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Publican

noun
1.
The keeper of a public house.  Synonym: tavern keeper.






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"Publican" Quotes from Famous Books



... to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here." The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... breathes all truths that make for salvation; her on whom, taken as a whole, the devil's jaws are never to inflict a deadly bite; her against whom whoever rebels, however much he preach Christ with his mouth, has no more hold on Christ than the publican or the heathen. Such a loud pronouncement he dared not gainsay; he would not seem rebellious against a Church of which the Scriptures make such frequent mention: so he cunningly kept the name, while by his definition ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... in Dublin, was the son of a publican and himself became a staymaker, a trade from which he developed through the successive stages of attorney's clerk, newspaper-writer, theatrical critic, and essayist, into a novelist and playwright. His novel, Memoirs of a Magdalen (1767), was translated into French. ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... believing prayer availeth much; but you must pray for yourself—you must not trust to others praying instead of you. God will hear your prayers, though they may be very weak and imperfect, just as He heard the prayer of the poor publican who smote on his breast and said, 'God be merciful to ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... done his forty miles a day with Captain Barclay over the Highland roads. Broad and deep, as well as tall, he was a little short of twenty stone in weight, but his heavy, strong face and lion eyes showed that the spirit of the prize-fighter was not yet altogether overgrown by the fat of the publican. Though it was not eleven o'clock, a great tankard of bitter ale stood upon the table before him, and he was busy cutting up a plug of black tobacco and rubbing the slices into powder between his horny fingers. For ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... The world generally shrugs its shoulders in the face of the virtuous, and declares that in the hearts of the good there is no moral struggle equal to that which quakes the breast of the evil-doer, but to assure itself of its terrible error, it must play the part of the publican and learn to subdue ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... him in health, that I might have the pleasure of his conversation. He answered, God had ordered it otherwise. I desired him to prepare himself for a happier life, to acknowledge that he was a sinner, and to repent of his faults: and happening to mention the publican, who acknowledged that he was a sinner, and asked God's mercy, he answered: I am that publican. I went on, and told him, that he must have recourse to Jesus Christ, without whom there is no salvation. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... Chaff.—The custom mentioned by your correspondent "B." (p. 245.) as prevailing in Gloucestershire, is not peculiar to that county. In Kent, it is commonly practised by the rustics. The publican, all the world over, decorates his sign-board with a foaming can and pipes, to proclaim the entertainment to be found within. On the same principle, these rustics hang up their sign-board,—as one of them, with whom I was once remonstrating, most ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various

... parish I awoke one day to find the old village pound entirely removed by order of an estate agent, and a very interesting stand near the village smithy for fastening oxen when they were shod disappeared one day, the village publican wanting the posts for his pig-sty. County councils sweep away old bridges because they are inconveniently narrow and steep for the tourists' motors, and deans and chapters are not always to be relied upon in regard to their theories of restoration, and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... a miner, a M. Maneil, who is an enthusiastic archaeologist. The publican of the little inn at Trets told me of him: of how, when his work is over, and other labouring men come to the cabaret or the cafe, he spends his time in prowling over the battle-field of Pourrieres, searching for antiquities, and how he hoards ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... JOHN JONES, a publican, says, at about nine o'clock on Saturday, the 30th of October, he saw a light in the Tower, which flickered very much like a candle, as if somebody was continually blowing one out and blowing it in again. He observed this for about half an hour, when it began to look as if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... gifts of eloquence and learning, was welcomed among the Baptists almost as an angel from heaven. But his well-meant efforts to work a reformation in the Baptist churches were despised, and he was thrust out as a heathen man and publican. ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... The publican was stern and cold, And said: "Her mother's score Is writ, as you shall soon behold, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... "Dun Cow," (a sad misnomer for a place where milk was the last beverage the visitors would ever think of calling for), was to many the centre both of attraction and detraction, for here quarrels were hatched and characters picked to pieces. The landlord had long since been dead, of the usual publican's malady—drink fever. The landlady carried on the business which had carried her husband off, and seemed to thrive upon it, for there was never lack of custom at the "Dun Cow." Just a stone's-throw from this public-house, on the crest of the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... educational reform for a quarter of a century, because, instead of seeking to enable the citizen to refresh himself without being poisoned or inebriated and to get the children thoroughly taught, they have wanted primarily