Word: down-and-out
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...Peking, "you see no fluttering old newspapers or leaking garbage cans as in Chicago alleyways; you see no down-and-out old men such as straggle about the Bowery in New York." There are "no more open sewers, no more flies, no more rats." "Nobody is arrogant here, nobody is grabby, nobody feels himself above or below anybody else." The whole population is "identically dressed in blue cotton." "Nightclubs and brothels have gone," and there is "not one drunkard." Pedicab operators are so content that they no longer quarrel and shout; when "two bicycles or pedicabs collide, those involved exchange...
...Byrd's pay-as-you-go philosophy was personal as well as political; from boyhood, he paid as he went. Although he belonged to the eighth generation of one of Virginia's first families,* its fortunes were depleted when, at 15, he took over his father's down-and-out Winchester Star, worked part-time as a telephone operator to buy newsprint-which he paid for on a day-to-day basis. The paper prospered and, with its earnings, Byrd leased an apple orchard. He now owns about 7,000 acres and is the world...
Adhemar de Barros. once the flamboyant governor of São Paulo and lately a political down-and-out, last week dragged himself back from oblivion by winning the mayoralty of Sao Paulo city. The comeback was spectacular; a year ago Adhemar, convicted of giving away five state-owned trucks while in office, was living in uneasy exile in Bolivia...
...Cigarette Problem. The poverty with which the book deals is more comic than tragic. Hero Gordon Comstock is bone-poor, not because he is genuinely down-and-out, but because a pinkish bee in his bonnet tells him that it is nobler to half-starve than surrender to what he calls "the money-code." A poet of sorts (he has published a slim volume entitled Mice), Gordon has not got much farther because he is usually too cold and hungry even to hold a pencil. Gordon's conscience allows him to earn about ten dollars a week as salesman...
Soft Touch. To Isthmians, Bilgray has always been a generous citizen as well as a storied saloonkeeper. He shelled out thousands to the needy, fed the down-and-out with the Tropic's free lunch, paid fares home for the stranded, lent as much as $5,000 on a few moments' notice. Selling out meant burning $40,000 in old chits. But when a sob story sounded phony, vinegary Max Bilgray could also summon a waiter and say coldly: "Bring Mr. Smith the key to the crying room." In a warm salute to Bilgray, President Ricardo ("Dickie") Arias...