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Mercantile   Listen
adjective
Mercantile  adj.  Of or pertaining to merchants, or the business of merchants; having to do with trade, or the buying and selling of commodities; commercial. "The expedition of the Argonauts was partly mercantile, partly military."
Mercantile agency, an agency for procuring information of the standing and credit of merchants in different parts of the country, for the use of dealers who sell to them.
Mercantile marine, the persons and vessels employed in commerce, taken collectively.
Mercantile paper, the notes or acceptances given by merchants for goods bought, or received on consignment; drafts on merchants for goods sold or consigned.
Synonyms: Mercantile, Commercial. Commercial is the wider term, being sometimes used to embrace mercantile. In their stricter use, commercial relates to the shipping, freighting, forwarding, and other business connected with the commerce of a country (whether external or internal), that is, the exchange of commodities; while mercantile applies to the sale of merchandise and goods when brought to market. As the two employments are to some extent intermingled, the two words are often interchanged.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mercantile" Quotes from Famous Books



... he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... Phocaea against the hosts of Cyrus, and this fact the boy cleverly brought forward, speaking of the girl he loved as the daughter of a Greek warrior of noble birth. In so saying he spoke the truth, but at the same time he suppressed the facts that this very father had acquired great riches by mercantile undertakings. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... leafy and imposing as one would be led to expect. Even in the business streets there is but little regularity in the buildings—now a row of plain adobe structures, half store, half dwelling, then a high mercantile block of red brick or sandstone, and again a row of adobe cottages nestled back among apple trees. There is one immense store with its sign upon the roof, in letters big enough to be read miles ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... was thus upon the wane, the emancipated republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness. The enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the House of Orange, had converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes, and had enabled them to maintain their independence in a bloody war against the Spanish monarchy. Aware how much they owed their own liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready to assist their German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so, as both ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... abilities were both high. Nevertheless his family could no longer afford to have him at school, and it was necessary for him to do some sort of work. One of his mother's boarders, a Mr. Barrett Williams, offered him a position in his mercantile house. Before long this gentleman discovered his young employee's aptitude and overwhelming love for mechanics, and kindly allowed the lad the use of his own library. Studying at night the scientific books which he found there, Eads ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... now go up a step in the social scale and inquire whether those born in the mercantile class are as progressive as the peasantry. Formerly they were regarded, and not without reason, as extremely conservative, and certainly they used to show little sympathy with education or culture; ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... earlier commercial development which immediately preceded our extensive modern commercial network may not be unwelcome to the reader desirous of contrasting the narrower but nevertheless fascinating mediaeval conditions of the German Hansa with those prevailing in our present mercantile world. Let us inquire how the confederation of the Hansa arose, and, after briefly sketching its external history, review in greater detail its commercial and industrial methods, its art work, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... himself and his family; but however much that may be the case, it will still rest certain that the vast mass of men will necessarily remain workers to the last; and that no attempt to raise individual working men above their own class into the professional or mercantile classes can ever greatly benefit the working masses as a whole. What is most of all desirable is that the condition, the aims; and the tastes of working men, as working men, should be raised and ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... mistaken, the Company will confirm me," he replied. "Administration on Ullr is going to be a military matter for a long time to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the mercantile interests in the Company are going to realize that, and see the necessity for taking political control. And just to make sure, I'm sending Hid O'Leary to Terra on the next ship, to make a full ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... fool through all eternity and evaporating in an endless succession of illusions. With a little money—it would be ridiculous were I to mention the sum; many take so much merely to fill their bellies—I engaged in a small line of business. It succeeded. I made a petty mercantile speculation. It turned out well. I entered into partnership with a man of considerable property. It seemed as if I had a talent of always guessing and foreboding where gain and profit were lying hid in ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... residing in the town of Zanzibar are either Government officials, independent merchants, or agents for a few great mercantile houses ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, "I fear that you will find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr. Robinson; by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly speaking, perhaps I should require the presence of your father's lawyer, or of some one producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss Castlewood. But having you here, and Major Hockin, and knowing what ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... keep him out of mischief. Not very terrible mischief, for the most part: only the result of too much leisure and too much money in inexperienced hands. The upshot of this difference of opinion between father and son was that while Mr. Wedmore was always finding mercantile situations for his son, Max was always taking care to be thrown out of them after a few weeks, and taking a rest which was by no means ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... morning. He has two large loads of goods, and I think that he has made a speculation in buying them, from the hints that he dropped to me in confidence. One of your large American clipper ships arrived at Melbourne with an assorted cargo of Yankee notions, and as the market was, in mercantile parlance, glutted with goods of all descriptions, a forced sale was effected, and Smith bought largely at a low figure. He is in good spirits, and says that he never felt so well in his life as ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... often warned beforehand. Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the date of its shipment, its route, and the hands to which it was supposed to fall. Or, again, in many a bank and prosperous mercantile firm in the mountain desert he had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the safe was crammed with cash and by what means ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... Saturday came she didn't mention the sash; her headache had increased to such a persistent throbbing she didn't feel like going down to look over the Bonner Mercantile Co.'s stock of ribbons. She was having trouble enough concealing her physical distress. At dinner mother had noticed that she ate almost nothing; and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... have the satisfaction to announce that the Congress just closed has reduced taxation in the sum of $41,000,000. Then there was deep solicitude because of the long depression in our manufacturing, mining, agricultural, and mercantile industries and the consequent distress of our laboring population. Now every avenue of production is crowded with activity, labor is well employed, and American products find good markets at home ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... its course of seizing men of the mercantile marine, taking them aboard ships, keeping them away for months from the harbours of the kingdom, and then, when their ships returned, denying them the right of visiting their homes. The press-gangs did not confine ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... in his exigencies but to his bookseller. The particular character of Tonson I do not know; but the general conduct of traders was much less liberal in those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race, the delicacy of the poet was sometimes exposed. Lord Bolingbroke, who in his youth had cultivated poetry, related to Dr. King, of Oxford, that one day, when he visited Dryden, they heard, as they were conversing, another ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... that this Marco, who from the latter notice seems to have been engaged in mercantile affairs, may have been the Marcolino above mentioned, but it is perhaps on the whole more probable that this nobilis vir is the Marco spoken of in the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... told me it was because several people had explained to him that they remembered figures more easily than letters. We then talked to each other, agreeing upon the maxims of simplicity and directness which are at the root of all mercantile stability. He told me he required cash from all who bought his chairs; that there was no agreement, no insurance—no "frills," ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... building in the Thames, should succeed, as I hope she will, Russia might buy her and send her into the Black Sea. Somebody says she could not go there without passing the Straits, but, as she is built for mercantile purposes, that monster vessel might freely be taken up, and then form one of the eight ships allowed to Russia. Another proposition has been alluded to by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay)—that pointed out by the Russian Plenipotentiary—that Russia and Turkey should enter ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... Washington get nine hundred dollars for doing that for which men receive eighteen hundred dollars. The wheel of oppression is rolling over the necks of thousands of women who are at this moment in despair about what they are to do. Many of the largest mercantile establishments of our cities are accessory to these abominations, and from their large establishments there are scores of souls being pitched off into death, and their employers know it. Is there a God? Will there be a judgment? I tell you, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... mother. The first money that Dr. Kitto obtained was the proceeds of the sale of labels, which he made and peddled from shop to shop. One of the wealthiest men we know, a Christian man distinguished for his large benevolence, commenced his mercantile career by peddling goods that he carried in a band-box from one milliner's shop to another. "You must creep before you can walk," is an old maxim, and the lives of all distinguished men verify the proverb. He who creeps well, will walk so much the ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... War has brought a sense of internal dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flourishing trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and insuperable barriers to the commerce of ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... empire in the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain ultimately yielded command of the seas to England, beginning with the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Spain subsequently failed to embrace the mercantile and industrial revolutions and fell behind Britain, France, and Germany in economic and political power. Spain remained neutral in World Wars I and II. In the second half of the 20th century Spain played a catch-up role in the western international community. ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... most easily assimilated and practised by the intelligent classes; indeed, we may say with certainty that such methods can only be used effectively by the intelligent members of the community, such as leisured, professional and mercantile classes, skilled artisans and better class workers, whereas the lowest type of casual labourers whose home conditions render the use of preventive methods difficult or impossible, and the mentally deficient and criminal classes, are unaffected by ...
— Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation • Florence E. Barrett

... law. After having, however, shown the impropriety of many of the legal verdicts that had been given, they had the pleasure of seeing their plan publicly introduced and sanctioned. For in the month of June, 1793, a number of gentlemen, respectable for their knowledge in mercantile and maritime affairs, met at the Trinity-hall in Newcastle, and associated themselves for these and other purposes, calling themselves "The Newcastle upon Tyne ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... the amusements with which we tried to brighten the extreme quietude of our lives in the little Oakland house was reading aloud. We obtained books from the Mercantile Library of San Francisco, among which I especially remember the historical works of Francis Parkman, who was a great favourite with Mr. Stevenson. He had a theory that the not uncommon distaste among the people for ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... goods is another name for Swadeshi. He thinks that there will be a greater response in the boycott of all foreign goods. With the experience of years behind me and with an intimate knowledge of the mercantile classes, I venture to tell you that boycott of foreign goods, or boycott of merely British goods is more impracticable than any of the stops I have suggested. Whereas in all the steps that I have ventured to suggest ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... the groundwork of his story Mr. Henty has interwoven the adventures of an English youth, Roger Hawkshaw, the sole survivor of the good ship Swan, which had sailed from a Devon port to challenge the mercantile supremacy of the Spaniards in the New World. He is beset by many perils among the natives, but is saved by his own judgment and strength, and by the devotion of an Aztec princess. At last by a ruse he obtains the protection of the Spaniards, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... Robert Bateman, who gave L1000 for purchasing an estate, and erected eight alms-houses for as many poor families, besides a donation of L12 per annum to the curate. This worthy benefactor was born here, and from a state of indigence succeeded in amassing considerable wealth by mercantile pursuits. He is stated to have been poisoned, in the straits of Gibraltar, on his voyage from Leghorn, with a valuable cargo, by the captain ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... with them. The spirit of ambition had taken possession of this class as violent as ever it had done of any other. They felt the importance of this situation. The correspondence of the monied and the mercantile world, the literary intercourse of academies, but, above all, the press, of which they had in a manner entire possession, made a kind of electric communication everywhere. The press in reality has made every government, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... declaration of human rights; he may point to his political rights, the equality before the law, before God and the archangels—if he wants to eat, drink, dress and have a home he must choose such work as the conditions of the industrial mercantile or agricultural ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... while they officially wished for the success of the French arms and destruction of England, they withdrew by stealth what property they had in the French funds, to place it in the English. This refractory and, as Bonaparte called it, mercantile spirit, so enraged him, that he had already signed an order for arresting and transferring en masse his high allies, the Batavian directors, to his Temple, when the representations of Talleyrand moderated his fury, and caused the order to be recalled, which Fouche was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... at ten dollars a week in the counting room of a mercantile friend, and filled it till one day last October, when he dropped dead of apoplexy. I made a great mistake when I married in not asking him to settle a definite sum on his daughter. It would have been so much saved ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... survived the ravages of time; "you see all our comrades who have discovered that farming is not their vocation are hiving off into it, and many of them, being first-rate mechanics, they have taken to their trades, while those with mercantile tendencies have opened stores. You shall see that things will shake into their proper places, and right themselves in time, and this will become a flourishing colony, for the most of us are young and full of British pluck, while the climate, despite ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... centralisation little less than France in other matters; but in railway enterprise she has allowed mercantile competition to have freer scope. Private companies have constructed nearly all the Prussian railways; but in cases where the traffic appeared likely to be small, the government has rendered aid in one of three ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... she informed them, was Olivia D'Arcy. She was an orphan. Her brother, formerly a lieutenant in the royal navy, had been compelled by straitened circumstances to quit the service and enter the mercantile marine, in which he had without much difficulty succeeded in securing a command. By practising the most rigid economy he had contrived to maintain his only sister, Olivia, and educate her at a first-class school, and on her education being completed ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... the Book of Mormon connects the work directly with Solomon Spalding, a soldier of the Revolution from Connecticut and a graduate from Dartmouth in the class of 1785. Failing health induced Spalding to leave the ministry and to join his brother in a mercantile life at Cherry Valley and Richfield, New York. In 1809 he removed thence to Conneaut, in Ashtabula