years in affluence in this sylvan retreat. Of their elegant receptions Quebecers still cherish pleasant reminiscences. Like several villas of England ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... delightful book on a delightful theme, valuable alike to the collector, the artist-craftsman (or woman), and the womanly woman in the new or old-fashioned sense ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands

... it, without noticing the odd name above it. It was a window in which there were all sorts of curious things, behind a grille of iron bars, from diamonds and pearls to old ivory and odds and ends of bric-a-brac. A collector of curiosities would have found material in that window to delay him for half-an-hour—but Lauriston only gave one glance at it before hastening down a dark side- passage to a door, over which was a faintly-illuminated sign, showing ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... overhanging every threshold I see the sacred emblem of Shinto, the little rice-straw rope with its long fringe of pendent stalks. The white papers at once interest me; for they are ofuda, or holy texts and charms, of which I am a devout collector. Nearly all are from temples in Matsue or its vicinity; and the Buddhist ones indicate by the sacred words upon them to what particular shu or sect, the family belong—for nearly every soul in this community professes some form of Buddhism as well as ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... was exasperated by the method of collecting the license fee. The collector did not call on the tax payer, but the latter had to seek the collector. The digger was compelled to walk from his own gully to the Commissioner's Camp—distant, perhaps, several miles—and then often wait for hours under a fierce sun ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... To a collector, relics of King Theodore are infinitely more precious than those of the most powerful of monarchs. The temptation was a strong one, and already Miss Lydia could see the effect the weapon would produce laid out on a lacquered table in her room ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... merely velvets with a longer nap—are another matter. There is much cotton in them, and consequently they catch the dirt, and are soon defaced. More and more they are passing out of use as coverings for furniture, or for seats in cars and halls. The material cannot be cleaned, and as a collector of dust is most unhygienic. It is well it should give place to something that is not ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett

... touching the forty days with respect to other staples might be withdrawn.(465) Their prayer, however, would seem to have had but little effect, for within a week of the petition to the king we find that monarch issuing an order to the collector of customs on wool, leather and wool-fells in the port of London, to enforce the delay of forty days before goods could ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... dozen eggs that may have been left off the morning shopping lists, just how far away is the nearest grocer? Is he at all receptive to the idea of making an occasional delivery in the outlying districts? How about the rubbish collector, if any; the milkman; the purveyors of ice, coal and wood? Are there a lighting system in the vicinity, telephone facilities, and so forth? These last need not be deciding factors, all other things being equal. They are simply matters to investigate. It is then for ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... specimens without a record, or by shifting them to a different place, is a crime in science. As there is no temptation to ignorant peasants to move flints until they are induced by collectors, so the whole fault of the wreckage that has taken place in many sites lies on the plundering collector. No money or reward should be given for any flints; a few fine specimens may be lost, but vastly more harm would be done ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... open air and the unbroken sunshine have not yet sprung up in their place. I found the southern acclivities of the hill covered with scattered masses of vitrified stone, that had fallen from the fortalice atop; and would recommend to the collector in quest of a characteristic specimen, that instead of laboring, to the general detriment of the pile, in detaching one from the walls above, he should set himself to seek one here. The blocks, uninjured by the hammer, exhibit, in most cases, the angular character ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... response to Paul's enquiry. "You'd oughter start a scrap-book yourself—you're plenty old enough. You could make a beauty just about your Ma, with her picture pasted in the front—and another about Mr. Moffatt and his collections. There's one I cut out the other day that says he's the greatest collector in America." ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... to give over all the offices as spoils, and removed some officials for pernicious political activity. The most important removal was that of Chester A. Arthur, Collector of the Port of New York, whose enraged friends, Conkling among them, became the center of the attack on the titular head of the party. Sneering at the sincerity of the new policy, Conkling cynically declared that "when Doctor Johnson said that patriotism was the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... not in his kingdom a more discerning judge of painting; but he had no imagination for the higher class of art. He preferred the exquisite and humorous realities of the Dutch painters to the poetic or historic schools of Italy; and, though a studious collector, he gave no great impulse to native talent. In music he had both taste and skill: he encouraged an art which formed one of his enjoyments; and if his patronage has brought forth no composer of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various

