that
they might not be mistaken for other women. And this was the law in the
City of London, as appears from records of 1351 and 1382.

The views and objects of English legislators as to the general subject
of dress, however preposterous in our eyes, were grave and serious
enough. They were so confident of their ground that it was recited that
"wearing inordinate and excessive apparel was a displeasure to God, was
an impoverishing of the realm and enriching other strange realms and
countries, to the final destruction of the husbandry of the realm, and
leading to robberies."

The Statute of Diet and Apparel in 1363, and the later statutes,
minutely fixed the proper dress for all classes according to their
estate, and the price they were to pay; handicraftsmen were not to wear
clothes above forty shillings, and their families were not to wear silk
or velvet. And so with gentlemen and esquires, merchants, knights and
clergy, according to graduations. Ploughmen were to wear a blanket and a
linen girdle. No female belonging to the family of a servant in
husbandry was to wear a girdle garnished with silver. Every person
beneath a lord was to wear a jacket reaching to his knees, and none but
a lord was to wear pikes to his shoes exceeding two inches. (1463.)
Nobody but a member of the royal family was to wear cloth of gold or
purple silk, and none under a knight to wear velvet, damask or satin, or
foreign wool, or fur of sable. It is true, notwithstanding all these
restrictions, that a license of the king enabled the licensee to wear
anything. For one whose income was under twenty pounds, to wear silk in
his night-cap was to incur three months' imprisonment or a fine of ten
pounds a day. And all above the age of six, except ladies and gentlemen,
were bound to wear on the Sabbath day a cap of knitted wool. These
statutes of apparel were not repealed till the reign of James I.

Sometimes, though rarely, a legislature has gone the length of suddenly
compelling an entire change of dress among a people, for reasons at the
time thought urgent.

In China a law was passed to compel the Tartars to wear Chinese clothes,
and to compel the Chinese to cut their hair, with a view to unite the
two races. And it was said there were many who preferred martyrdom to
obedience.

So late as 1746, a statute was passed to punish with six months'
imprisonment, and on a second offense with seven years' transportation,
the Scottish Highlanders,