to revenge their outraged temperance principles on the publican and their outraged Nonconformist principles on the Church. Of such Liberals it may be said that the destructive revolutionary tradition is in their bones; they will reform nothing unless it can be done at the expense of ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... Sept. 21st. This Apostle and Evangelist, before his call to the apostleship, was known as Levi, the publican, or tax-gatherer. He may possibly have been the brother of St. James the Less, and of St. Thomas also. He was the first to write a Gospel, which he addressed to the Jews, his aim being to show that Jesus was the Messiah. It is probable that he alone, of all the New Testament ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; and his prayer was—'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pork-merchant, on account of his coarse garments, is excellent, but will not bear abbreviation. Adams is splattered by the huge, overfed swine, and ejaculates, "Nil habeo cum porcis; I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs!" The condition of a curate and the theology of the publican are set forth in the conversation between Parson Adams and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... were heavily, covered with glistening snow. A few days later we picked up two men, who were tramping towards the diamond-fields. One was named Beranger; I believe he was the son of a former lessee of Covent Garden Opera House. His companion was a man named Hull, an ex-publican from Lambeth. With these two chance companions we entered into a sort of partnership; for some months after reaching the diggings we ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... Bank"—the same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses. Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican's wit. "Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it's hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank," said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But, after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr Scruby ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... me a Yankee," said Dotty, who never liked Horace's tone when he used the word. "I'm not a Yankee; I'm a 'Publican!" ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May

... amusement for the boy population. Nothing,' adds Mr. Pickwick, 'can exceed their good-humour. It was but the day before my arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house of a publican. The barmaid had positively refused to draw him any more liquor; in return for which he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet, and wounded the girl in the shoulder. And yet this fine fellow was the very first to go down ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... discarded her stays sent a shudder through the man who was forced to dance with her—though whether they were pleasurable shudders or merely shuddery shudders I do not know. Nowadays, the woman who wears an out-and-out corset, tightly laced, is either a publican's wife or is just bursting with middle age. The corset of to-day is little more than the original plaited grass originated by Mother Eve—in width, that is; in texture it is of a luxury unimaginable in the Garden ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... our opinion of ourselves. In His last analysis of the truly justified man and the truly reprobate, our Lord made the deepest test to be their opinion of themselves. 'God, I thank Thee that I am not as this publican,' said the hypocrite. 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' said the true penitent. And then this fine principle comes in here—not only to speed the sure sanctification of a true Christian, but also, if he has skill and courage to use it, for his assurance and comfort,—that the saintlier he ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... No pudding, no Christmas. The repast is sacred, and the English meditate over it for six months in advance—they are the only people who put money in a savings'-bank for a dinner. Poor families economise for months, and take a shilling to a publican every Saturday of the year, in return for which on Christmas Day they gorge themselves, and are sick for a week after. This is their religion—thus they adore their God." M. Pyat goes on to describe the butchers' shops before Christmas; one of them, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... But as no one was in sight, I queried whether this was not the enemy of my soul, to keep me from prayer, and fell upon my knees a third time, determined to remain in the position of prayer until my first petition to my Heavenly Father was presented. And the prayer of the publican was repeated over and over again, "God be merciful to me a sinner." These words above all others seemed just for me. I was a sinner, and mercy was what I wanted. I returned to the house with a still more fixed resolve to continue asking, with ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... askance at the blazing lights and the surging crowd of Mr. Smith's saloon. They preached against him. When the Rev. Dean Drone led off with a sermon on the text "Lord be merciful even unto this publican Matthew Six," it was generally understood as an invitation to strike Mr. Smith dead. In the same way the sermon at the Presbyterian church the week after was on the text "Lo what now doeth Abiram in the land of Melchisideck Kings Eight and Nine?" and it was perfectly ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... nature, substance or quality he demanded, the sale is not to the prejudice of the purchaser. The notice may be given verbally or by a label supplied with the article. A common law notice may also be given. In Sandys v. Small, 1878, 3 Q.B.D. 449, a publican had displayed a placard within the inn to the effect that the spirits sold in his establishment were watered. This was held, as it were, to contract him out of the Food Act. Similarly, in the case of butters