Dress According to Statute. 167 



DEESS ACCORDING TO STATUTE. 



BY FEANCIS W. EOWSELL, 

 Barrister-at-Law. 



To all "who desire to paint accurately on the mental retina a 

 historical picture of the past, the study of the dress in 

 which the byegone people clothed themselves, must be as in- 

 teresting as the study of the buildings in which they lived, or 

 of any other strictly personal thing belonging to them. 

 Without a knowledge of the kind and quality of the clothes 

 worn by our ancestors, any idea we may form of them as 

 units in the everyday, working world, must necessarily be im- 

 perfect ; we may read of men, of their sayings and doings, of 

 their lives, and of the effect they had upon the lives of those 

 who were coeval with them ; but in the absence of means for 

 bringing vividly before our minds the image of their persons, 

 they will be to us as so many lay figures, entities, not persons, 

 wanting those very essentials which alone enable the historian 

 to create before the mind's eye of his readers a word-picture 

 which shall truly and properly describe the men of the old 

 order. For this reason, if for no other, the study of costume 

 cannot fail to be deeply interesting to the historical student. 

 Does not " the apparel oft proclaim the man?" and is not the 

 garb of a people, especially in certain classes, a pretty sure 

 indication of their style and character ? But when it is found 

 that, this reason set aside, the article of dress appears again 

 and again in the statute-book as a subject not unworthy the 

 consideration of the legislative wisdom of the country, one 

 feels bound to inquire somewhat closely concerning it, placed 

 as it is on the same level with great questions of finance, 

 religion, trade, and war. As a matter of fact, the article of 

 dress does appear constantly in the statute-book as a subject of 

 legislation, and it is the purpose of the writer of this article to 

 pursue somewhat closely an inquiry into the sartorial question 

 which appears to have exercised our forefathers so severely. 

 In doing so he will be guided solely by the light which the 

 statute-book affords, assisted where that fails by those equally 

 trustworthy records, written for the most part by contempo- 

 raneous authors, and now published anew to the world by the 

 Master of the Rolls, after a sleep, in which their existence was 

 endangered, for several centuries in the old libraries of our 

 oldest colleges. 



Long before the political economists of the day took notice 

 of the clothes in which men dressed themselves, the clergy 