... Mr. Richard C. Holmes, the collector at the port of Cape May, a port situated on an exposed and dangerous part of the coast, near the entrance to the Chesapeake, was awakened from his sleep by the violence of the storm, and listening, he thought that he could hear at intervals the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... into existence within the last 200 years suffer from the fact that they are mere enlargements of the ancient collector's "cabinet of rare and curious things," brought together and arranged without rhyme or reason. No one has ever attempted to say what is precisely the aim and intention as a public enterprise of any of our great museums, and accordingly there has been no consideration, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... districts, it is provided that "Every district officer must be a resident of his district and qualified to vote at its meetings." As certain women are qualified to vote in any common school district, such women are thus eligible to any district office, including the offices of trustee, clerk, collector, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... hailed with joy throughout the American Colonies. In New York, a general disaffection to the government prevailed among the people. Under the smiles of Governor Andros, papists began to settle in the colony. The collector of the revenues and several principal officers of King James threw off the mask and openly avowed their attachment to the doctrines of Rome. A Latin school was set up, and the teacher was strongly suspected of being a Jesuit. The people of Long Island were disappointed in their expectations ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... had recurred in localities in which it had for years been unknown, there is no absolute reason why it should not also reappear in this case. Should it do so, we can only cry, parce, precor, to the too ruthless collector. The Osmunda Regalis, again, a few years ago was very plentiful; the writer has had plants of it which grew to be three, four, and even five feet in height, but it is now quite extinct. Not only so, but the writer, finding this to be the case, replanted some roots of it in 1897, where he fondly ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... to live in the country, he early developed a great love for the Scotch ballads and the tales of the romantic past of his native land. These he gathered mainly by word of mouth. Later he was a diligent student and collector of all the old ballads. In this way his mind was steeped in historical lore, while by many walking tours through the highlands he came to know the common people as very few have ever ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... gates of the town, which are regularly shut at eight P.M.; why, it is difficult to say, as it is possible to land on any part of the island quite as easily, if not more so, than on the greasy pier. On the landing-place a few huts have been erected by the collector of customs and his subordinates; these, surrounded by the brokers and tallow-scented Bedouins, register the imports, exacting such duties as they like, before the merchandise is allowed to be purchased by the Banians or ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... manufactured. The Directory of 1889 lists Fowle as an accountant on Ash Street, Auburndale. He had bought this property in 1887, presumably after disposing of "Tanglewood" which now would be too large for his needs. In the editions of 1891 and 1893 he is listed as United States collector of internal revenue, with an office at the Post Office building, Boston. In 1895 he appears as an accountant at the same address and from then to his death in 1902 he is listed as an accountant at ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison

... Safety her cargo she sold; but Collector Cruger would not that it should leave the vessel, although offered was ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... intellectual master bell-ringer, Pere Gilbert, who had in his cell at Notre Dame some ancient and of course unique plans of Paris that would make your mouth water. Gilbert wasn't a 'labourer,' either. He was an enthusiastic collector of documents relating to old Paris. From Notre Dame Carhaix came to Saint Sulpice, fifteen years ago, and has been ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... rendered and refreshments served by natives in oriental style and costume. Her husband was an American, an enthusiastic collector of ceramics and Levantine bric-a-brac, and the owner of a celebrated collection of scarabs—not bought at the Luxor factory, but separated from the mummies with the golden lever one must use to acquire these treasures; because it is the same, whether a collector has them dug from the ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... Cambridge. Let me know your mind, for I would not press you unseasonably. I am enough obliged to you already; though, by mistake, you think it is you that are obliged to me. I do not mean to plunder you of any more prints; but shall employ a little collector to get me all that are getable. The rest, the greatest of us all ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... with him, but apart from him—nothing. All that they say or do or suffer, is told us only to set Johnson in a clearer light. The unity of the picture is never broken. And that is the same thing as saying that Boswell is not merely what every one has seen, a unique collector of material: he is also what so few have seen, an artist of the ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... the militia at once ineffective and abhorred. First, they allowed a great number of classified exemptions from the ballot. The noble, the tonsured