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Impost   Listen
noun
Impost  n.  
1.
That which is imposed or levied; a tax, tribute, or duty; especially, a duty or tax laid by goverment on goods imported into a country. "Even the ship money... Johnson could not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost."
2.
(Arch.) The top member of a pillar, pier, wall, etc., upon which the weight of an arch rests. Note: The impost is called continuous, if the moldings of the arch or architrave run down the jamb or pier without a break.
Synonyms: Tribute; excise; custom; duty; tax.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impost" Quotes from Famous Books



... Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the asham here, in the case of property unlawfully held, is simply the impost of a fifth part of the value, and not the sacrifice of a ram, which in Leviticus v. is required in addition. In Numbers v. also, precisely this fifth part is called ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... abuses of Heriot's Hospital, including a direct proof of perjury in the provost, was the punishment inflicted in return. And new papers are forging to chastise them, in regard to the poors' rate, which is again started; the improper choice of professors; and violent stretches of the impost. The liberty of the press, in its fullest extent, is to be ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... nominal duties on imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... themselves as to their circulation, but they had no need to call in the aid of the chartered accountant, as they could get their facts from the number of stamps supplied—the stamp then being of the value of three halfpence per newspaper, an impost which was not removed until 15 June, 1855, by the Act 18 and 19 Vict., c. 27. The Times of ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... the Conductor of Roads and Bridges; then I have the Receiver of Registrations, the First Clerk of Excise, and the Perceiver of the Impost. That is our dinner party. I am a sort of hovering government official, as you see. But away—away from these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on the island, they can hardly be considered as smugglers.' Ib. p. 160. 'Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost is obtained here at an easy rate.' Johnson's Works, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... nothing, not even giving them bread. He was imitated everywhere, and was made Counsellor of State. The people died of hunger and misery at this work, while those who overlooked them made fortunes. In the end the thing was found to be impracticable, and was abandoned, and so were the roads. But the impost for making them and keeping them up did not in the least stop during this experiment or since, nor has it ceased to be appropriated as a branch of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... the majority; but as the proportion between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics was in many parts as one to ten, and in some as one to twenty, the injustice necessarily involved in the mode of levying the impost was aggravated a hundredfold. It would be scarcely possible to devise any mode of levying an impost more exasperating, which came home to the bosoms of men with more irritating, humiliating, and maddening power, and which violated more ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... and others whose opinion would be of value. Of these, thirteen hundred and forty-five desired the immediate abolition of the duty, eighty-three favored a moderate duty, ten per cent being mentioned by twenty-eight out of the number and seven wished the present impost retained. The Ways and Means Committee, according to the newspapers, listened politely to the artists for a time, and then turned their attention to the duty on carbonate of soda. Whether, in the presence of practical matters like carbonate of soda, they will ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... gallery string-course is omitted by a more logical development, and the string-course at the springing of the vault is retained. Openings which do not cut into the vault are then frankly arched, without impost moulding of any kind. Simple vaulted halls, narthexes, and passages have usually a string-course at the vaulting level, broken round shallow pilasters as at the Chora, S. Theodosia, and the Myrelaion. ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... This scandalous impost hit us at every turn. It meant that we had to pay for every article and through the nose at that. For instance, the Camp Committee laid down a house equipped with four large boilers to supply boiling water, which we had to fetch, and with which we were able ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... resource against the extravagances of tyranny. And this is all that Spain now possesses. The Spaniards, however, resist, not because they are Spaniards, but because they are men. Still, even while they resist, they revere. While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they crouch before a system of which the impost is the smallest evil. They smite the tax-gatherer, but fall prostrate at the feet of the contemptible prince for whom the tax-gatherer plies his craft; they will even revile the troublesome and importunate ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... the idea of suppressing the system of Abbanship, thinking that, as the Somali had access to Aden without any impost, Englishmen ought to enjoy a corresponding freedom to travel in Somali Land. This perhaps was scarcely the right time to dictate a policy which would be distasteful as well as injurious (in a monetary sense) ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... came to the point of his actual proposals you could have heard the slightest rustle of an order paper, so keen were the silent Commons. He was going to raise the income tax, he said, the existing impost on incomes of 160 pounds a year and over. He was going to put a super tax on rich people, those who had 5,000 pounds a year or more. He was going to make big additions to the duty charged on great estates ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... take their siesta, reposing in full confidence. No fear of Indian attacks now, nor impost exactions from the tyrant Governor of New Mexico, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... proposed in 1781 a tax upon imports, each State to appoint its own collectors, but the revenue to be paid over to the federal government to meet the expenses of the war. Rhode Island alone, at first, refused her assent to this scheme. An impost law of five per cent. upon certain imports and a specific duty upon others for twenty-five years were an essential part of the plan of 1783 to provide a revenue to meet the interest on the public debt ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... Of this last trait a signal instance was afforded when Montmorency was sent, in the year after Henry's accession, to suppress a formidable revolt which had broken out in Guyenne, in consequence of a considerable increase of the already burdensome impost upon salt. He haughtily refused to accept the keys of the city of Bordeaux tendered to him by the citizens on his approach. His artillery, he said, would serve him as well in gaining admission. The severity of the retribution ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the habitual severity in the execution of this odious system, made it operate like a Continental impost. I will give a proof of this, and I state nothing but what came under my own observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... as at Fig. 96, we see that they must necessarily rise higher than the cross and side arches, so that the roof would be in a succession of domical forms, as at Fig. 97. There is the further expedient of "stilting" the cross arches, that is, making the real arch spring from a point above the impost and building the lower portion of it vertical, as shown in Fig. 98. This device of stilting the smaller arches to raise their crowns to the level of those of the larger arches was in constant use in Byzantine and early Romanesque architecture, in the kind of manner shown in the sketch, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... therefore, he resolved to lay a new tax on wine. This impost, called the "Bad Penny," was bitterly resented for two reasons. The burden was oppressive to the vintners and it was an illegal measure, as no sanction had been given by the local estates. Three towns, Thann, Ensisheim, and Brisac, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... exotic luxury. Perhaps the French may bring them wine for wool, and the Dutch give them tea and coffee at the fishing season, in exchange for fresh provision. Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever therefore is made dear only by impost, is obtained here at an ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... technologists call Taxonomy, which term is suggested to him by a work on the subject which he has been recently studying. (That is to say, he looked in the dictionary to find out what Taxidermy meant, and seeing Taxonomy there, snapped it up for a sort of collateral pun.) As an illustration of what our impost legislators (or imposters) ought to be, let us take the Taxidermist. He is one who takes from an animal every thing but his skin and bones, and stuffs him up afterward with all sorts of nonsense. Now, our National Taxidermists ought to take a lesson from their original. Many ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... if possible, to make the vessel otherwise of such capacity that she will actually contain a third more of measured tonnage than that for which the tax is to be paid. This will lighten his tax upon the whole, and thus enable him to cheat the government that has put such a grievous impost upon his enterprise. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... completion of forts for the further protection of the home dockyards. On the whole, then, he reckoned that he had L600,000 to spare; and of this amount he proposed to allocate L400,000 to the reduction of the National Debt and the repeal of the extra duty on malt, an impost much disliked by farmers. He also announced a remission of permanent taxes to the extent of L200,000, namely, on female servants, carts, and waggons, and that of three shillings on each house having less than seven windows. These ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... the consent of the Congress, lay any impost or duties on imports or exports except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... to raise the charge for telegrams. WOLFF'S Bureau has instructed its correspondents that in order to meet this new impost the percentage of truth in its despatches must be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... driven from that place, as being one that he ought not to have visited with his officer." If we compare this passage with Livy, xl, 35, we find that this took place in the year 180 B C. Caligula inaugurated a tax upon prostitutes (vectigal ex capturis), as a state impost: "he levied new and hitherto unheard of taxes; a proportion of the fees of prostitutes;—so much as each earned with one man. A clause was also added to the law directing that women who had practiced harlotry and men who had practiced ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... last night our astronomical amusements. Had a fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much interest the putting up of a huge impost on a couple of lintels in the new temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think that creatures so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so little resemblance to humanity, yet evinced a mechanical ingenuity ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... waters of mine eyes, The ready handmaids on her grace t'attend, That never fail to ebb, but ever rise; For to their flow she never grants an end. The ocean never did attend more duly Upon his sovereign's course, the night's pale queen, Nor paid the impost of his waves more truly, Than mine unto her cruelty hath been. Yet nought the rock of that hard heart can move, Where beat these tears with zeal, and fury drives; And yet, I'd rather languish in her love, Than I would joy the fairest she that lives. And if I find such pleasure to complain, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable

... council is wont to exercise for its sure action, for the great necessity of its inhabitants which the city represents, confronts us. We must consider not only the impracticability of enforcing the impost, but no less his Majesty's lack of means (caused by the wars and necessary occasions for expense that have limited the royal incomes), which constrains him so that he can do no more—a course which, as so Christian and pious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... paid on goods shipped to New Spain (Mexico), and this impost was also to be exclusively spent on the armed forces. These goods ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... which cannot be more effectively attacked, than by a mere statement of the facts in the plainest and least argumentative terms. The history of such an impost as the tax upon salt (Gabelle), and a bold outline of the random and incongruous fashions in which it was levied, were equivalent to a formal indictment. It needed no rhetoric nor discussion to heighten ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... the Director himself said, finished—though in our opinion it will never be finished until the country is populated—every one hoped that this impost would be removed, but Director Kieft put off the removal until the arrival of a new Director, which was longed for very much. When finally he did appear,(1) it was like the crowning of Rehoboam, for, instead of abolishing the beer-excise, his first business was to impose a ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... courts of justice existed in France, which, generally speaking, had the right of interpreting the law without appeal; and those provinces, styled pays d'etats, were authorized to refuse their assent to an impost which had been levied by the sovereign who represented ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... must be taken, and, in any case, its trade would for a long time be destroyed, and great suffering inflicted upon all; therefore, that it was better to pay the fine now than to risk all these evils, and perhaps the infliction of a heavier impost upon them. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... 1722, during the king's minority, his society employed him to present remonstrances upon occasion of a new impost. Placed between the throne and the people, like a respectful subject and courageous magistrate he brought the cry of the wretched to the ears of the sovereign—a cry which, being heard, obtained justice. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... "heart-money" (History, vol. i. p. 283.), and the amusing illustrations he produces, from the ballads of the day, of the extreme unpopularity of the tax on chimneys, and the hatred in which the "chimney man" was held (i. 287.) but this was a different impost frown that spoken of above, and paid to the king, not to the cathedral. It was collected for the last time in 1690, having been first levied in 1653, when, Hume tells us, the king's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... name than that of "the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship money, condemned not less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon than by the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government, the mildest that had ever been known in the world—under a government, which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and action—he fancied that he was a slave; he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted the lost ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... afternoon, especially in London; and a still quainter coat, made of shiny broadcloth, with strange tails behind, which was considered "respectable," after seven P.M., for a certain restricted class of citizens—those who paid a particular impost known as income-tax, as far as he could gather from what the tailor told him: though the classes who really did any good in the state, the working men and so forth, seemed exempted by general consent from wearing it. Their dress, indeed, he observed, was, strange to say, the least cared for and evidently ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... not despise the two of Saint Peter's as fellows in a most effective piece of grouping. The internal effect, which the height might have made very striking, is not equal to the external outline. The discontinuous impost, the ugliest invention of French Flamboyant, may perhaps be endured in some subordinate place; it is intolerable in the main piers of a church. The treatment of the central tower within is very curious; the lantern of the cathedral is here translated into an Italianising style. In short ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... particular man, and is the more grievous in that it is unjust; for where {313} the benefit is mutual, the expense ought to be in common." [Sidenote: 1732—Opposition alarm] The general principle is unassailable; but Walpole seems to us to have been quite wrong in his application of it to such an impost as the salt tax. "Of all the taxes I ever could think of," he argued, "there is not one more general, nor one less felt, than that of the duty upon salt." He described it as a "tax that every man in the nation contributes to according to his circumstances ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... knowledge of more frequent use than that, of duties and impost, whether customs paid at the ports, or excises levied upon the manufacturer. Much of the prosperity of a trading nation depends upon duties properly apportioned; so that what is necessary may continue cheap, and what is of use only to luxury may, in some measure, atone to the publick for the mischief ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... system and reduce the number of taxes; to shift them from the producer to the consumer, and thus stimulate the creation of wealth; to diminish charges, and at the same time lighten the weight of the impost as it falls on the consumer. Another leading idea is to transfer a portion of our burdens to the foreign consumers of cotton, and at the same time stimulate our manufactures, and the production of cotton, by a remission of the tax on cloth exported; while yet another part of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... to do so, Crackenfudge," replied the baronet, with a grim, sardonic smile, or rather a sneer, "I assure you, that such a measure would become a very general and heavy impost upon the country. But goodby, now; I shall remember your wishes as touching the magistracy. You shall have J. P. after your name, and be at liberty to fine, flog, put in the stocks, and send to prison as many of the rubbish you speak of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... enemies. Indeed, the enmity against it was in some respects beneficial to Virginia, as drawing forth the most strict prohibitions against 'abusing and misemploying the soil of this fruitful kingdom' to the production of so odious an article. After all, as the impost for an average of seven years did not reach a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, it could not have that mighty influence, either for good or evil, which was ascribed to it by the fears and passions of the age."—Chalmers. b. i., ch. iii., with notes. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... tax that has interest to us as philatelists is the one cent impost on all letters and postcards. This came into effect on April 15th, 1915, and special stamps were issued for the purpose. These are the regular 1c postage stamps of the King George series with the words "WAR TAX", in two lines, in large colorless ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... 7th of May 1659 (the day of the Restoration of the Rump), except in so far as these had been confirmed by the present Parliament, and farther declaring it high treason for any person or persons, after Oct. 11, 1659, to assess, levy, collect, or receive, any tax, impost, or money contribution whatsoever, on or from the subjects of the Commonwealth, without their consent in Parliament, or as by law might have been done before Nov. 3, 1640. This comprehensive Act, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... country churches do. Things well consider'd, 'tis so hard to make A comedy, which should the knowing take, That our dull poet, in despair to please, Does humbly beg, by me, his writ of ease. 'Tis a land-tax, which he's too poor to pay; You therefore must some other impost lay. 40 Would you but change, for serious plot and verse, This motley garniture of fool and farce, Nor scorn a mode, because 'tis taught at home, Which does, like vests, our gravity become, Our poet yields you should this play refuse: As tradesmen, by the change of fashions, lose, With some ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... responsibility, incumbency, accountability; service, business, work, function, office; tax, impost, toll, excise, custom. Associated Words: ethics, deontology, casuistry, ethology, morals, ethicist, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... waar naar in de stad Utrecht en Amersfoort, en in de vryheden van dien, by taxatie zal worden geheven de impost op de koffy, cicers en thee. Utrecht, 1767. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... imposed upon all ship-masters from the same place. Our two visitors have now been here for months, and will remain for months longer, without once setting foot on shore; partly to avoid incurring the impost on landing, partly from caution against the natives, and partly to keep their business secret. The jealousy between the traders is very great. Those from Bristol, Liverpool, and London, all are in active competition with each other, and with any foreigner ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... in the history of English glass-making.