Gratuity

“ His heart is in his work, and for this no equivalent is possible; what is accepted is in the nature of a fee, gratuity, or consideration, which enables him who receives it to maintain a certain expected mode of life. ”

“ Each man that works here gets a gratuity of two dollars a month, but he loses a part of that gratuity if he offends against the rules of the place. They get the money when they go out. Our payments to prisoners amount to between one hundred and fifty and two hundred dollars a month. ”

“ Whoever corruptly gives, offers or promises to an agent, employee or servant any gift or gratuity whatever, with intent to influence his action in relation to his principal's, employer's or master's business ”

“ They had their meat from heaven on free-cost, for themselves and their families, and their raiment waxed not old upon them; so that they neither needed wages nor had reason to expect any. Freely you have received, freely give. The obligations we lie under, both in duty and interest, to serve God, should be sufficient to quicken us to our work, though we had not a reward in prospect. ”

“ I speak here not of a purchased but of a gift-ticket, an emanation of the generosity of the Managers, a token of conscious desert. With the first you can hardly bring yourself to go to the theatre; with the last, you cannot keep away. If you have paid five guineas for a free admission for the season, this free admission turns to a mere slavery. You seem to have done a foolish thing, and to have committed an extravagance under the plea of economy. You are struck with remorse. You are impressed with a conviction that pleasure is not to be bought. ”

“ If any one be sold to one of his own nation, let him serve him six years, and on the seventh let him go free. But if he have a son by a woman servant in his purchaser's house, and if, on account of his good-will to his master, and his natural affection to his wife and children, he will be his servant still, let him be set free only at the coming of the year of jubilee, which is the fiftieth year, and let him then take away with him his children and wife, and let them be free also. ”

“ Free, as being, by the general practice and habits of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which exposes a man to constraint, and a species of slavery to his creditors. ”

“ And away with all these stipend-men and glebe-land men, augmentation men, [able bodied men provided money by the state directly of by legislation entitling them to collect money] gifts, fees and reward, &c.
42. Let no man, Priest nor Lawyer, have Tithes, augmentations, stipends, glebe lands, great fees, gifts and rewards, but if any one will preach or read the Law, let him do it freely, for God is a free God, and so are his people, and Christ is a free Christ, and offered himself freely. ”

“ I’ll see that you get a living allowance from—from a certain source every week. It’s not charity, d’you understand, not charity. It’s what you have a right to demand from society. You can consider me the agent of society. ”

“ For hands must not be idle when the year
Is getting through, and Christmas drawing near,
With piles on piles of picture-books to print
For people who spend money without stint:
And, while they're paying down their liberal gold,
Guess little what is bought, and what is sold.
But he, at last, was free till Monday, free
To sleep, to eat, to dream, to sulk, to walk,
To laugh, to sing, to whistle, or to talk ... ”

“ Imagine a fellow like myself taught to regard card playing, the theater, and dancing as mortal sins, with a father who believed in infant damnation and predestination; a fellow brought up to gaze in silent admiration at Charles Sumner; and who was allowed a silver half-dollar a week pocket money—imagine me, I say, sitting out there with this free-thinking, free-hating, free-handed slave owner! ”

“ If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a service, but may do him one, and his sister also.’
‘The last reason, sir,’ said Plornish, ‘would be quite sufficient. ”

“ And then all at once comes a thick crowd of people with all sorts of demands, as if it was just that I should neglect your hunger and work for others, or as if, in the matter of giving and receiving, I had a debt to any one but you. ”

“ SIMPLICITY. I'll tell thee, my lad. Come hither: if thou wilt be ruled by me, thou shalt pay nothing; I'll give it thee, if thou wilt dwell with me; and, I promise thee, this counsel is for thy prefarmin'. [243] Hadst not thou better serve a freeman of the City, and learn a trade to live another day, than to be a serving-boy in thy youth, and to have no occupation in thine age. I can make thee free, if thou wilt be my prentice.
WEALTH. Why, Wealth is free everywhere: what need I serve you? My lord is a freeman, if that may do me good. ”

“ We look at these big freeholds, and money in bank is a little thing. On Washington Street, and down behind the Dabney House--don't we each alike seek the same thing? We want life, and more life. We want to be happy, and we want to be free. Well--we know it's hard to win these prizes when we're poor, but is it so easy when we're rich? To live shut off on a little island, calling the rest common and unclean--is that being happy and free, is it having life abundantly? I look around, and don't find it so. ”

“ You had little more responsibility than my mules.
“’But now all that is changed. Being free men, you assume the responsibilities of free men. You sell me your labor, I pay you money, and with that money you provide for yourselves. You must look out for your own clothes and food, and the wants of your children. If I advance these things for you, I shall charge them to you, for I cannot give them like I once did, now I pay you wages. ”

“ I pay in money always, but they prefer to make excuses of illness to me, and slip off and work for my neighbor who pays in cards redeemable only in his store, because it is done on the sly and in opposition to my authority—in other words, that is freedom. ”

“ Consider the poor painted girls who pursue bread with nameless indignities through our streets at night. They are free by the current standard. And the poor half-starved wretches struggling with the impossible stint of oakum in a casual ward, they too are free! The nimble footman is free, the crushed porter between the trucks is free, the woman in the mill, the child in the mine. Ask them! They will tell you how free they are. They have happened to choose these ways of living—that is all. No doubt the piquancy of the life attracts them in many such cases. ”

“ Perhaps a subscription might be set on foot by some charitable souls, to enable them to pay their voyage home? How humiliating for these brave-hearted folks, who had always lived by their labor and never held out a begging hand, to come down so low as to be the recipients of charity! ”