clerk, the counsellor, the domestic of noble, tonsured clerk, and counsellor, the eldest son of the lawyer and the farmer, the tax collector, the schoolmaster, were all exempt. Hence the curse of service was embittered by a sense of injustice. This was one of the many springs in the old regime that fed the swelling and vehement stream of passion for social ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... is to rehearse the virtues of monarchs, they are, of course, too much given to flattery. The effusions of the African muse are inspired by nature and animated by national enthusiasm. From the few specimens given, they seem not unlikely to reward the care of a collector. How few among our peasantry could have produced the pathetic lamentation uttered in the little Bambarra cottage over the distresses of Mungo Park! These songs, handed down from father to son, evidently contain all that exists among the African ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... COLLECTOR. A Bachelor of Arts in the University of Oxford, who is appointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... people fortify themselves with copious draughts of stimulants to help keep out the cold. There were some magnificent pieces of old furniture and Sheffield plate in the halls—pieces that many a collector had tried in vain to purchase. My room lit by two candles in earthenware candlesticks; and with a fire in a corner grate—at a shilling a day extra—looked cozy enough but the bedroom furniture ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... captivity, while in a wild state the bird is so rare as to be quite unobtainable. For example, for nearly five years an English gentlemen has been offering $1,000 for a pair, and the most enterprising bird collector in America has been quite unable to fill the order. So far as our information extends, the last living specimen captured was taken six or seven years ago. The last wild birds seen and reported were observed by Ernest Thompson Seton, who saw five below Fort ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... had been unexpectedly summoned to London. He had just established himself in lodgings in Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road; and he desired to see Mr. Luker immediately, on the subject of a purchase which he contemplated making. The gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of Oriental antiquities, and had been for many years a liberal patron of the establishment in Lambeth. Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the worship of Mammon! Mr. Luker called a cab, and drove off instantly to his ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... the arrival of a gentleman not usually awaited with impatience by the ladies of Rolls Court—to wit, one William Clodd, rent-collector, whose day for ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... Every cargo was supposed to be owned by private individuals; and the blockade-runners were regularly entered and cleared at the Confederate Custom House. Upon this occasion the Lee's papers were closely scrutinized by the collector of the customs at Halifax, who did me the honor of personal attention; but he could find no flaw in them, and the vessel was regularly entered, with little ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... through the Custom-house, to be established as soon as secession is declared, upon the deck of a man-of-war off the harbor of Charleston. He will enforce the collection of duties, not by navy, but by a revenue cutter, as our collector now would do if his authority was resisted. I will write to you more fully when I return from New York, where I go to-morrow at daylight, at the suggestion of the Secretary of War, who deems it important that I should go there to make ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... government, in connection with the excise law, were recited. They adopted a representation to Congress, and a remonstrance to the legislature of Pennsylvania, against the excise on whiskey. Not long after this, a collector of the revenue for two of the counties before-named was seized, tarred and feathered, and deprived of his horse, by some armed men in disguise. The perpetrators were known, however, and processes were issued against them from the district court of Pennsylvania; ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... later a doctor and the infirmiers arrived, the latter not picked men, since in ordinary life they are a tax collector, a super at the Theatre de Belleville, an omnibus painter, a notary's clerk and a barber! But they are all "good fellows," ready to work with no ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... of the United States on this coast are concentrated at Monterey, which is not a harbor but an open roadstead, and which has not one-tenth of the business on its waters which is done in this bay. During the whole year that I was collector of this port, there was not a gun mounted for commanding the entrance of the port, and there was not a United States man-of-war in the harbor. We were exacting a "military contribution," and we possessed not the slightest means of preventing ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... village, on the other hand, the government is conducted by an assembly at which every head of a household is expected to be present and vote on all matters of public concern. This assembly elects the Village Elder, or chief executive officer, the tax-collector, the watchman, and the communal herd-boy; it directs the allotment of the arable land; and in general matters of local legislation its power is as great as that of the New England town-meeting,—in some respects perhaps even greater, since the precise extent of its powers has never been determined ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... Album up in five sections