Word: skim
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Originally, the Indian zamindar (land agent) was a creature of the Turks, who ruled India in the 13th century. His function was simply to skim off a fat slice (often 50%) of the peasant soil-tiller's earnings, keep a cut for himself, and turn the rest over to his superior on the feudal ladder. Under the Moguls, who followed the Turks, India's peasants were systematically exploited but rarely dispossessed...
Died. Dr. Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach. 75, the world's No. 1 rare-book dealer and one of its most avid collectors; after long illness; in Philadelphia. Called the "Napoleon of Books" by rival bibliophiles who often watched him skim off the cream of the rare-books sales, "Rosy" owned, at one time or another, a $25,000,000 collection of rare volumes. Among them: eight Gutenberg Bibles, between 30 and 40 first folios of Shakespeare, and the famous Bay Psalm Book, first book printed (1640) in Britain's American colonies, which he bought for a "reasonable...
...catch. Nobody in Wall Street believed that the "private buyers" would hold on to their bonds. Many, perhaps most of them had simply taken what the Street calls a "free ride"; they had put down 10% to buy the bonds and by quickly selling them, they could skim a quick profit on the ⅜% premium which the bonds immediately brought in the open market.* Thus, most of the bonds ostensibly sold to private individuals would probably find their way to the banks in short order. They would provide the basis for a huge expansion of credit at a time when...
Bread & Cheese. But the fly is only part of the trouble. The foundation found that twelve village families out of every 100 live only on unleavened bread, skim milk and cheese. Fifty-six percent manage to get fresh vegetables once a week. At one village, there is a single doctor who had to treat 27,000 new patients plus 1,100 pregnant women and 5,500 children -a clientele that gave him time only to ask for symptoms and guess at a remedy...
Johnny breaks down, but Gerard refuses to turn back. They hit a dirt track pitted with deep holes which must be taken in first gear. Then comes a stretch of washboard to be crossed at 50 m.p.h. so that the truck will skim over the crests of the ridges. One of his shock-absorbers, Gerard discovers, has been sabotaged by another man who hoped to get the assignment. Farther on, Gerard and Johnny barely miss a collision with a truck carrying the other half of the nitro. In one village, both trucks are misled to a side road...