that had been adulterated with milk, the vendors, by giving a general ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... I supposed that also to have been lost by the bank. I thought this a very great misfortune, as I wished to have settled on shore in some business or other. Perhaps I might have chosen that of a publican, as many sailors do. However, I had now no resource but to go to ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... and galling, doubtless, to a temper at least sufficiently susceptible of passion, he offered notwithstanding, to yield up half his acquisition, for the sake of peace and good neighbourhood, and his amicable proposal was rejected with scorn. Then follows the scene at Mr. Heskett the publican's, and you will observe how the stranger was treated by the deceased, and, I am sorry to observe, by those around, who seem to have urged him in a manner which was aggravating in the highest degree. While he asked for peace and for composition, and offered submission to a magistrate, or to a mutual ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... this publican.' A publican, you must know, was a tax-gatherer. He used to collect the taxes from the people. They did not like to pay their taxes, and so they did not like the tax-gatherers, and despised them. And thus the pharisee thanked ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott

... Continually the lost and fallen came to him, for there was something in him that made it easy for them to come and tell him all the burden of their sin and their yearning for a better life. Even one whom he afterward chose as an apostle was a publican when Jesus called him to be his disciple. He took him in among his friends, into his own inner household; and now his name is on one of the foundations of the heavenly city, as an apostle ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... that if her David went down to meet his comrades at the public-house on his arrival, his brief holidays would probably be spent in a state of semi-intoxication. Indeed, even with this promise she knew that much of his time, and a good deal of his hardly earned money, would be devoted to the publican. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... not attempt an apology.—Amid all my hurry of business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the Excise; making ballads, and then drinking, and singing them! and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work of two different publications; still, still I might have stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... worship, and had become liable to all the accidents and contingencies that attend the efforts of a merely human ambition. The whole story is an architectural version of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican who went down to the temple ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... literalism, a mere formal observance of law or custom without the true spirit of service, without any inward sweetness or power. Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees will occur to every one; the parable of the Pharisee and publican, and that of the widow's mite, among others, are classic illustrations of a cut-and dried formalism in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... the disgust the publican the office unhealthy the switch the felt we are full up (or all present) at least I believe it to be so ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... Northumberland-street, at the other on the back of Whitehall-place. When this territory was first accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his way in the Strand, some years ago, the original settlers were found to be a tailor, a publican, two eating-house keepers, and a fruit-pie maker; and it was also found to contain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning, about five or six o'clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the pavement both ways, which the late brewer, Andrews, threw out in his snug parlour some twenty years back, and where he used to sit smoking, with the sash up, in summer afternoons, enjoying himself, good man; and the great room, at the Swan, originally built by the speculative publican, Joseph Allwright, for an assembly-room. That speculation did not answer. The assembly, in spite of canvassing and patronage, and the active exertions of all the young ladies in the neighbourhood, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... boldly declaring that it was not simply an error but a heresy to exclude devotion from any calling whatever, provided it be a just and legitimate one. This shows the mistake of those who imagine that we cannot save our souls in the world, as if salvation were only for the Pharisee, and not for the Publican, nor for the house of Zaccheus. This error which approaches very nearly to that of Pelagius, makes salvation to be dependent on certain callings, as though the saving of our souls were the work of nature rather than of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... low-minded concubine, who, having acquired influence by prostituting herself, retained it by prostituting others. Maria Theresa actually wrote with her own hand a note, full of expressions of esteem and friendship, to her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, the kidnapper of young girls for the haram of an old rake, a strange cousin for the descendant of so many Emperors of the West! The mistress was completely gained over, and easily carried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to resent. His feelings ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... resident Of Bliss, beheld our sinful ball, And charged His own Son innocent Us to redeem from Adam's fall. —"Yet must it be that men Thee slay." —"Yea, tho' it must must I obey," Said Christ,—and came, His royal Son, To die, and dying to atone For harlot and for publican. Read on that rood He died upon— Virtue is ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... men, that there is a Man in the midst of the throne of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; that the fate of the world and all that is therein, the fate of sun and stars, the fate of kings and nations, the fate of every publican and harlot, heathen and outcast, the fate of all who are in death and hell, depend alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus; the heart which grieved at the tomb of Lazarus, His friend; the heart which wept over Jerusalem; the heart which said to the blessed Magdalene, ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley

... postmaster alarmed and wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They talked together in low tones ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... from tradition respecting the four Gospels, which are the only undisputed ones in the whole Church of God throughout the world. The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a publican, but afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, who, having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it in Hebrew. The second is according to Mark, who composed it as Peter explained to him, whom he [Peter] also acknowledged ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... suppose, to prohibit the brewing of ale and the distillation of spirit." The priest's brother was a publican and had promised a large subscription. "And now, Biddy, what are you going to give me to make the walls secure. I don't want you all to be killed ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished to force their way in too and a fight ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... shipowners was one Vernon Ley, who plied his trade chiefly at Exeter and Plymouth, whence he was known to send to Bristol, in the space of six months, as many as seventy or eighty men, whom he provided with postchaises for the journey and 8 Pounds per man as bounty. James White, a publican who kept the "Pail of Barm" at Bedminster, made a close second in his activity and success. Spithead had its regular contingent of crimps, and many an East India ship sailing from that famous anchorage ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... here he rested from his labours. With six and six in his pocket he could afford luxuries. That night he slept in a bed at the Harrow Hotel, and next morning breakfasted on grilled bacon and boiled eggs. Before leaving, he sold the publican two bottles of the world-famous Healing ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... is Methodists. A proud family, brought low by Mr. Hoover and his crowd. Had to sell our land. 'Spect us would have starved, as us too proud to beg. Thank God, Mr. Roosevelt come 'long. Him never ask whether us democrat or 'publican nor was us black or white; him just clothe our nakedness and ease de pains of hunger, and goin' further, us goin' to be took care of in our old age. Oh, how I love dat man; though they do ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... publican returned towards Morok the instant the latter entered the large room, into which the leaders of the Wolves had just forced an entry, whilst their companions were vociferating in the yard and on the staircase. Eight or ten of these madmen, urged by others to take part in these scenes ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... him, "she'll drink anything she can stand up and pay her money for." Ernest could hardly believe his ears, but when the doctor had seen his wife and she had become more quiet, he went over to the public house hard by and made enquiries, the result of which rendered further doubt impossible. The publican took the opportunity to present my hero with a bill of several pounds for bottles of spirits supplied to his wife, and what with his wife's confinement and the way business had fallen off, he had not the money to pay with, for the sum exceeded the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... trees, where in spite of a day in the police court and before a judge, and the arrest of our players at the suit not of a Puritan but a publican, and the throwing of currant cake with intent to injure, I received very great personal kindness, a story of his childhood told by my host gave me a fable on which to hang my musings; and the Dublin enthusiast and the American enthusiast who interchanged ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... you to Emma. The plan of the Buffams steers admirably between two niceties. Tell Emma we thoroughly approve it. As our damnd Times is a day after the fair, I am setting off to Enfield Highway to see in a morning paper (alas! the Publican's) how the play ran. Pray, bring ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... and he can well afford to be just. Our divine Exemplar never hesitated to acknowledge that which was good in men of whatever nationality or creed. He could appreciate the faith of Roman or Syro-Phoenician. He could see merit in a Samaritan as well as in a Jew, and could raise even a penitent publican to the place of honor. It was only the Pharisees who hesitated to admit the truth, until they could calculate the probable effect ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... was extinguished, and the tables and chairs commenced to dance about the floor, and some of them struck him on the shins. Upon this he left the house, declaring that he had seen the Devil!" Possibly this ghost had been a rabid teetotaller in the flesh, and continued to have a dislike to the publican's trade after he had become discarnate. At any rate the present occupants, who follow a different avocation, do not ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... nor that still, an' fer closer is the resemblance. When ye bring me to the point, I maun speak. Ye are the just Pharisee, sir, that gaed up wi' the poor publican to pray in the Temple; an' ye're acting the very same pairt at this time, an' saying i' your heart, 'God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, an' in nae way like this