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ABOUT THIS PROJECT
RECENT POSTStontine
TAWN-teen
noun
a financial agreement where a prize or amount of money is given to the last living party to the agreement
1792The Rights of ManEvery person in England, male and female, pays on an average in taxes two pounds eight shillings and sixpence per annum from the day of his (or her) birth; and, if the expense of collection be added, he pays two pounds eleven shillings and sixpence; consequently, at the end of fifty years he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings; and at sixty one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings. Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax in a tontine, the money he shall receive after fifty years is but little more than the legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government. It is on this ground that I have extended the probable claims to one-third of the number of aged persons in the nation. Is it, then, better that the lives of one hundred and forty thousand aged persons be rendered comfortable, or that a million a year of public money be expended on any one individual, and him often of the most worthless or insignificant character? Let reason and justice, let honour and humanity, let even hypocrisy, sycophancy and Mr. Burke, let George, let Louis, Leopold, Frederic, Catherine, Cornwallis, or Tippoo Saib, answer the question.1889The Wrong BoxTonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him; and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes of this unvarnished narrative.1986La TontinePEACOCK: We do everything that a doctor and a pharmacist can do for each other. We work in perfect harmony. And, to further our friendship, I am going to tell you about a little investment I have made. I've taken out a ten thousand pound Tontine on him. | FLEM: You? (puzzled) Why? | PEACOCK: (supercilously) You know what a Tontine is, of course? | FLEM: Certainly, a Tontine is—a Tontine is—(helplessly) What the devil is a Tontine? | PEACOCK: (smugly triumphant) It's a last man out club. The survivor gets all the money from all the policies.1995CetagandaGeneral Yenaro had the misfortune to be the last of five successive ghem-generals who lost the Barrayaran War, and thus the sole inheritor of a, as it were, tontine of blame.Labels: Le Sage, Lloyd Osbourne, Lois McMaster Bujold, Thomas Paine
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