on which even the
most devout devotees to mass or ruling class wisdom would now decline to
defend.

It is helpful, perhaps, to look back to the persistent fallacious
assumption that men can be made frugal and useful members of society by
laws and edicts. Every thoughtful student feels sure that future
generations will look upon our present efforts to regulate the
self-regarding activities of humans with the same cynical leer as that
which now flits over our faces as we read the following:--

The earliest sumptuary law was passed 215 B. C., enacted that no woman
should own more than half an ounce of gold or wear a dress of different
colors, or ride in a carriage in the city or in any town or within a
mile of it, unless on occasion of public sacrifices. This law was
repealed in twenty years. In 181 B. C. a law was passed limiting the
number of guests at entertainments. In 161 B. C. it was provided that at
certain festivals named the expense of entertainments should not exceed
100 asses, and on ten other days of each month should not exceed 10
asses. Later on it was allowed that 200 asses, valued at about $300, be
spent upon marriage days.

A statute under Julian extended the privileges of extravagance on
certain occasions to the equivalent of $10, and $50 upon marriage
feasts. Under Tiberius, $100 was made the limit of expense for
entertainments. Julius Caesar proposed another law by which actual
magistrates, or magistrates elect, should not dine abroad except at
certain prescribed places.

Sumptuary laws, that is to say, laws which profess to regulate minutely
what people shall eat and drink, what guests they shall entertain, what
clothes they shall wear, what armor they shall possess, what limit shall
be put to their property, what expense they shall incur at their
funerals, were considered by the Early and Middle Ages as absolutely
necessary for the proper government of mankind.

Tiberius issued an edict against people kissing each other when they met
and against tavern keepers selling pastry. Lycurgus even prohibited
finely decorated ceilings and doors. In England the statutes of
laborers, reciting the pestilence and scarcity of servants, made it
compulsory on every person who had no merchandise, craft or land on
which to live, to serve at fixed wages, otherwise to be committed to
gaol till he found sureties. At a latter day, all men between twelve and
sixty not employed were compelled to hire themselves as serv