poor misbelieving unregenerate sinner, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... the story of the execution of the eighty women here alluded to, as that is told by Rashi on the preceding page of the Talmud. Once a publican, an Israelite but a sinner, and a great and good man of the same place, having died on the same day, were about to be buried. While the citizens were engaged with the funeral of the latter, the relations of the other ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street. She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why people could not ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... The ways of Providence are not to be judged by men—'Many are called, but few chosen.' It is easier to talk of humility than to feel it. Are you so humble, vile worm, as to wish to glorify God by your own damnation? If not, away with you for a publican and a Pharisee!" ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... group, which has been of late years in the hands of zealous amateurs and dealers elevated to the rank of "school," was John Crome, born at Norwich, December 22, 1768. The son of a publican, he was first an errand boy to a local physician and afterwards apprenticed to a sign painter. Without instruction, hampered by an early marriage, he forsook his occupation, and sought to paint landscapes; meanwhile finding in the houses of the neighboring ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... had soon tired of a life on the ocean wave, and, abandoning the prospect of becoming another Nelson, had joined the police force as a humble constable. But he did not remain one long; and became in turn a Fleet Street publican, the proprietor of a Haymarket night-house, an auctioneer, a picture dealer, a bill discounter (with a side line in usury), and the editor of a Sunday organ. Next, the theatre attracted his energies; and in 1852 he secured a lease of Drury Lane at the moderate rental of L70 a week. On Boxing-night ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... find one in favor of teetotalism. On the contrary he will find plenty of texts which recommend the "wine that cheereth the heart of God and man;" and he knows that his master, Jesus Christ, once played the part of an amateur publican at a marriage feast, and turned a large quantity of water into wine in order to keep the spree going when it had ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... MATTHEW, a publican, by the Sea of Tiberias, who being called became a disciple and eventually an apostle of Christ; generally represented in Christian art as an old man with a large flowing beard, often occupied in writing his gospel, with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... just a century before the siege. The people have ever before them these warlike spoils, which may account for their martial spirit. An old Prentice Boy told me of the great doings of 1870, how a Catholic publican, one O'Donnell, endeavoured to prevent the annual marching of the Boys, who on the anniversary of the raising of the siege, parade the walls, fire guns, and burn traitor Lundy in effigy; how 5,000 men in sleeve-waistcoats entered ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the table, in a glass flask, brittle as virtue, light as sin, and fragile as folly. They are called Sixtusses, after that pious old Sixtus V. who hanged a publican and wine-seller sinner in front of his shop for blasphemously expressing his opinion as to the correctness of charging four times as much to put the fluoric-acid government stamp on them as the glass cost. However, taxes must be raised, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... and not with him, and takes pleasure in unmasking the pretended ascetic and Puritan Angelo; but for the frailties of the flesh he has an ever-ready forgiveness. Like the greatest of ethical teachers, he can take the publican and the sinner to his heart, but not the hypocrite or the Pharisee ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... Augustine says (Tract. xliv, super Joan.): "If God were not to hear sinners, the publican would have vainly said: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner"; and Chrysostom [*Hom. xviii of the same Opus Imperfectum] says: "Everyone that asketh shall receive, that is to say whether he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... like Matthew the publican, ceased Full early from hoarding with stainless mind, To Torrington only and home inclined, Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... use his tongue or pen against him. Such wretches, however, were found, and did not seem in the least to dread the infamy which was promised them. The scurrilous ballad of which we have already spoken was by one Ned Ward, a publican and rhymester, and it pictured the entry of the duke in verses after the fashion of Hudibras. It depicted the procession as ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... with his success, had stepped back, and was indulging in some fancy sparring, when Mike sprang upon him like a panther. They clinched, and Mike, who had got the under grip, hurled Bill forcibly against a stout man who looked like a publican. The two fell ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... I have heard a clergyman say of his village publican. But what else did he think the publican was there for?—to preach total abstinence? Naturally, inevitably, the whole of the Trade is a propaganda—not of drunkenness, but of habitual heavy drinking. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... him with the same friendliness as before. The character of the publican and sinner is not always practically incompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of us scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the faultiness of our own arguments, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... 