so a collector is able to purchase such branches as he desires at a comparatively low cost. It is 9 inches long and 7-1/2 inches wide, very handy; there is but one set of stamps to a page artistically laid out. Spaces have been provided for imperforate and part perforate pairs and ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... conduct the city government of St. Louis than it costs proportionately to govern New York. The town is overrun with an army of men drawing salaries, and few sober breaths, but doing nothing else. The present head of government when he left the office of city collector, lost or destroyed his books, that they might tell no tale of the monstrous malfeasance of his administration. Corporations were held up for sums that never appeared on the books. Instead of paying ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of Sherman being in possession of Savannah reached the North, distinguished statesmen and visitors began to pour in to see him. Among others who went was the Secretary of War, who seemed much pleased at the result of his campaign. Mr. Draper, the collector of customs of New York, who was with Mr. Stanton's party, was put in charge of the public property that had been abandoned and captured. Savannah was then turned over to General Foster's command to hold, so that Sherman might ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... deal of time in doing this public work. One day I was made to think. A collector for a charity said in my hearing that he expected larger subscriptions from practical men because though public men were esteemed by society their economic power was small. I at once resolved that before doing any more public work I should put ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... in Al-Islam is exceptionally high, a fact of which Europe has often been assured, although the truth has not even yet penetrated into the popular brain. Nearly a century ago one Mirza Abu Talib Khan, an Amildar or revenue collector, after living two years in London, wrote an "apology" for, or rather a vindication of, his countrywomen which is still worth reading and quoting.[FN343] Nations are but superficial judges of one another: where customs differ ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... fever on his arrival at Coti, and, after lying there some weeks, was taken to Singapore in a very bad condition, where he arrived after I had left for England. When he recovered he obtained employment in Singapore, and I lost his services as a collector. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... over the water, also with a ladder reaching down to the foreshore, and not five yards from the Mayor's. On the street side one window of the Custom House raked the Mayor's porch; in the rear another and smaller window overlooked his garden, and this might have been a nuisance had the Collector of Customs, Mr. Pennefather, been a less considerate neighbour. But no one minded Mr. Pennefather, a little, round, self-depreciating official who, before coming to Troy, had served as clerk in the Custom ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... simplicity of the mode of collection proposed for this article, withdrew it from all fear of deranging other parts of their system; that I supposed they would confine the importation to some of their principal ports, probably not more than five or six; that a single collector in each of these, was the only new officer requisite; that he could get rich himself on six livres a hogshead, and would receive the whole revenue, and pay it into the treasury, at short hand. M. de Reyneval entered particularly into this part of the conversation, and explained ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Norbury was applied to by a collector of one of the local taxes for the amount of tax, his lordship said, he had already paid it, and on looking to his file, discovered a receipt, signed by the same collector who then applied for it. The tax-man, confounded, apologized in the best manner he could, stating his regret ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various

... betrayed the most rabid symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem denominated 'The Art of Pleasing', as "Lucus a non lucendo," containing little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts as ["lies as" in 'MS.'] monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the 'Satirist'. If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines for the mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more serviceable than his ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... Noy was a schoolmaster. See post, p. 63, note 2. Probably the writer means Peter de la Noy, who was clerk under the collector of the port. Later he was one of ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... Droz asserts that a collector of such publications bought two thousand five hundred in the last three months of 1788, and that his collection was far from complete.