FURTHER CLASS-DISTINCTIONS. 199 



&quot;The highest seat is literally, with these people, the place of 

 honour and the sign of rank. So unbending are the rules in this re 

 spect, that when an English carriage which the Rajah of Lombock 

 had sent for, arrived, it was found impossible to use it because the 

 driver s seat was the highest, and it had to be kept as a show in its 

 coach-house.&quot; 



Similarly , according to Yule, in. Burmah. &quot; That any per 

 son should occupy a floor over head, would be felt as an in 

 tense degradation. . . . To the same reason is generally 

 ascribed the little use made by the kings of Ava of the car 

 riages, which have at various times been sent to them as 

 presents.&quot; So too of Siam, Bowring remarks: 



No man of inferior rank dares to raise his head to the level of 

 that of his superior; no person can cross a bridge if an individual of 

 higher grade chances to be passing below ; no mean person may walk 

 upon a floor above that occupied by his betters.&quot; 

 And this idea that relative elevation is an essential accom 

 paniment of superior rank, we shall presently see dictates 

 several kinds of sumptuary regulations. 



Other derivative class-distinctions are sequent upon dif 

 ferences of wealth; which themselves originally follow 

 differences of power. From that earliest stage in which 

 master and slave are literally captor and captive, abundance 

 of means has been the natural concomitant of mastery, and 

 poverty the concomitant of slavery. Hence where the 

 militant type of organization predominates, being rich in 

 directly implies being victorious, or having the political 

 supremacy gained by victory. It is true that some primi 

 tive societies furnish exceptions. Among the Dacotahs 

 &quot; the civil-chiefs and war-chiefs are distinguished from the 

 rest by their poverty. They generally are poorer clad than 

 any of the rest.&quot; The like holds of the Abipones, whose 

 customs supply an explanation. A cazique, distinguished 

 by the &quot; peculiar oldness and shabbiness &quot; of his clothes, 

 remains shabby because, if he puts on &quot; new and handsome 

 apparel, . . . the first person he meets will boldly cry 

 Give me that dress . . . and unless he immediately 



