77 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fall out by several persons that sell wine and strong water, as well 

 in vessels on the river as also in several houses " ; and the Orders 

 of the General Court of Massachusetts, 1643, forbidding continu- 

 ance " above half an hour at a time in any common victualing- 

 house " for the purpose of tippling, justifies this " for the prevent- 

 ing that great abuse which is creeping in by excess in wine and 

 strong waters." Were these bodies entirely mistaken in supposing 

 they were actuated by " a regard for the welfare of society M in- 

 stead of sumptuary considerations ? On the other hand, in 1637 

 the record " it hath appeared unto this Court (Mass.), upon many 

 sad complaints, that much drunkenness, waste of the good creat- 

 ures of God, mispence of precious time, and other disorders have 

 frequently fallen out in the inns and common victualing-houses," 

 includes sumptuary considerations, with others (as did the prohi- 

 bition two years later, cited by Dr. Hammond), as reasons for 

 regulating the price of liquors and meals at inns.* Need any one 

 confound this with laws simply to prevent drunkenness ? Per- 

 haps the confounding of these two different things has arisen 

 from the mendacious forgery of Peters (Blue Laws, 26). "A 

 drunkard shall have a master appointed by the selectmen, who 

 are to debar him from the liberty of buying and selling " (pub- 

 lished in 1781). Under the head of " Innkeepers," etc., the New 

 Haven Laws and the First Connecticut Code provide penalties, 

 ten shillings or less, for drunken behavior, etc., at inns, and for 

 the " disorder, quarreling, or disturbance " resulting. And here 

 the colonies — the Northern ones, for those of the South seem to 

 have laid no such restriction — followed the laws of England ; for 

 example (4 James I, ch. 5) " Every person convicted of drunken- 

 ness shall forfeit, for every such offense, five shillings; and if 

 unable to pay, shall be set in the stocks six hours." The law of 

 Minnesota against drunkenness may be more severe in amount of 

 penalty — " from ten to forty dollars for the first offense "■ — but is no 

 more " sumptuary " than the old statute of James I — no more so 

 than the French and German military prohibition of tobacco. Is 

 it the expenditure made by the soldiers for cigars or cigarettes 

 that these army orders are intended to prevent, or the unfitting of 

 their nerves and muscles for military service ? What an absurd 

 bugbear the word " sumptuary " is, to be sure ! 



We can now readily see that the law of Iowa, twice referred 

 to by Dr. Hammond, is not a sumptuary law at all ; did not have 

 for its prototype the partly sumptuary colonial enactment of Mas- 

 sachusetts of 1639, or the previous one of 1636 ; and is intemper- 



* In an age when prices, wages, and expenses were regulated frequently by law, mixed 

 regulations of this kind would naturally at times be passed ; at present, when we have 

 nothing of the kind, they would not be, and those of a totally different character can not 

 be made such by construction or assertion. Cf. Maryland law, 1699, above. 