—Histoire de Louis XVI., ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... further and say that in the city I lived to work for other people, for my brains were daily exploited that my master might maintain a house at Kensington, and when the landlord, the water-lord, the light-lord, and the rate-collector had all had their dues from me there was little enough left that I could call my own. Here, on the contrary, all that I did had an immediate and direct relation to my own well-being. The amount of work I had to do to live was light, and I bought with it something that ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... odd, and it attracted my attention for that reason. I am a great collector of curios, and especially of quaint and curious rings. I have traveled the world over in search of the quaint and curious, and I have a collection of nearly five hundred rings of all patterns, makes and values. This collecting of rings has become a fad, or mania, with me. Whenever I see an odd ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... Raffles Haw. "It consists merely of a few elegant trifles which I have picked up here and there. Gems are my strongest point. I fancy that there, perhaps, I might challenge comparison with any private collector in the world. I lock them up, for even the ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... as if he had gone up to steal boots instead of to survey them. He might have asked Mary Ann or her "missus" who the other tenants were, but he shrank from the topic. Their hours were not his, and he only once chanced on a fellow-man in the passage, and then he was not sure it was not the tax-collector. Besides, he was not really interested—it was only a flicker of idle curiosity as to the actual psychology of Mary Ann. That he did not really care he proved to himself by kissing her next time. He accepted her as she was—because she was there. She brightened his troubled ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... the young men. And Soames, coming to the drawing-room door, would lift his nose a little sideways, and watch them, waiting to catch a smile from Fleur; then move back to his chair by the drawing-room hearth, to peruse The Times or some other collector's price list. To his ever-anxious eyes Fleur showed no signs of remembering that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... word, and he smiled. 'Said to be the happy state! The three signing their names are probably what we called bellman and beemen, collector, and heads of the swarm-enthusiasts. If it is not the work of some of the younger hands, the school has levelled on minors. In any case it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of Trade favored the sending of a supplemental charter and the extending of a pardon to the colony; but as the evidence against Massachusetts accumulated, they began to consider the revision of the laws, the appointment of a collector of customs and a royal governor, and even the annulment of the charter itself. In short, they determined to bring Massachusetts "under a more palpable declaration of obedience to his Majesty." The general court of the colony, although ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... harbour. The writer set off without delay for Arbroath, and on landing used every possible means with the official people, but their orders were deemed so peremptory that even boats were not permitted to sail from any port upon the coast. In the meantime, the collector of the Customs at Montrose applied to the Board at Edinburgh, but could, of himself, grant no relief to the ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... factotum at Champ-au-Haut and twin of Augustus Buzzby, landlord of The Greenbush, entered the former bar-room of the old hostelry, he found the usual Saturday night frequenters. Among them was Colonel Milton Caukins, tax collector and assistant deputy sheriff who, never quite at ease in the presence of his long-tongued wife, expanded discursively so soon as he found himself in the office of The Greenbush. He was in full flow ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... Co. will sell, on Thursday and Friday next, a very choice Selection of Magnificent Books and Pictorial Works from the Library of an eminent Collector, including large paper copies of the Antiquarian Works of Visconti, Montfaucon, &c.; the first four editions of Shakspeare, and other ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various

... far from being alone in his cheerful pursuit. If strangers, men or women, met me on the beach and wished to say something more than good-morning, they were sure to ask, "Have you found any pretty shells?" One woman was a collector of a more businesslike turn. She had brought a camp-stool, and when I first saw her in the distance was removing her shoes, and putting on rubber boots. Then she moved her stool into the surf, sat upon it with a tin pail beside her, and, leaning forward over the water, fell to doing something,—I ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... valued and respected friend, Francis Purcell, who for nearly fifty years discharged the arduous duties of a parish priest in the south of Ireland, I met with the following document. It is one of many such; for he was a curious and industrious collector of old local traditions—a commodity in which the quarter where he resided mightily abounded. The collection and arrangement of such legends was, as long as I can remember him, his hobby; but I had never learned that his love of the marvellous and whimsical ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... be no longer in need of the large disbursements necessary at the first period of their existence. But here it was a question of providing, without any other law than that of love, without the help of any other tax-gatherer than the voluntary collector, for all those necessities at once, including the vast outlays requisite for the first establishment of those institutions, and imposing, by that very act, the necessity and duty of supporting forever ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... purely for purposes of statistics, and consequently no importance was attached to it before the war. As a rule the bills of lading were filled in by subordinate employees of the exporter. Soon after the outbreak of the war a special "neutrality squad" was attached to the "Collector of the Port of New York" whose duty it was to maintain strict neutrality by seeing that the said laws were properly observed. This led, in cases where there was a suspicion that the cargo was not ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff



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