'If you ever gave a thought to anything more recent than the High-King's Court at Tara you would know that the landlords are not the wealthy part of the community any longer. There's many a provincial publican calling himself a Nationalist who could buy up the nearest landlord and every Protestant in the parish along with him. I'm a Protestant myself, born and bred among the class you speak ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... repaired or rebuilt the ale-house at Lissoy, did not forget, besides restoring the 'Royal Game of Goose' and the 'Twelve Good Rules,' to add the broken teacups, 'which for better security in the frail tenure of an Irish publican, or the doubtful decorum of his guests, were embedded in the mortar.' (Prior, 'Life', 1837, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... synagogues. The land around it belonged to a Greek and, for this, our people offered a high price. The heathen who owned it refused and, to annoy us, raised mean houses round the synagogue. The Jewish youths interrupted the workmen; and the wealthier of the community—headed by John, a publican—subscribed eight talents, and sent them to Florus as a bribe, that he might order the building to ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... the bell-ringers. Their services would be demanded presently to toll out the old year, to welcome with joyful peal the new; and they assembled here until closing time that they might enjoy a pint of the extra strong liquor a prosperous publican provided for his customers at ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... cheerful glass, and the jovial evening, and the drink that mellows the heart, know nothing of the sad work that goes on in a boozing-place, while the persons who draw wild pictures of impossible horrors are worse than the hired men who write in publican's papers. It is the plain truth that is wanted, and one year of life in a public-house teaches a man more than all the strained lectures and colourless statistics. I am going to give a series of pictures that will set forth every phase of public-house life. It is useless to step casually into ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... May 15th.—Walked home from church with Mrs. Montagu and Emily and Mrs. Procter, discussing among various things the necessity for "preparation" before taking the sacrament. I suppose the publican in the parable had not prepared his prayer, and I suppose he would have been a ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... hath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, "Lord, be merciful to me!" Nothing of desert I claim, Unto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall and golden street. What Thou wilt, O Father, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... talked with Franz Siegel, the idol of the German Americans. He had been a lieutenant in his native country, but subsided, in St. Louis, to the rank of publican, keeping a beer saloon. When the war commenced, he was appointed to a colonelcy, in deference to the large German republican population of Missouri. His abilities were speedily manifested in a series of engagements which redeemed the Southern border, and he finally ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... to extremities even the peaceable and submissive inhabitants of the Orient: in a single night, at the order of Mithradates, 100,000 Romans were massacred. A century later, in the time of Christ, the word "publican" was synonymous ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... badly needed, but each load consisted of either sugar or lager-beer—both excellent articles but hardly adaptable to bread-making. The climate, situation, surroundings, and want of means of recreation all combine to make the publican's business a lucrative one. When, as sometimes happens, a fossicker comes in with a "shammy" full of gold, and lays himself out to make himself and every one else happy, then indeed the hotel-keeper's harvest is a rich one. And since nobody cares much whether he buys ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... when Jesus was going out of Capernaum, to the seaside, followed by a great crowd of people, he passed a publican, or tax-gatherer, who was seated at his table taking money from the people who came to pay their taxes. This man was named Matthew, or Levi; for many Jews had two names. Jesus could look into the hearts of men, and he ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... jerkily shrugs his right shoulder. The other, Ignat Ryabov, a sturdy, broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything and is everlastingly silent, is sitting in the corner under a big string of bread rings. The door, opening inwards, throws a thick shadow upon him, so that Slyunka and Semyon the publican can see nothing but his patched knees, his long fleshy nose, and a big tuft of hair which has escaped from the thick uncombed tangle covering his head. Semyon, a sickly little man, with a pale face and a long sinewy neck, stands behind his counter, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... dim her brilliance by reason of their own. There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining number. There was a Rabbit Inspector who rapped out "The Scout" in a defiant barytone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its depths by the simple pathos of "When Sparrows Build." Mrs. Clarkson could afford to encourage such tyros with marked applause. The only danger was that Sir Julian might think she ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... still be at liberty to walk or to drive or to bicycle or to fly, or, at the very worst, to stay at home. Competition, as every business man knows, sometimes arises from the most unexpected quarters. The picture-house and the bicycle have damaged the brewer and the publican. Similarly the motor-car and the golf links have spoilt the trade in the fine china ornaments such as used to be common in expensively furnished drawing-rooms. People sit less in their rooms, so spend less on decorating them. The members of the household always retain ultimate control over their ...
