“Excrement living on increment”

British writer and journalist Hugh Kingsmill (1889-1949) once described the old pensioners living at a seaside hotel as “excrement living on increment.” The infrequently used expression “excrement living off/on increment” describes any undesirable person living on the government dole (or on unearned income, such as investments).
 
   
Wikipedia: Hugh Kingsmill
Hugh Kingsmill Lunn (21 November 1889 – 15 May 1949), who dropped his last name for professional purposes, was a versatile British writer and journalist. Writers Arnold Lunn and Brian Lunn were his brothers.
 
Google Books
About Kingsmill
By Hesketh Pearson and Malcolm Muggeridge
London: Methuen
1951
Pg. 56:
Hughie once described them aptly as ” excrement living on increment,” and we never failed to be diverted by the spectacle of Lythe watching them as they waddled into a meal like a herd of cows making for new pasture.
 
Google Books
Hugh Kingsmill, a Critical Biography
By Michael Holroyd
London: Unicorn Press
1964
Pg. 15:
The Albany was an old-fashioned establishment, patronized by an elderly and often decrepit clientele. Kingsmill described them once, with some acerbity, as excrement living on increment.
   
Google Books
God’s Apology:
A Chronicle of Three Friends
By Richard Ingrams
Newton Abbot: Readers Union
1978, ©1977  
Pg. 113:
The hotel, situated on the sea front, had a clientele consisting of the elderly and affluent whom Kingsmill once described as ‘excrement living on increment’.
   
Jewish Racism
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He came to the conclusion that, uh, as uh, Hugh Kingsmill described the City of London and its denizens as ‘excrement living on increment.’
   
Orange Papers
Hi all
Submitted by mikenotts on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 16:59
(...)
In fact, the more you insist on “spirituality” (WTF that means) as a player in human behavior, the more solid your (unearned) income - unearned either as a pension, living off investments (excrement living off increment as someone once crudely put it - Hugh Kingsmill actually (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Kingsmill) seems to be.
   
PINOC (Photography Is Not A Crime)
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COMMENTS
Michael Ross Julia • a year ago
I don’t know him. I know OF him, as does anyone who’s ever made money with a camera in New York, I think. You know the old adage about bankers, ‘excrement living on increment’?