SUMPTUARY LAWS AND THEIR SOCIAL INFLUENCE. 33 

 SUMPTUARY LAWS AND THEIR SOCIAL INFLUENCE.* 



By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M. D. 



THERE are many persons who have what they conceive to be 

 the good of their fellow-creatures so greatly at heart that, 

 when they can not succeed in making them conform to a standard 

 of right and wrong that they have set up for themselves, endeavor 

 to accomplish their object by legal enactments. It is true they 

 are very apt to do this under the fiction of insuring the public 

 welfare ; but it is none the less a fact, even if we admit the force 

 of their alleged motive, that such laws as those to which I refer 

 interfere with the personal liberty of those against whom they 

 are aimed, and this to an extent incompatible with that degree of 

 freedom of will and of action which is inseparable from the indi- 

 vidual in all communities founded upon what we call liberty. 

 Moreover, they are inquisitorial in their nature, and, what is per- 

 haps a point of even still greater importance, they fail to accom- 

 plish the object in view; and being continually evaded on one 

 pretext or another, tend to diminish that respect for the majesty 

 of law which all well-ordered citizens should entertain. 



The history of sumptuary laws, or laws tending to limit luxury 

 and expense, shows how truly the remarks just made are founded 

 on fact ; and yet in all ages of the world such laws have been 

 passed, to be disobeyed, held in contempt, remaining on the statute- 

 book unenforced, and finally either passing into oblivion or being 

 formally repealed. As we are apparently passing through a stage 

 of our national existence in which sumptuary laws are making 

 their appearance, it seemed to me that the Society for Medical 

 Jurisprudence and State Medicine might very properly have its 

 attention directed to the subject. 



Among the first within our knowledge to provide by law for 

 the regulation of the appetite, the taste, the affections, the dress, 

 and the most minute details in the life of a citizen was Sparta, 

 Sparta was a small country and its people were few ; they were 

 surrounded by powerful neighbors. The first principle instilled 

 into the mind of every individual was, that the state had a claim 

 upon him superior to that of parents or of any relational or social 

 bond. He was from the very cradle trained for war ; luxury, being 

 regarded as incompatible with true manliness, was to be sup- 

 pressed at all hazards. Foreigners, being liable to become a dis- 

 turbing factor in the system of discipline enforced, were not 

 allowed to enter Sparta ; even the feeble children, as being unfit 



* Read before the New York Society for Medical Jurisprudence and State Medicine, 

 June 3, 1889. 



vol. xxxvii. — 3 