[319] Yet at that time the fifteen-inch achromatic of Pulkowa had already left the workshop of Fraunhofer's successors at Munich. It was not indeed until 1845, when the impost which had so long hampered their efforts was removed, that the optical artists of these islands were able to compete on equal terms with their rivals on the Continent. In the case of reflectors, however, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... changes in the condition of those islands, one would think that not without danger can this be changed, with the people who come in the ships, which they are commencing to do there. Besides that, to raise the impost on his own authority, without having informed the Council thereof until after it was executed, is a matter that furnishes a very bad example; and since the amount concerned is so small as thirty-six thousand reals (at nine reals apiece, on the four thousand pesos ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... classes. During the nineties slightly over two thousand {253} a year paid the price of admission to the Promised Land. Then growing prosperity attracted greater swarms. Doubling the tax in 1901 only slightly checked the flow, but when it was raised to $500 in 1904 the number willing to pay the impost next year fell to eight. But higher wages, or the chance of slipping over the United States border, soon urged many to face even this barrier, and the number paying head-tax rose to sixteen hundred (1910) and later to seven thousand (1913). These rising numbers led ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... are the ruins of an old square keep, called Castle Muel or Maoil, the walls of which are of a remarkable thickness. It is said to have been built by the daughter of a Norwegian king, married to a Mackinnon or Macdonald, for the purpose of levying an impost on all vessels passing the Kyles, excepting, says the tradition, those of her own country. For the more certain exaction of this duty, she is reported to have caused a strong chain to be stretched across ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... Boston, heads of families, among them many of the highest standing, had, as early as February, 1770, signed an agreement not to drink any tea until the impost clause of the revenue acts was repealed. The daughters of liberty, both north and south, did the same. The young women of Boston followed the example of their mothers, and subscribed ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... lately imposed upon the colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout America. 'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships were unloaded, and the cargoes stored in cellars. From New York and Philadelphia, the vessels were turned back to London. In Boston ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in the county of Middlesex, that he removed from Antigua and brought with him among other things and chattels a parcel of negroes, designed for his own use, and not any of them for merchandise. He prays that he may not be taxed with impost." ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... doing a little bit of a little thing at a time. He must patiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms, and then be satisfied with himself when at last he has induced a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he will consider the impost at the first opportunity. He must be content to be beaten six times in order that, on a seventh, his work may be found to be of assistance to some one else. He must remember that he is one out of 650, and be content ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... grants being made for a period of six years, at the end of which time a general restoration was to be effected. A very striking evidence of the people's condition is that every adult male had to contribute a sword, armour, a bow and arrows, and a drum. This impost may well ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... although in the Edinburgh Town Council, of which he was for some time a member—sitting as the representative of St. George's Ward—he entered into some fierce debates on the Annuity-tax with Duncan M'Laren. That obnoxious impost was even then, as it has subsequently been, a great bone of contention, and proved the casus belli of many a wordy war. The embryo M.P. was generally, as we are well informed, more than a match for the young advocate, whom he overcame with those ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... we shall find that there are 40,120 miles washed by their navigable waters; and by the constitution of the Union these waters are declared to be "common property, for ever free, without any tax, duty, or impost whatever." ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... the blessing of God upon their enterprise. Nor were its promoters held by the community to be degraded. Indeed, some of the most eminent men in the community engaged in it, and its receipts were so considerable that as early as 1729 one-half of the impost levied on slaves imported into the colony was appropriated to pave the streets of the town and build its bridges—however, we are not informed that the streets ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... be relieved of a large body of indigent people and unfortunate debtors, and, at the same time, assist the commerce of Great Britain, increase home industries, and relieve, to an appreciative extent, the impost on foreign productions. Extravagant expectations were formed of the capabilities of Georgia by the enthusiastic friends of the movement. It was to rival Virginia and South Carolina, and at once to take the first rank in the list of provinces ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... purpose, posture, position, composure, impostor, postpone, post office, positive, deposit, disposition, imposition, deponent, opponent, exponent, component; (2) depose, impost, composite, apposite, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... he pleases, only an inconsiderable portion being reserved as state property for the public service. There are no indirect taxes; and as the poresa, or capitation tax, paid by each head of a family, the maximum of which is six dollars a-year, is the only impost (except a trifling quit-rent for the land) levied by the government, "it must be admitted," (as Mr Paton observes,) "that the peasantry of Servia have drawn a high prize in the lottery of existence." The harvest is a period of general festivity; all labour in common in getting in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... and treason. They were of course prosecuted and punished, but they were never finally destroyed until the reduction of the stamp duty. They did good indirectly, for they formed one of the strongest arguments in favor of the abolition of that obnoxious impost. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Hastings says he has a power delegated to him to do: he levied a tax without the consent of his master. "Some years after my departure from Com," says Tavernier, "the governor had, of his own accord, and without any communication with the king, laid a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought into the city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls and bridges of the town. It was towards the end of the year 1632 that the event I am going to relate happened. The king, being informed of the impost which ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... means palatable to M. de Soissons, who had, when questioned as to the amount likely to be derived from the transaction, answered rather from impulse than calculation; but as the said reservation was merely verbal, while the edict authorizing the levy of the impost was tangible and valid, the Prince, after warmly expressing his acknowledgments to the monarch, carried off the document ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... good appearance. Except for the Ionic capitals, the detail is rather nondescript as to its order. The round-arched, deeply recessed doorway has the usual paneled jambs and soffit, but the reeded casings and square impost blocks are of the sort that came into vogue about the beginning of the nineteenth century. The single door with its eight molded and raised panels is of that type, having three pairs of small panels of uniform size above ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins

... Light was kindled, which will be very useful for all Vessels going out and coming in to the Harbour of Boston, or any other Harbours in the Massachusetts Bay, for which all Masters shall pay to the Receiver of Impost, one Penny per Ton Inwards, and another Penny Outwards, except Coasters, who are to pay Two Shillings each, at their clearance Out, And all Fishing Vessels, Wood Sloops, etc. Five Shillings ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... their kindred any more. Twice during three months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press for every impost—on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field, and the clump of sugar- cane, as though the young men, the toilers, were still there. The old and infirm, the children, the women, must now double and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... being sorely pressed for funds a happy thought occurred to a practical vicar. He had the skulls piled up wall-like in an accessible chamber, caused the passages to be swept and garnished, and then put on the impost mentioned above, the receipts helping to liquidate the debt on the building fund. Thus, by a strange irony of fate, after eight centuries, all that is left of these heathens brings in sixpences to ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... Alexander found himself in the presence of insolent victors and exasperated subjects. In 1262 the inhabitants of Vladimir, of Suzdal, of Rostof, rose against the collectors of the Tartar impost. The people of Yaroslavl slew a renegade named Zozimus, a former monk, who had become a Moslem fanatic. Terrible reprisals were sure to follow. Alexander set out with presents for the Horde at the risk of leaving his head there. He had likewise to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... strict inquiry into all the grievances Robin of Redesdale hath set forth, with a view to speedy and complete redress. Nor is this all. His highness, laying aside his purpose of war with France, will have less need of impost on his subjects, and the burdens and taxes will be reduced. Lastly, his grace, ever anxious to content his people, hath most benignly empowered me to promise that, whether or not ye rightly judge the queen's kindred, they will no longer have part or weight in the king's ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The wedge-shaped stones forming an arch, the centre one of which is the keystone and those at the impost or starting point of the curve ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... has 'viewed this question in all its bearings,' 'foremost and in front' of course included, and deems its adoption eminently essential to the future stability and welfare of the confederacy. The abolition of all impost duties and a system of direct taxation, are of course warmly advocated—meaning thereby the ruin of Northern manufactures by smuggling European goods over our border. In short, he sets forth plainly what is as yet far from being felt or generally understood, that the independence of the Southern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... remained the heritage of the khans, and their command there is law. Besides, though he has the right to order his noukers to cut to pieces with their kinjals [17] any inhabitant of Khounzakh, nay, any passer-by, the Khan cannot lay any tax or impost upon the people, and must content himself with the revenues arising from his flocks, and the fields cultivated by his karavashes (slaves,) or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... preferred to live in the country and would not frequent the company of those whom they considered as outcasts. Still, Hindus were often employed as accountants and revenue officers. All non-Moslims had to pay the jiziya or poll tax, and the remission of this impost accorded to converts was naturally a powerful incentive to change of faith. Yet Mohammedanism cannot record any wholesale triumph in India such as it has won in Persia, Egypt and Java. At the present day about one-fifth of the population are Moslim. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... departure from Europe. The national and foreign commodities equally pay six per cent. on their arrival in the islands; 18 livres (15s) are required for every fresh Negro brought in, and a poll-tax of 4 livres 10 sols (3s. 9d.). Some heavy duties are laid upon stamp paper; an impost of 9 livres (7s. 6d.) for each thousand foot square of ground, and the tenth of the price of every habitation that is sold. The productions are all subjected to five per cent. duty on their leaving the colonies, and to three per cent. on their arrival ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... the time may come when Government will be constrained to raise a greater proportion of its collective revenues than it has hitherto done from indirect taxation, and when this time comes, the rule which confines the impost to a single line must of course be abandoned.[4] Under the former system, one great man, with a very high salary, was put in to preside over a host of native agents with very small salaries, and without any responsible ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat medallions. A severe facade rose above this door; a wall, perpendicular to the facade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through which, in disorder, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... amount, cost, expense, prime cost, charge, figure; demand, damage; fare, hire, wages &c (remuneration) 973; value &c 812.1. dues, duty, toll, tax, impost, cess^, sess^, tallage^, levy; abkari^; capitation tax, poll tax; doomage [U.S.], likin^; gabel^, gabelle^; gavel, octroi^, custom, excise, assessment, benevolence, tithe, tenths, exactment^, ransom, salvage, tariff; brokerage, wharfage, freightage. bill &c (account) 811; shot. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... a translation of the text of the firman relieving the Zoroastrians of Persia from the impost of ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... and I do remember with dismay, the time when whisky was purchaseable at two bronze pennies for the naggin, but now one may discharge a ruinous impost for the privilege of imbibing one poor fourth ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... national purposes, except a mere trifle for the support of the provincial lunatic asylums, and for some other public buildings. The provincial revenue is derived from customs duties, public works, crown lands, excise, and bank impost. The customs duties last year came to 1,100,000l., the revenue from public works to 123,000l., from lands about the same sum, from excise about 40,000l., and from the tax on the current notes of ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... public revenue by imposts. Certain bodies, it is true, possessed means of defence, which were termed privileges, but these privileges were rarely respected. The parliament had that of ratifying or of refusing an impost, but the king could compel its assent, by a lit de justice, and punish its members by exile. The nobility were exempt from taxation; the clergy were entitled to the privilege of taxing themselves, in the form of free gifts; some ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... is made use of by daws as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity: which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys, who are ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... Raichbe, and Pata. Lugbeg and Raichbe were two holy virgins; Pata, however, was at first married, but afterwards she was a holy widow. Now inasmuch as the wright Beonedus himself was grievously burdened by the imposts of