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In truth, the Scottish peasantry are still infected with that rage for funeral ceremonial, which once distinguished the grandees of the kingdom so much, that a sumptuary law was made by the Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of restraining it; and I have known many in the lowest stations, who have denied themselves not merely the comforts, but almost the necessaries of life, in order to save such a sum of money as might enable their surviving friends to bury them like Christians, as they termed it; nor could their faithful executors be prevailed upon, though equally necessitous, to turn to the use and maintenance of the living the money vainly wasted upon the interment of the dead.
And thus we find set down to the credit account of other universities the non-existence of luxury in this or other modes, whilst, meantime, it is well known to the fair inquirer that each or all are indulgences, not at all or so much as in idea proscribed by the sumptuary edicts of those universities; but, simply, by the lower scale of their general revenues.
But the fault is in that public opinion which desires to control matters of this nature. Such an arrangement partakes of all the vice of a sumptuary law, and sumptuary laws are in their very essence mistakes. It is well that a man should always have all for which he is willing to pay.
Although the financial wisdom of the age was doing its best to impede commerce, to prevent the influx of foreign wares, to prohibit the outflow of specie in obedience to the universal superstition, which was destined to survive so many centuries, that gold and silver alone constituted wealth while, at the same time, in deference to the idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation, it was vigorously opposing mulberry culture, silk manufactures, and other creations of luxury, which, in spite of the hostility of government sages, were destined from that time forward to become better mines of wealth for the kingdom than the Indies had been for Spain, yet on the whole the arts of peace were in the ascendant in France.
We cannot understand why he, a free citizen of the free-est country on earth, insists on calling himself a subject; but we are reconciled to the fiction of proclaiming ourselves citizens, while each day, more and more, we are becoming subjects the subjects of sumptuary legislation, the subjects of statutes framed by bigoted or frightened lawgivers, the subjects of arbitrary mandates and of arbitrary decrees, the subjects, the abject, cringing subjects, of the servant classes, the police classes, the labor classes, the capitalistic classes."
The objection that applies to sumptuary laws in general has tenfold force in the case of National Prohibition riveted down by the Constitution, and imposed upon the whole nation by particular sections and by particular elements of the population. A question of profound interest in connection with this aspect of Prohibition demands a few words of discussion.
On these principles were raised temples to modesty and temples consecrated to the sanctity of marriage; hence, sprang the institution of censors, the law of dowries, the sumptuary laws, the respect for matrons and all the characteristics of the Roman law. Moreover, three acts of feminine violation either accomplished or attempted, produced three revolutions!
"I hear," said Rivers, "that old Gurney and his set are determined to pass the Scott Act in this county, and Murden says it is a much more perfect bill than the Dunkin Act was." "Yes, I believe they are," said McWriggler, "and, as far as I can learn, it is about as perfect as any sumptuary law can be; but Toper says they will have that fixed all right.
The gala dress is much gayer than that ordinarily worn, but there is little difference in the material, the dress of every class being regulated by stringent sumptuary laws. Blues and purples predominate in winter, the lighter and more varied colours being generally confined to materials only adapted for summer use.
The pourpoint of Louis was of deep crimson velvet, slashed with satin of the same colour, and totally without ornament, a simplicity which marked his own observance of the sumptuary edict that he had lately issued; whereas De Luynes, with an arrogant disregard of the royal proclamation, was attired in a vest of pale blue, richly embroidered with gold and relieved by a short mantle of amaranth, clasped by a rich jewel similar to that which attached the snowy plume to his black velvet cap.
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