“Anything to speak of.”
1836. [The new hotel] will be a smasher, to which the Astor House will be no circumstance.—Phila. Public Ledger, Nov. 16.
1838. The race [races] of John Gilpin or of Alderman Purdy were … mere circumstances to ours.—E. Flagg, ‘The Far West,’ i. 145.
a. 1840. See Appendix I.
1842. The scoring which David Paul Brown, Esq., gave W. B. R. in the General Sessions was hardly a circumstance to that which he gave him yesterday.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, Feb. 24.
1848. Aligator aint no suckemstance to ’em [the abolitionists]. ’Em got horns like billy-gote, an’ big red eyes like ball ob fire.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 17 (Phila.).
1852. I ’m a ‘remote circumstance,’ I know, and can ’t read nor write ‘pen-writing;’ but when it comes to Ingen-fighting, you can set me down for ‘seven chances!’—Knick. Mag., xl. 389 (Nov.).
1854. You ’d better think of all the pretty girls you ever seed, all at once, and then ’t won’t be a circumstance. Elvira takes the rag off any thing there ’s about these parts.—Id., xliv. 576 (Dec.).
1855. [The amount for which I am sued] will swallow me and all my substance, and you must rub that down to a mere sarcumstance.—W. G. Simms, ‘Border Beagles,’ p. 72 (N.Y.).
1856. To be beaten by such a mere circumstance of a “gal-child,” as he himself phrased it, was a circumstance of mortification which prompted him to a more determined effort.—W. G. Simms, ‘Eutaw,’ p. 394: also pp. 552–3.
1857. I’ve travelled on the cars in my day, when they made every thing gee again, but that kind o’goin’ wasn’t a circumstance to the way we tore along.—S. H. Hammond, ‘Wild Northern Scenes,’ p. 62.
1859. Imagine a dozen boats starting out from the same house for an afternoon’s row! The confusion and trouble at Riker’s wouldn’t be a circumstance to it!—Yale Lit. Mag., xxiv. 223 (March).
1867. Versoovius and the Critter ain’t a circumstans!—Artemus Ward, ‘The Showman’s Courtship.’