“ The feeling of responsibility engendered in children or young people by trusting them with a definite amount of money for certain general purposes, can scarcely fail of a happy result. It binds them to a performance of duty while it confers, at the same time, a delicious sense of freedom. An allowance for necessities gives its recipient liberty of choice in expenditure, but the choice must be judicious or the recipient suffers. ”

“ So we submerge ourselves in business, profession, or superficial amusement. We live for something—do not merely live. The wage-slave lives for the evening’s liberty, the business man for his wealth, the preacher for his church. ”

“ But let me say, just here, that my experience with boys and girls forbids free use of money. As soon as they reach a proper age, they should have, if possible, an allowance, and be obliged to keep account of every penny of it. ”

“ I verily believe that if we had offered to take money from all the people we have visited, instead of asking them to bestir themselves to gain their own freedom, our morning would have been a triumphant success. ”

“ It is a fixed charge upon the lives of those who sit above the salt. It has a right to insist upon full payment. "To whom much is given, of him will much be required."
It is for every man to ask himself: "How much do I eat up in my generous mode of life? ”

“ Wherever I have had the opportunity of speaking, I have scarcely ever forgotten to hold out to the people the necessity—that I feel, at least—of our settling our obligations and freeing ourselves from debt in the day of prosperity. ”

“ That we owe mankind a debt?
No!—true freedom is to share
All the chains our brother wear,
And with heart and hand to be
Earnest to make others free!
—Lowell. (Note—This should be arranged as a class exercise, each pupil who takes part naming the author from whom he quotes.) ”

“ What a man gives, he gives, but what a man lends, he lends expecting to be repaid! A beggar may be under endless obligation, but a debtor who cannot pay is a slave! He may be God’s free man all the while—that depends on causes and conditions, but not the less is he his fellow’s slave! ”

“ What is the freedom of the most free? ”

“ I will pay back what I took from my clients to the very last farthing. And anything that is left over shall be given in charity to the poor. What do you say to that? We shall keep nothing for ourselves—nothing. ”

“ Yes, perhaps; but poverty has its pride, as wealth sometimes has its humility. Do not be angry because I wish to retain my independence. It is so good to be free, when liberty costs only a bad dinner and a wretched bed. ”

“ We see in it the common law of nature, the just judgment enforced: "From him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath." The gift unemployed becomes a debt, which it may cost a life to redeem. ”

“ From that time to this I have done without a host of things that used to be indispensable, and have abjured them one and all for a single luxury that I cannot live without,—the luxury of utter independence,—the joy of knowing that I owe no man anything,—the blessing of being beholden to no one on earth for a single service I cannot pay for. ”

“ But I must give over my labors, for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and other expenses, every lecture I deliver in any neighboring town, costs me a sovereign, and I can not afford to ride my hobby such a rate.” He said, “You must not give over your labors; God has blessed them with success; He has blessed you with talents, and me with wealth, if you give your time, I ought to give my money. ”

“ Ah, simple people, how little do you know the blessing that you enjoy! Neither hunger, nor nakedness, nor inclemency of the weather troubles you. With the payment of seven reals per year, you remain free of contributions. You do not have to close your houses with bolts. ”

“ For God, the author and the dispenser of such grace, takes as suitable usury the most precious things to be found among men—mildness, gentleness, magnanimity, reputation, renown. Do you not regard this command as marked by philanthropy? As also the following, "To pay the wages of the poor daily," teaches to discharge without delay the wages due for service; for, as I think, the alacrity of the poor with reference to the future is paralyzed when he has suffered want. ”

“ They were a couple contented with themselves and their position in society,—a trifle too frugal, if not near—staid, jogtrot, business people of week days, church-goers who patronized free seats for economy's sake on Sundays. ”

“ Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they were paid for their labor, we argue,
I. Because God rebuked in thunder, the sin of using the labor of others without wages. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work." Jer. xxii. 13. God here testifies that to use the service of others without wages is "unrighteousness," and pronounces his "wo" against the doer of the "wrong." ”

“ The reply of the legal dignitary is preserved, as well as the young gentleman's application: "If you can't live upon your allowance, you may starve, Sir; and if you marry, you shall not have your allowance." ”

“ They cry out for their money, and as the prophet saith, Clamor operariorum ascendit ad aures meas—the cry of the workmen is come up into mine ears. Oh, for God's love, let the workmen be paid if there be money enough, or else there will whole showers of God's vengeance rain down upon your heads. ”

“ Free-will Offerings.—It has ever been characteristic of the Church and people of God, that they take upon themselves the care of the poor, if any such exist among them. To subserve this purpose, as also to foster a spirit of liberality, kindness, and benevolence, voluntary gifts and free-will offerings have been asked of those who profess to be living according to the law of God. ”

“ But justice, simple justice, no one thinks of offering you. And yet, would it not be just that when, after a long day's toil, you have received your modest wages, you should have it in your power to exchange them for the greatest amount of satisfactions and enjoyments which you could possibly obtain for them from any one in any part of the world? ”

“ And if they are thus instructed, that there is no true charity without self denial, they will gain more than they are called upon to give: For the suppression of one luxury for a charitable purpose, is the exercise of two virtues, and this without any pecuniary expense. ”

“ What is meant by the word 'necessity' in this clause? Simply this- -that the rich man shall be at liberty to make use of all the splendid luxuries he has collected around him, on any day in the week, because habit and custom have rendered them 'necessary' to his easy existence; but that the poor man who saves his money to provide some little pleasure for himself and family at lengthened intervals, shall not be permitted to enjoy it. ”