county, the extreme north-eastern corner of Ohio. Next west of Ashtabula is Lake county, wherein is located Kirtland—a place of great historic interest to the Mormons, as will appear before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... to have any real value. Petroleum is worth some shillings a gallon for actual use for many purposes. Stocks always claim to represent some real trade or business. The morus multicaulis was to be as permanent a source of wealth as corn, and was expected to produce the well known mercantile substance of silk. But nobody ever pretended that tulips could be eaten, or manufactured, or consumed in any way of practical usefulness. They have not one single quality of the kind termed useful. They have nothing ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... and finely formed. The last time that General Scott mounted him was in the latter part of 1859, which he did with the aid of a stepladder, for the purpose of having an equestrian portrait painted for the State of Virginia. The war coming on, the picture passed into possession of the Mercantile ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... was seen, going along the road which led to Sandsgaard. Contrary to his usual custom, he had taken a holiday that Monday. On his head he wore a grey felt hat of the particular shape which was called in the trade "the mercantile." The hatter had assured him that it had been originally made for Mr. Morten Garman, but that it was unfortunately just a trifle too small. The hat, however, exactly fitted Torpander, and dear as it was, he ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... so as to be able to present a survey of the whole state revenue; and in recording the names and qualities and claims of his generals, captains, and officials. A separate office was devoted to his correspondence, of all of which he kept accurate copies.[1] By applying this mercantile machinery to the management of his vast dominions, at a time when public economy was but little understood in Europe, Gian Galeazzo raised his wealth enormously above that of his neighbors. His income in a single year is said to have amounted to 1,200,000 golden florins, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... mercantile men like to see offsets in our books, before they are balanced. Whatever may be my opinion of the reigning family, which I only utter to you in confidence, and not as coin that is to pass from one to another, my love for the Grand Monarque ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... residence lay among the manufacturing districts; but lest any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them, that in my estimation all country towns, from the elegant Bath, down to the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or mercantile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively, comparatively, and superlatively, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... has always been very popular in Washington, especially on the tables of their Honors the Justices of the Supreme Court. For many years supplies were obtained from the old mercantile houses in Alexandria, which had made direct importations prior to the Revolution. During the Fillmore Administration many Washington cellars were replenished at the sale of the private stock of wines and liquors of the late Josiah Lee, of Baltimore. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... than could have been expected in the absence of his own continuous guidance. In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests, carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors' offices, the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical, mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments, throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy between him and his patron and chief ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... but it might with equal reason have been called ironwood. The wood is of a deep red colour, very hard, heavy, strong, extremely rigid, and rather difficult to work . . . used extensively in shipbuilding and engineering works in Australia; and in this country (England) it is employed in the mercantile navy for beams, keelsons, and . . . below the line ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... is English for a convicted person. Yet the percentage of the props and pillars of financial success and mercantile respectability who, in the self-candour and secrecy of their sleepless hours, are honestly unable to recall to mind one or more occasions when Portland, or Dartmoor, or Simonstown, or the Kowie loomed more than ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... worth remarking any farther upon all their drawing and re-drawing, on their circulation for putting off the evil day, on the play between the Treasury and the Caisse d'Escompte, and on all these old, exploded contrivances of mercantile fraud, now exalted into policy of state. The revenue will not be trifled with. The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder. Here, then, the metaphysicians descend from their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... proscribe the light of reason. The Popes of Paris put out the light of the heavens. And M. Pataud puts out the lights of the streets. Everywhere imperialism is triumphant: the theocratic imperialism of the Church of Rome: the military imperialism of the mercantile and mystic monarchies: the bureaucratic imperialism of the republics of Freemasonry and covetousness: the dictatorial imperialism of the revolutionary committees. Poor liberty, thou art not in this world!... The abuse of power preached and practised by the revolutionaries ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... by Mr. O'Connor and Dr. Curry to inspire the Catholics with the spirit of freedom. They succeed with the mercantile body, but are opposed by many of