Ainmireach King of Temoria, he, eluding the pressure of the impost, departed from his own region, that is from the coasts of Midhe, into the territories of the Conactha. There he dwelt in the plain of Aei, with the king Crimthanus; and there he begat Saint Kyaranus, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... resemble and perform the office of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper rate than the cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to Italy, doctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This trade grew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitory impost upon it to keep it from working serious ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... on any colony in North America or in the West Indies. The history of the statute is told by its date—1778. Now no constitutional lawyer will contend that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is legally bound by this Act. If Parliament were to impose an income tax on Jamaica to-morrow the impost would be legal, and could, no doubt, be enforced. But the Declaratory Act of 1778 makes it morally impossible for Parliament to tax any colony. That the impossibility does not arise from a law is clear, because it applies with as much strength to colonies which do not ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... Constantine: it existed before he had been created Augustus at Rome, and the remission granted by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have ventured while only Caesar, and under the necessity of courting popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Caes. c. 39. Lactant. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... "auxiliary basket tax" was instituted to be levied on immovable property as well as on business pursuits and bequests. Moreover, following the Austrian model, the Government instituted, or rather reinstituted, the "candle tax," a toll on Sabbath candles. The proceeds from this impost on a religions ceremony were to go specifically towards the organization of the Jewish Crown schools, and were placed entirely at the disposal of the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... hundred and sixty thousand pounds, which, as a tax on luxury, may be considered as of great utility to the state." The utility of this tax I cannot find: a tax on luxury is no better than another tax, unless it hinders luxury, which cannot be said of the impost upon tea, while it is thus used by the great and the mean, the rich and the poor. The truth is, that, by the loss of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, we procure the means of shifting three hundred and sixty thousand, at best, only from one hand ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... be of the king's obedience, the child is no alien. An alien enemy, or person under the allegiance of the state at war with us, is not generally disabled from being a witness in admiralty courts; nor are debts due to him forfeited, but only suspended.—Alien's duty, the impost laid on all goods imported into England in foreign bottoms, over and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... lucrative traffic of pretended pardons from above; they established a tariff, according to which crime was no longer contraband, but freely admitted upon paying the customs. Those subjected to the heaviest impost, were always such as the hierarchy judged most inimical to its own stability; you might at a very easy rate obtain permission to attack the dignity of the sovereign, to undermine the temporal power, but it was ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... more than inverted cones, slightly truncated, for the purpose of making them correspond with the columns below. Some few of them have the addition of small projecting knobs immediately below the angles of the impost; while those in the square towers are formed by a short cylinder, whose diameter exceeds that of the shaft, surmounted by a square block, by way of abacus. The towers and buttresses decrease in size upwards.—An architectural peculiarity ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... an early period in the session showed that the revenue of the province for the fiscal year, ending October 31st, 1857, amounted to $668,252 an increase of $86,528 over the previous year. Of this sum upwards of $540,000 came from import duties and what were termed railway impost, which was simply duties levied on imports for the purpose of defraying the cost of the railways then building. The casual and territorial revenue yielded only eighteen thousand pounds but the export duties reached almost twenty ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... top of the triforium arches, the later single shaft being brought down and joined by a peculiar branch-like connection. The original shafts to the subsidiary piers, which it is probable took only a minor part in carrying the flat Norman wooden roof, were finished by a cap at the impost level of the triforium, and the later shaft was brought down and finished by the rebus of Bishop Lyhart, the constructor of the vault. This rebus should be noticed; it is a pun in stone, with its hart lying in water. It ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell

... stands thus," wrote Williams, speaking from his intimate knowledge of Ellesmere's affairs, "or not much above it at anytime:—in fines certain, L1300 per annum, or thereabouts; in fines casual, L1250 or thereabouts; in greater writs, L140; for impost of wine, L100—in all, L2790; and these are all the true means of that great office." It is probable that Williams under-stated the revenue, but it is certain that the income, apart from ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... horrifying fact that even City Companies were abandoning its consumption. He received the unexpected support of Lieutenant-Commander KENWORTHY, who declared that Yorkshire miners always had a bottle after their day's work and denounced an impost that would rob a poor man of his "boy." Eventually the CHANCELLOR agreed to reduce the new ad valorem duty by a third. He might have made the same reduction in the case of cigars but for the declaration of a Labour Member that this was becoming ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... and such provision we cannot want, I will have little or no custom paid, no taxes; but for such things as are for pleasure, delight, or ornament, as wine, spice, tobacco, silk, velvet, cloth of gold, lace, jewels, &c., a greater impost. I will have certain ships sent out for new discoveries every year, [629]and some discreet men appointed to travel into all neighbouring kingdoms by land, which shall observe what artificial inventions and good laws are in other countries, customs, alterations, or aught else, concerning war or ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... and ability worthy of his race. He governed with the same careful respect for the laws which had distinguished and strengthened the authority of his predecessor. He even rendered himself yet more popular than Pisistratus by reducing one half the impost of a tithe on the produce of the land, which that usurper had imposed. Notwithstanding this relief, he was enabled, by a prudent economy, to flatter the national vanity by new embellishments to the city. In the labours of his government he was principally aided ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... degree and applied to possessions more precious? If he that evades the revenue law of the State be guilty of fraud, what of him who would import Nature's goods and pay no duties? For Nature has her own system of impost, and permits no smuggling. There was a tax on truth ere there was one on tea or on silver plate. Character, genius, high parts in history are all assessed upon. Nature lets out her houses and lands on liberal terms; but resorts to distraint, if her dues be not forthcoming. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... merchandise and that from other countries, shipped to Nueva Espana by way of Filipinas, an impost ad valorem tax of ten per cent shall be collected, based on their value in the ports and regions where the goods shall be discharged. This tax shall be imposed mildly according to the rule, and shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... the sense of picturesqueness, as well as that of justness and dignity, had been lost, the spring of the continuous mouldings was replaced by what Professor Willis calls the Discontinuous impost; which, being a barbarism of the basest and most painful kind, and being to architecture what the setting of a saw is to music, I shall not trouble the reader to examine. For it is not in my plan ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... work of Mr. Lock, (1820,) the steward of the Countess of Sutherland, who directed the improvements on her estates. He gives for instance the rental of the Kintradawell estate for 1811, from which it appears that up to then, every family was obliged to pay a yearly impost of a few shillings in money, a few fowls, and some days' ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... with which to equip a standing army, the King forced the whole country to pay a tax known as "ship money," on the pretext that it was needed to free the English coast from the depredations of Algerine pirates. During previous reigns an impost of this kind on the coast towns in time of war might have been considered legitimate, since its original object was to provide ships ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... by serfs to their lord; and la taille royale, paid by the third estate to the King. The latter was first levied by Philippe le Bel (1285-1314), but was only an occasional tax until the reign of Charles VII, who converted it into a regular impost. But although collected at stated intervals its amount varied from reign to reign, becoming intolerably burdensome under the spendthrift kings, while wise rulers, like Henri IV, considerably reduced it. It was not abolished ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... of Arab chiefs and Moslem of the church and the law, by whose advice all measures were, nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very subservient senate. He had no occasion to demand more from the people than they had been used to pay to the beys; and he lightened the impost by introducing as far as he could the fairness and exactness of a civilised power in the method of levying it. He laboured to make the laws respected, and this so earnestly and rigidly, that no small wonder was excited among all classes of a population so long accustomed to the licence of a barbarian ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... been raised by a tax of $5 levied on about 40,000 males. Nearly the whole sum is expended in paying and equipping the army, and in the salary of officials. Dissatisfied with the small amount of revenue, the Prince undertook, during the past year, to reorganise the taxation. An impost upon property was projected in lieu of the capitation tax, but having, unfortunately, started without any very well-defined basis, the system broke down, actually producing a smaller revenue than was yielded by the original method. Equally abortive, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... reconcile the opposition, and perhaps himself, to the measure, by plausible reasoning. An impost of threepence on the pound could never, he alleged, be opposed by the colonists, unless they were determined to rebel against Great Britain. Besides, a duty on that article, payable in England, and amounting to nearly one shilling on the pound, was ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... warlike acclamations of those who exonerate themselves from the impost of blood, or who find in public misfortunes a source of new speculations, we protest,—we who wish ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... tea, shipped direct to America from India, would save the impost to England, bring tea at a cheaper rate to the Colonies (even with the added tax), and at the same time yield a ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... as the custom is, fifteen ounces of gilt plate for a Privy Counsellor, and fifteen ounces for Secretary of the Latin Tongue; likewise we had the impost of four tuns of wine, two for a Privy Counsellor, and two ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... The impost is not yet granted. Rhode Island and New York hold off. Congress have it in contemplation to propose to the States, that the direction of all their commerce shall be committed to Congress, reserving to the States, respectively, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... clause, afterwards abandoned, to levy the duty on the current value of goods at the market of consumption, instead of export—a mode which taxed all the expenses of shipment. Mr. Gregson proposed the rejection of an impost required only by the extraordinary pressure of convictism. Several of the non-official members voted with the governor for ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... to it. At No. 19 died Jean Racine in 1699, and Adrienne Lecouvreur in 1730. No. 17 was a new construction when Balzac went to it, having probably been built on the site where Nicolas Vauquelin des Yveteaux used to receive the far-famed Ninon in his gardens. On the impost, where formerly appeared the names Balzac and Barbier, now may be read "A. Herment, successeur de Garnier." The place is still devoted ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... ridiculous extreme—for it is the same to touch one of their parishioners and the apple of their eye. At times they make use of unjust and compromising expressions: Thus the tobacco monopoly is "an imposition" or "a bit of knavery." The impost for elections of gobernadorcillos, the signing of a passport, or any other accidental expense which is incurred [by the Indian], is "a theft." The services for the repairing of roads and bridges are "annoyances" or "tyrannies." And so on all in this tenor. Many would wish ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... state, or for the prince, few would have drawn the sword; but for religion, the merchant, the artist, the peasant, all cheerfully flew to arms. For the state, or for the prince, even the smallest additional impost would have been avoided; but for religion the people readily staked at once life, fortune, and all earthly hopes. It trebled the contributions which flowed into the exchequer of the princes, and the armies which marched ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... evening, and to cards and supper, passing the evening pretty pleasantly, and so late at night parted, and so to bed. I find him mightily troubled at the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury opposing him in the business he hath a patent for about the business of Impost on wine, but I do see that the Lords have reason for it, it being a matter wherein money might be saved to his Majesty, and I am satisfied that they do let nothing pass that may save money, and so God bless them! So he being gone we to bed. This day I received a letter from my father, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Bills.] Bills for appropriating any Part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any Tax or Impost, shall originate in ...
