om various parts of the attire. The fool's bauble was
a short staff bearing a ridiculous head, to which was sometimes
attached an inflated bladder, by which sham castigations were inflicted;
a long petticoat was also occasionally worn, but seems to have belonged
rather to the idiots than the wits. The fool's business was to amuse his
master, to excite his laughter by sharp contrast, to prevent the
over-oppression of state affairs, and, in harmony with a well-known
physiological precept, by his liveliness at meals to assist his lord's
digestion.[980]

[980] "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1879, vol. ix. p. 366; see
Doran's "History of Court Fools," 1858.

The custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. There
is a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred's Ecclesiastical Laws,
if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a
passage from "The Choice of Change," etc., by S. R. Gent, 4to,
1598--"Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at
their follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles."

In the "Comedy of Errors" (v. 1), the servant says:

"My master preaches patience to him, and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool."

_Forfeits._ In order to enforce some kind of regularity in barbers'
shops, which were once places of great resort for the idle, certain laws
were usually made, the breaking of which was to be punished by forfeits.
Rules of this kind, however, were as often laughed at as obeyed. So, in
"Measure for Measure" (v. 1):

"laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanc'd, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark."

_Gambling._ It was once customary for a person when going abroad "to put
out" a sum of money on condition of receiving good interest for it on
his return home; if he never returned the deposit was forfeited. Hence
such a one was called "a putter-out." It is to this practice that
reference is made in the following passage ("The Tempest," iii. 3):

"or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
Good warrant of."

Malone quotes from Moryson's "Itinerary" (1617, pt. i. p. 198): "This
custom of giving out money upon these adventures was first used in court
and noblemen;" a practice whi