the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... see his daughter, whose fair and lovely countenance was the star which lighted his dreary, lonesome hours of toil, and inspired him with courage and cheerfulness. Nor could she know that he had only undertaken this journey because, by the failure of one of the largest mercantile firms in the Netherlands, his own house had been put in danger, and he had been threatened with the loss of his ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... Sparta of betraying the liberties of Greece. Nor was there slight ground for the suspicions of the Athenians against Aegina. The people of that island had hereditary and bitter feuds with the Athenians, dating almost from their independence of their parent state of Epidaurus; mercantile jealousies were added to ancestral enmity, and the wares of Athens were forbidden all application to sacred uses in Aegina. We have seen the recent occasion on which Attica was invaded by these hostile neighbours, then allied with Thebes: and at that ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... well indeed. And yet Winthrop, chatting with Frazee, just before they go out of the door, finds it necessary to whisper to him for some reason—half a dozen words under cover of a discussion of what the Shipping Board's new move will mean to the mercantile marine. "I told you so, George. See his hands? ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... bonfires of sacred pictures and sculptured wooden altar-pieces. Indeed the Reformation was a cruel blow to artists, for it took away Church patronage and made them dependent for employment upon merchants and princes. Except at courts or in great mercantile towns they fared extremely ill. Altar-pieces were rarely wanted, and there were no more legends of saints to be painted ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... spotless. The face was too delicate, too refined with all its bronze; the frame was well developed, but too active; it lacked the heavy thickness and the lumbering gait of the farmer bred to the plough. He might have conducted a great financial operation; he might have been the head of a great mercantile house; he might have been on 'Change; but that stiff clay there, stubborn and unimpressionable, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... lighter foppishness of Winslow and Crosby, not to mention Senor Perkins' more pronounced unconventionality, appeared as burlesques of their own characters in a play. The crowning contrast was reached by Captain Bunker, who, in accordance with the habits of the mercantile marine of that period when in port, wore a shore-going suit of black broadcloth, with a tall hat, high shirt collar, and diamond pin. Seated next to the Commander, it was no longer Don Miguel who looked old-fashioned, it was Captain ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... have been much on the topic of good government, both of ourselves and others, let me just give you one more illustration of what it means, from that old art of which, next evening, I shall try to convince you that the value, both moral and mercantile, is greater ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... the Jolly Bachelor, a Government gun-boat. The Bishop accompanied him, to see what missionary prospects there were in that distant spot, also because he was at that time anxious about Captain Brooke's health. Mr. Helms, the manager of the Borneo mercantile company, accompanied them as far as Muka, where was an establishment to collect sago for exportation. On the second day after his arrival, a piratical fleet of Ilanuns, consisting of six large, and as many smaller vessels, appeared ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... House (that was its name) became the National Theater; the second, which was known as Palmo's Opera House, when turned over to the spoken drama, became Burton's Theater; the Astor Place Opera House became the Mercantile Library. The Academy of Music is still known by that name, though it is given over chiefly to melodrama, and the educational purpose which existed in the minds of its creators was only a passing dream. The Metropolitan Opera House has housed twenty-three regular seasons of opera, though ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... immigrants, mostly traders, have long been going in small numbers to many such regions and have freely intermarried with native women. It is a matter of common observation to travelers that much of the small mercantile business has passed into the hands of Chinese mestizos. As far as the first few generations, at least, the cross here seems to be productive of good results. Whether Oriental immigration should be encouraged must depend on the decision of the respective governments, and considerations ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... little people of his theatre. These understood the change as well as he. When he lay down to prepare himself for sleep, he no longer sought amusement, but printable and profitable tales; and after he had dozed off in his box-seat, his little people continued their evolutions with the same mercantile designs. All other forms of dream deserted him but two: he still occasionally reads the most delightful books, he still visits at times the most delightful places; and it is perhaps worthy of note that to ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mandarins he could not make it pay expenses. A Canton merchant leased it on easy terms, and made it [Page 232] such a conspicuous success that he is now growing rich. It is an axiom in China that no manufacturing or mercantile enterprise can be profitably conducted by a deputation ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... thoughts, quiet thoughts. O the corroding torturing tormenting thoughts, that disturb the Brain of the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance. Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment, look upon them as Lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... two judges present, a good many lawyers, and a few officers of the army in uniform. The other guests seemed to be principally of the mercantile class, and among them was a ship-owner from Nova Scotia, with whom I coalesced a little, inasmuch as we were born with the same sky over our heads, and an unbroken continuity of soil between his abode and mine. There was one old gentleman, whose character I never made out, with powdered ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... also empowered to detain a foreign ship the master or seamen of which appear to him through their misconduct or want of skill to have caused injury to a British vessel, until the necessary application for satisfaction or security be made to the local authorities. Every British mercantile ship, not carrying passengers, on entering a port gives into the custody of the consul to be endorsed by him the seamen's agreement, the certificate of registry, and the official log-book; a failure to do this is reported to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... detailed laws regarding the employment of women, among them one restricting the hours of work in any mercantile establishment to fifty-eight in a week, except in retail stores during the month of December. Ten hours is a legal workday for ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... me, my good fellow, it's a very slow profession; sure, perhaps, but slow. But though I gained no actual pecuniary remuneration in the service, I have learned all the languages in Europe, which will be invaluable to me in my new profession—the mercantile one—in which directly I looked out for a ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... view of his house, standing some hundred feet back from the street. The south, or side, window afforded a view of his front yard and that of an adjoining dwelling, beyond which rose the wall of a mercantile block. Business was encroaching upon David's domain. Our friend stood looking out of the south window. To the left a bit of Main Street was visible, and the naked branches of the elms and maples with which it was bordered were waving defiantly at their rivals over the ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... Actions, within the Regard you observe your Friends have for you; and never, if it were in a Man's Power, to take as much as he possibly might either in Preferment or Reputation. My Walks have lately been among the mercantile Part of the World; and one gets Phrases naturally from those with whom one converses: I say then, he that in his Air, his Treatment of others, or an habitual Arrogance to himself, gives himself Credit for the least Article of more Wit, Wisdom, Goodness, or Valour ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... clouds were gathering every day more darkly over the head of the Advocate. The powerful mercantile interest in the great seat of traffic in the Republic, the personal animosity of the Stadholder, the execrations of the orthodox party in France, England, and all the Netherlands, the anger of the French princes and all those of the old Huguenot party who had been foolish ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the medium of creating many Knights of the Garter, nor can the Bath or the St. Michael and St. George very well be in his list of decorations "to order." But we know from the Paris and Vienna fairs that a Cross of the Legion is obtainable by Americans of the mercantile class; and as for the Lion and the Sun, it was an order created by some bygone shah for the express purpose of rewarding strangers who had rendered service to Persia; and what service more substantial, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... insisting that they be allowed to choose for themselves in what they wish to pay it, consequently the rate of living has risen greatly. The country is steadily going to ruin because the Indians are not compelled to pay in kind; for they refuse to plant or cultivate, and all engage in mercantile pursuits, seeing that they can easily gain the ten reals which is the amount of their tribute. Although the effort has been made to remedy this by another way—namely, by official visits from the alcaldes-mayor, in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... less than naval, mercantile, and moral claims would range themselves on the side of Germany and a free Ireland. For a free Ireland, not owned and exploited by England, but appertaining to Europe at large, its ports available in a sense they ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... shortage of bottoms, and vessels will be in brisk demand," Matt predicted. "There'll be a sharp rise in freight rates on all commodities the instant war breaks out, and the American mercantile marine ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... into the strife it assumed far wider proportions, and the independence of the Netherlands was mainly secured by the defeat and destruction of the great Armada, by the capture of Cadiz and the fatal blow thereby struck at the mercantile prosperity of Spain, and by the defeat of the Holy League by Henry of Navarre, aided by English soldiers and English gold. For the facts connected with the doings of Sir Francis Vere and the British contingent in Holland, I have depended much upon the excellent work by Mr. Clement Markham entitled ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... selvage. Preferring safety to profit, we put forth no efforts to realize on our speculations for almost a year. By that time the one day's wonder of "Who's got A.T. Stewart's silks?" had ceased to disturb the mercantile world and the grand procession of dry goods interest had passed on and over it. At last we crept forth like felons—as of good sooth! we were—and disposed of our mutilated silks to certain good folk whose forefathers once ruled Palestine. These ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... to have made them the greatest in the world. Is this immense wealth always to be exposed as a prey to the rapacity of freebooters? Why will you protect your citizens and their property upon land, and leave them defenseless upon the ocean? As your mercantile property increases, the prize becomes more tempting to the cupidity of foreign nations. In the course of things, the ruins and aggressions which you have experienced will multiply, nor will they be restrained while we have no appearance of a ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... religion had not yet moulded the society of the Koolfuans into the usual gloomy monotony, nor had it succeeded in secluding or subjecting the female sex, who on the contrary, were the most active agents in every mercantile transaction. In the widow Laddie's house, no fewer than twenty-one of these female merchants were lodged at the same time that Clapperton and Lander took up their abode with her, and it may be easily supposed, that the Europeans led a most pleasant life of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... on the character and services of one who, for a long succession of years, filled a notable place in our newspaper annals. Lang was of Scotch descent, but the place of his birth, I believe, was New-York. For some forty or more years, Lang's Gazette was recognized as the leading mercantile advertiser, and the patronage which it received from the business world was such as doubtless secured ample returns to its proprietor. The distinction of the paper was unquestionably its attention to the shipping interests of this commercial emporium. As a journal of either political ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... might have had a useful reserve to draw upon in the various auxiliary naval bodies if these had not, one by one, been abolished. The Mercantile Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance in this respect, for our ships at that time carried eighty-seven thousand foreign officers and men, three parts of whom were Teutons. These facts were presumably all well ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... he made their religious centre, and he reduced their voluntary contributions to a systematic levy which accustomed them to discipline and paved the way for further organisation. He was a great trader, he utilised the services and money of his disciples in mercantile transactions which extended far beyond the confines of India, and he thus ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... peas, lentils and beans, oil and vinegar, were also carried, and honey and almonds and raisins for the cabin table. Besides water a large provision of rough wine in casks was taken, and the dietary scale would probably compare favourably with that of the British and American mercantile service sixty years ago. In addition a great quantity of seeds of all kinds were taken for planting in Espanola; sugar cane, rice, and vines also, and an equipment of agricultural implements, as well as a selection of horses and other ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... illy equipped for campaigning, to combat a band of veteran troops who were bent on capturing Canada. A large proportion of our volunteers were mere youths who had left their colleges, office work, mercantile and other occupations, to go forth at their country's call, and had never encountered the perils of war or seen a hostile shot fired in their lives. But the high spirit of courage and patriotism which animated the hearts of all, rendered ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... counted by Mr. C. after myself, to be quite satisfied that there was no extra 3-1/2 d. one slipped in unawares,) pack up, and write invoices and letters for the London and country customers, all expressed thus, in the true mercantile style: ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... of a good mercantile training, and was therefore just the man needed in the young Association, and soon arose from one position to another, winning the meaner laurels of "chief of group" and "head of series," and in time ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... ships were scarce. Three or four vessels, anchored in Twofold Bay, constituted the mercantile fleet of the place; none of them were bound for Melbourne, nor Sydney, nor Point de Galle, at any of which ports Glenarvan would have found ships loading for England. In fact, the Peninsular and Oriental ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... both cool and pure. There are two good photographers and two booksellers. I don't think that plateglass fronts are yet to be seen. Many of the storekeepers employ native "assistants;" but the natives show little aptitude for mercantile affairs, or indeed for the "splendid science" of money-making generally, and in this respect contrast with the Chinamen, who, having come here as Coolies, have contrived to secure a large share of the small traffic of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... taverns, coffee-houses, and eating-houses, in great plenty. The chief diversions are puppets, rope-dancing, and music booths. To this Fair, people from Bedfordshire and the adjoining counties still resort. Similar kinds of fairs are now kept at Frankfort and Leipzig. These mercantile fairs were very injurious to morals; but not to the extent of debauchery and villany, which reign in our present annual fairs, near the metropolis and large cities." See an account of this fair in Hone's Year Book, page 1538-(ED). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... existence of a rule, does not prevent its being impeached on sufficient reasons. Lord Tenterden, as cautious and accurate judge as ever presided over a court of justice, thus expressed himself in delivering the judgment of the court on a question of mercantile law[16]—"It is of great importance, in almost every case, that a rule once laid down, and firmly established, and continued to be acted upon for many years, should not be changed, unless it appears clearly to have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... N.Y., until he was 16 years old. He then commenced learning the watchmakers' business, which he was obliged to relinquish, after three years, on account of his health. He then went to Laurel, Md., in 1844, and engaged with Patuxent & Co. as mercantile clerk and bookkeeper. In 1856 he commenced the manufacture of the French turbine water wheel. In 1879 he sold out his Laurel interests, went to New York and commenced manufacturing his own patents. On May 22, 1883, he founded the Drovers' and Mechanics' National ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... call the phenomenon of to-day? What is the outstanding feature of modern life? The bankruptcy, the proven fatuity, of everything that is bound up under the name of Western civilization. Men are perceiving, I think, the baseness of mercantile and military ideals, the loftiness of those older ones. They will band together, the elect of every nation, in god-favoured regions round the Inland Sea, thee to lead serener lives. To those how have hitherto preached indecorous maxims of conduct ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... Times, Oct. 31, 1919) the Company had acquired Carter Macy & Co., and the Rosin and Turpentine Export Co., and was interested in the International Mercantile Marine ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... provision against the injustice of their governors. Religious institutions, favourite prejudices, national manners, have in different countries, with unequal degrees of force, checked or mitigated the exercise of supreme power. The privileges of a powerful nobility, of opulent mercantile communities, of great judicial corporations, have in some monarchies approached more near to a control on the sovereign. Means have been devised with more or less wisdom to temper the despotism of an aristocracy over their subjects, and in ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh

... her as 'Annette,' and in his voice were four notes of exclamation. She came closer to him, and very quietly, but with an accent that was the very quintessence of Ibsenism, made the somewhat mercantile statement: 'I have come ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... caught. The senate, which doubtless was itself for the most part unaware of those intrigues, heard the strange announcement, as may be conceived, with indignation, and was glad of the favourable opportunity to humble the haughty mercantile city. A warlike praetor went even so far as to propose to the people a declaration of war against Rhodes. In vain the Rhodian ambassadors repeatedly on their knees adjured the senate to think of the friendship of a hundred and forty ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... in her emotion several times on seeing her children, Roxana shows herself a true woman. In short, though for the most part monumentally selfish, she is yet saved from being impossible by several displays of noble emotion. One of the surprises, to a student of Defoe, is that this thick-skinned, mercantile writer, the vulgarest of all our great men of letters in the early eighteenth century, seems to have known a woman's heart better than a man's. At least he has succeeded in making two or three of his women characters more alive than any of his men. It is another ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... to marry, but Mr. Bakewell advised him first to study the mercantile business. This he accordingly set out to do by entering as a clerk the commercial house of Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his friend Rozier entered a French house ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs

... machinery of communication, provisioning, and so forth. They will not be necessarily the "social superiors" of their commands, but they will naturally exercise the same authoritative command in warfare that a doctor does in a sick-room.] or for the naval and mercantile services, or into research and the literature of science. Some also would pass on to study for the profession of medicine through more special work in Chemistry and Physiology, and some with a proclivity for drawing and design would become architects, designers of appliances, and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... as no Philadelphia Roughs were reported in the city, the help expected from Philadelphia probably did not arrive. The most violent secession speeches were made by Duncan, who was then connected with the Mercantile agency in McCormick's block, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... with one voice, and Mr. Flugel bowed. Albeit a tumult raged within his breast, he remained outwardly the dignified man of business; and, as Elkan viewed for the first time Louis Stout's impressive partner, he could not help congratulating himself on the mercantile sagacity that had made ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... a good deal more of this drollery on the bill, which ended with the announcement that he would appear at the Mercantile Library on July 2d. It is unnecessary to say that the place was jammed on that evening. It was probably the greatest lecture event San Francisco has ever known. Four days later, July 6, 1868, Mark Twain sailed, via Aspinwall, for New York, and on the 28th delivered the manuscript of "The ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... the Sun. I have changed the Indian mercantile numerals into those of English "back-slang," which make a very ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs



Words linked to "Mercantile" :   mercantilism, mercantile system, commercial, mercantile agency, moneymaking, mercantile establishment, mercantile law, mercenary



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