— The British North America Act, 1867 • Anonymous

... wrath, into the bosoms of the working classes—the toiling millions from whom Elliott sprang. "Bread Tax," indeed, to him was a thing of terrible import and bitter experience: hence he uses no gentle terms or honeyed phrases when dealing with the obnoxious impost. Sometimes coarse invective and angry assertion take the place of convincing reason and calm philosophy. At others, there is a true vein of poetry and pathos running through the rather unpoetic theme, which touches us with its Wordsworthian feeling and gentleness. Then ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... thus, exorbitant taxes are levied upon the agriculturists, and the industry of the inhabitants is disheartened by oppression. The taxes are collected by the soldiery, who naturally extort by violence an excess of the actual impost; accordingly the Arabs limit their cultivation to their bare necessities, fearing that a productive farm would entail an extortionate demand. The heaviest and most unjust tax is that upon the "sageer," or water wheel, by which the farmer irrigates ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... which the fields are irrigated on the borders of the Nile. It would appear natural that, instead of a tax, a premium should be offered for the erection of such means of irrigation, which would increase the revenue by extending cultivation, the produce of which might bear an impost. With all the talent and industry of the native Egyptians, who must naturally depend upon the waters of the Nile for their existence, it is extraordinary that for thousands of years they have adhered to their original simple form of mechanical ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... March, 1815, to all the maritime nations to lay aside the system of retaliating restrictions and exclusions, and to place the shipping of both parties to the common trade on a footing of equality in respect to the duties of tonnage and impost. This offer was partially and successively accepted by Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia, Sardinia, the Duke of Oldenburg, and Russia. It was also adopted, under certain modifications, in our late commercial convention with France, ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... after fifteen years, before which term the present existing debts will all be discharged by the established operation of the sinking fund. When we contemplate the ordinary annual augmentation of impost from increasing population and wealth, the augmentation of the same revenue by its extension to the new acquisition, and the economies which may still be introduced into our public expenditures, I can not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... is the sort of boon which my honorable and learned friend holds out to authors. Considered as a boon to them, it is a mere nullity; but, considered as an impost on the public, it is no nullity, but a very serious and pernicious reality. I will take an example. Dr. Johnson died fifty-six years ago. If the law were what my honorable and learned friend wishes to make it, somebody would now ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... to Burke for this maxim. Again, we are deluded into the belief that we must be reading Burke, when Webster refers to the minimum principle as the right one to be followed in imposing duties on certain manufactures. "It lays the impost," he says, "exactly where it will do good, and leaves the rest free. It is an intelligent, discerning, discriminating principle; not a blind, headlong, generalizing, uncalculating operation. Simplicity undoubtedly, is a great beauty in acts of legislation, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... charge, tax, impost, or duties, ought to be established, fixed, laid or levied, under any pretext whatsoever, without the consent of the people, or their representatives in ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek

... to furnish, upon condition that they should previously supply him with four hundred head of cattle, two hundred garments of blue cloth, and a considerable quantity of beads and ornaments. The raising this impost somewhat perplexed them; and in order to procure the cattle, they persuaded the king to demand one-half the stipulated number from the people of Jarra; promising to replace them in a short time. Ali agreed to this proposal, and the same ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... declivity, with a hole for the foot of the stone at its base. If the stone were now tipped over, it would slide into its place, and could be easily raised from its slanting position to the perpendicular. Then filling in the space between the mound and two contiguous stones, the impost could be dragged up to its position. I found a pleasure in working at this simple mechanical problem, as a change from the more imaginative thoughts suggested by the ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... that this king, of all others, is endued with the greatest and the richest, both in regard of the fertilitie and greatnes of his dominions, and also by reason of the seuere collection and exaction of his duties: yea, tributes are imposed vpon his subiects, not onely for lands, houses, and impost of marchandise, but also for euery person in each family. It is likewise to be understood, that almost no lord or potentate in China hath authoritie to leuie vnto himselfe any peculiar reuenues, or to collect any rents within the precincts of his seigniories, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... from annuity or professions, a lower rate should be adopted. If the property tax is 5 per cent. the income tax should not exceed 2-1/2 per cent.; whatever the one is the other should be a-half of it only. This modification of an impost now felt as so oppressive by all subjected to it, would go far towards reconciling the numerous class of small traders, the great majority in all urban constituencies, to the change—to its continuance, and also justify its extension to all incomes above ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... which were then under the control of the authorities at New York. In 1672, the inhabitants of Hoanskill and New Castle on the Delaware, having been plundered by Dutch privateers were permitted by the government at New York to lay an impost of four guilders, in wampum, upon each anker of strong rum imported or sold there.[55] A guilder, which was about six pence currency or four pence sterling, consisted of twenty stivers, and eight beads were reckoned equal to one ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward

... Impost is a duty paid on any imported article, in the moment of its importation, and of course, it is collected in the sea-ports only. Excise is a duty on any article, whether imported or raised at home, and paid in the hands ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... those rare journals concerning which it is almost impossible to speak without enthusiasm. Not one of its twenty-six pages fails to delight us. Foremost in merit, and most aptly suited to Mr. Campbell's particular type of genius, are the three inspiring essays, "The Impost of the Future", "The Sublime Ideal", and "Whom God Hath Put Asunder". Therein appears to great advantage the keen reasoning and sound materialistic philosophy of the author. "The Sublime Ideal" is especially absorbing, tracing as it does the expansion of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... suffix denotes a state of being—seems to be a place which is not in the state of being a town. Does its pride resent the impost of village that it is glad to be called by a name which is no name, or is the word loosely appropriated from America, where it signifies a division of a county? It ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris



Words linked to "Impost" :   ship money, tariff, duty, customs duty, customs, springer, arch, custom



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