— Progress and History • Various

... Chertsey,—he jumped over a fence and then on his back caught the ball—was 84; and John Wells, buried at Farnham, died at the age of 76. John Wells shared with "Silver Billy" a curious distinction. He was Beldham's brother-in-law, and an admiring publican at Wrecclesham put up a sign to draw thirsty wayfarers to Wrecclesham's best beer. It was "The Rendezvous of the Celebrated Cricketers, Beldham and Wells." If it were still standing, it would attract ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... the whip as they turned into the straight, and then The Trickler and the publican's mare singled out. We could hear the "chop, chop!" of the whips as they came along together, but the mare could not suffer it as long as the old fellow, and she swerved off while he struggled home a winner by a length or so. Just as they settled down to finish Victor dashed up ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... spirituous liquors," below; and down the aforesaid passage, divided only by a paling from the spacious premises where her earthenware and coarser kinds ef crockery were deposited, were the public-house, stables, cowhouses, and pigsties of Mr. James Tyler, who added to his calling of publican, the several capacities of milkman, cattle dealer, and pig merchant, so that the place was one constant scene of dirt and noise and bustle without and within;—this Old Red Cow, in spite of its unpromising locality, being one of the ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford

... self-depreciation. If, even when they undertake to lower themselves, they cannot help insinuating self-praise, be sure their humility is a puddle, their vanity is a well. This sentence is typical of the whole Diary or rather Iary; it sounds Publican, smells Pharisee. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... the hat. "Give me my tile, and let's mizzle.—Waiter, I can't wait; must bring the bill up to my lodgings in the morning if it isn't ready.—Come away, come away—I shall never get over this as long as ever I live. 'Live and let live,' indeed! no wonder he stuck up for the innkeepers—a publican and a sinner as he is. Good night, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... but the great principle was proclaimed of a common brotherhood as children of God our Father, and of love to him as such. In his sermon on the mount, the parables of the lost sheep and silver piece, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the Pharisee and the publican; in his private teachings to his disciples; and, above all, by his daily example he taught and illustrated, as the leading characteristics of his kingdom, love to God, the brotherhood of man, the rights of all, however poor, degraded, or despised. More, he makes this idea of brotherhood and ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen

... up his coat, and discovers a piece missing from the tail, and is about to take it off for a closer inspection when the publican ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien

... endeavoured to mollify by his liberality, those he could not govern by restraint: he multiplied licenses for the sale of rum, and emancipists aspired to commercial rivalry with the suttlers in commission. The chief constable was himself a publican, and the chief gaoler shared in the lucrative calling, and sold spirits ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... the Evangelists to write,—as though it had been Himself that wrote it[406]."—The guidance was remote, I grant you. The mechanism which moved the pens of those blessed writers was far above out of their sight; and complex beyond anything which the mind of man can imagine; (so that the publican lisped of "gold, and silver, and brass[407];"—and the companion of St. Peter, at Rome, wrote Latin words in Greek letters[408];—and the Physician of Antioch withheld the statement that the woman who had spent all that she had in consulting many physicians, "was nothing bettered, but ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... when the only way to keep the men from fighting was to give them their liquor so that it could not do them much harm." I was very much offended by the comparison of my father, who was an officer and a gentleman of rank, with her father, who was a village publican; but I should like to say, that I think now that I was wrong and Jane was right. If her father gave up profit for principle, he was like my father, and like the ancestor we get the motto from, and like every other honourable man, of ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... impossible to them, immediately pounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and they infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and say—if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecture them! and certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been allowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics surely take little or no pains to understand the object of their contempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without hesitation condemn him—and there where ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... the capital of the moral British race, only here we are perfectly frank, and make no effort to hide our little sins, while there, they cover them up carefully and make believe to be virtuous. It is the veriest humbug—the parable of Pharisee and Publican over again. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... in a depressed mood. The tobacconist was a hearty, red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican—the kind of man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to the Derby in a dog-cart; and usually there seemed to be nothing on his mind except the vagaries of the weather, concerning which he was a great conversationalist. But now moodiness had claimed him for its own. After a short ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... publican's? oh, the sinners! And this is the saint that Honor McBride would be passing herself upon us for? And all the edication she got at Mrs. Carver's Sunday school! Oh, this comes of being better than one's neighbours! A fine thing to tell ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Horatius Flaccus) was born on the river Aufidus, in the year 65 B.C., and was son of a freeman who seems to have been a publican or collector of taxes. At about the age of twelve, after having attended the local school at Venusia, to which the children of the rural aristocracy resorted, he was taken to Rome, where he enjoyed the advantages ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... holiness. They cannot be challenged for gross faults, and that is all the way they have to rest in: Alas! could not a wicked Pharisee say as much as they, viz. "That he was no extortioner, unjust person, or an adulterer, nor such as the publican was," Luke xviii. 