or Saturdays or in Lent, the old and sick excepted. The penalty in Queen Elizabeth's time was no less than three pounds or three months' imprisonment. The exemption of the sick from these penalties was abolished by James I. In fact, until the last two centuries, the legislatures of all ages took for granted that they could not choose but lay down rules of this minute personal and harassing description. The Statute of Diet and Apparel, above referred to, and later statutes fixed the proper dress for all classes, according to their estate, and the price they were to pay; handicraftsmen were not to wear clothes valued above forty shillings, and their families not to wear silk, fur, or silk velvet; and so with gentlemen and esquires, merchants, knights, and clergy, according to gradations. 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 in his shoes exceeding two inches. 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 nightcap was to incur three months' imprisonment, or a fine of ten pounds a day. All above the age of six, except ladies and gentlemen, were bound to wear on the Sabbath day a cap of knitted wool.
Of all such delusive notions as to the proper business of Government, Montaigne aptly disposes in a sentence: "To enact that none but princes shall eat turbot, shall wear velvet or gold lace, merely set every man more agog to eat and wear them."
Some sumptuary laws went to extravagant lengths, but each probably had some evil of the time in view. Tiberius issued an edict against people kissing one another when they met, and against tavern-keepers selling pastry. Lycurgus even prohibited finely decorated ceilings and doors.
During the reign of Henry VIII., when family quarrels among the Berkeleys raged, and a riotous company of Maurice Berkeley's servants entered the park of Lady Anne Berkeley at Tate, and killed the deer and fired the hayricks, she repaired to court and made complaint. The king at once issued a special commission under the great seal, authorizing her and others to inquire into and determine the riots, and made her one of the quorum. She returned to Gloucester, opened the commission, sat on the bench, impanelled a jury, and heard the charge, and on a verdict of guilty pronounced sentence accordingly.—Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.
FACETIÆ.
An accomplished practitioner of law in Jacksonville, Ill., having occasion to file in the circuit court a legal paper in behalf of himself and partner, affixed to the firm signature the Latin term per se—thus: "Doe & Stokes, per se." His partner suggested that the term meant "by himself" and that, as it was in the singular number, it was not appropriate to accompany a firm signature. Not at all at a loss for a correct term, he changed the signature; and the records there show a paper signed "Doe & Stokes, per 2 c's"!
In a case in Connecticut, the judge ruled that certain evidence was inadmissible. The attorney took strong exceptions to the ruling, and insisted that the offered evidence was admissible.
"I know, your Honor," said he, warmly, "that it is proper evidence; here I have been practising at the bar for forty years, and now I want to know if I am a fool!"
"That," quietly replied the court, "is a question of fact, and not of law; and so I will not pass upon it, but will let the jury decide."—Splinters.
She had sued for breach of promise, and the verdict of the jury was against her. "Want to pole the jury?" she repeated. "Yes, I do; jes gimme the pole for two minutes;" and she threw back her bonnet and bared her arms before the legal phrase could be explained to her by her counsel.—Grip.
A writ of attachment—a love letter.