11. How many heathens, as to this, shall outstrip such as profess themselves Christians? and yet they lived and died strangers to the right way to happiness. See what that poor young man said, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... following motto, which, for want of room, I put over-leaf, and desire you to insert whether you like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... you have told us the Gospel." His way being paved by this brief introduction, the Bishop addressed them, saying that he thanked them for the feast they had prepared, and the very kind welcome they had given to him. When Jesus Christ was on earth, Matthew the publican and others made feasts for Him, and as the Indians had received him in Christ's name and for His sake, therefore they would receive the fulfilment of the promise which Christ gave, that "whosoever gave to a disciple a cup of cold water only ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... "Adulterous father, bastard son—publican sheltering youthful offenders from healthy punishment in the interests of personal gain."—Of that last she made nothing, failed to follow it. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... sent Dan to see what had happened. Dan found Dad, with his shirt off, at a pub on the main road, wanting to fight the publican for a hundred pounds, but could n't persuade him to come home. Two men brought him home that night on a sheep-hurdle, and he gave up the idea ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... intelligent man of the same name, now deceased, who lately kept the inn in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, and acted as a guide to visitors through that beautiful scenery. From him I learned the story many years before he was either a publican, or a guide, except to moorfowl shooters.—It was evening (to resume the story), and the Duke was pressing on to lodge his prisoner, so long sought after in vain, in some place of security, when, in crossing ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... bold conception has fortunately fallen into the custody of one by whom it is duly valued; for, when Dick, in his more advanced state of proficiency, became dubious of the propriety of so daring a deviation to execute a picture of the publican himself in exchange for this juvenile production, the courteous offer was declined by his judicious employer, who had observed, it seems, that when his ale failed to do its duty in conciliating his guests, one glance at his sign was sure to put them ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... and imagination, as the qualities to be looked for in leaders, and a bias for democracy in our economic life. We were more Irish truly in the heroic ages. We would not then have taken, as we do today, the huckster or the publican and make them our representative men, and allow them to corrupt the national soul. Did not the whole vulgar mob of our politicians lately unite to declare to the world that Irish nationality was impossible ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... an interesting band. Two hundred strong, we counted among our number farmers, clerks, schoolmasters, students, and a publican. My mess consisted of a Colonial, an Irishman, a Hollander, a German, a Boer, and a Jew. It must not be imagined, however, that we were a cosmopolitan crowd, for the remaining hundred and ninety-four were nearly all true Boers, mostly of the ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... said brother Cross, rebukingly, "beware of the temptation to vain-glory. Be not like the Pharisee, disdainful of the publican. To be too well pleased with one's self is to be ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated the following lines by Burns,—heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment-seat,—the publican's prayer in paraphrase:— ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... and set forth to borrow the needful five dollars. Whatever the reason, he was not successful, and when they met again at Scab Johnny's, Mr. Gibney employed his eloquence to obtain credit from that cold-hearted publican, but all in vain. Scab Johnny had been too long operating on a cash basis with Messrs. Gibney and McGuffey to risk adding ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... from a few holes, was not at all bad, but Bagshaw, who was captaining the Busters, decided at once that he should keep wicket because he did not want to stand up to his knees in grass. The captain of the Burtington team was the local publican, a hearty man who told us in the same breath that he was very glad to see us, and that he had played cricket for thirty years, boy and man. His name was Plumb, and I liked him very much; he played in both braces and a belt, because he told us belts were ticklish things and braces sometimes ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... Exeter Hall variety are apt to claim a monopoly of 'doing good' which does not belong to them, and are inclined to be conceited in consequence. The ordinary pursuits are equally necessary and useful. The stockbroker and the publican are doing good in the sense of being 'useful' as much as the most zealous 'clergyman or sister of mercy.' Medicine does good, but the butcher and the baker are still more necessary than the doctor. We could get on without schools or hospitals, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... in the same year each of these men, who presumably were ale-house keepers, had to pay 30s.—a substantial sum considering the then value of money—for the same offence and "for suffering parishioners to smoke in his house." I have been unable to obtain any information as to why a publican should have been fined an additional 10s. for the heinous offence of allowing a brother parishioner ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson



Words linked to "Publican" :   mixologist, barkeeper, United Kingdom, UK, Great Britain, U.K., barkeep, tapper, Britain, bartender, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, barman, tavern keeper, tapster



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