"Sumptuary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they had Sumptuary Laws, each man and woman being compelled to dress according to his Degree, and the Better sort only being licensed to wear Rich suits of clothes. And, to my thinking (though the Putting it in Practice might prove somewhat inconvenient), we should be much better ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and amazed when I read from the pen of a brilliant Kentucky editor an editorial denouncing as tyrannical a sumptuary law that "denies to a citizen the right to order his home, his meat, his drink, his clothing, according to his conscience." I wonder if the great editor ever considered the sumptuary law of the saloon. Every woman who fills the holy ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... crinoline or to indecent scantiness of skirts. Direct interference in these matters is badly tolerated, but much may be accomplished both by example and by cultivating a refined and artistic taste in sumptuary matters. ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... during the Tokugawa period. This, as I have said, was the period of the most elaborated regulation. The extent to which the people were controlled can be best inferred from the nature and number of the sumptuary laws to which they were subjected. Sumptuary laws in Old Japan probably exceeded in multitude and minuteness anything of which Western legal history yields record. Rigidly as the family-cult dictated behaviour in the home, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... also founded many public libraries, and he wished to establish one in every town, but this was beyond the extent of his power. Not content with providing for the minds of his subjects, Hongwou did his utmost to supply the needs of the aged. He cut down the court expenses and issued sumptuary laws, so that he might devote the sums thus economized to the support of the aged and sick. His last instructions to the new officials, on proceeding to their posts, were to "take particular care of the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... as terrible a Remedy, as a deadly Sickness is a Reformer; and I had rather hope that sumptuary Laws against Dress, Racing, Gaming, &c. if we were Wise enough to make them, and amendable enough to mind them when made, wou'd do our Business much better. 'Tis a Misfortune for Ireland, that our Spendthrifts so often run out their Lives and their Estates ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... learning, and in their modest yet vivid consciousness of possessing its tone. The Wentworth "tone" is unmistakable: it permeates every part of the social economy, from the coiffure of the ladies to the preparation of the food. It has its sumptuary laws as well as its curriculum of learning. It sits in judgment not only on its own townsmen but on the rest of the world—enlightening, criticising, ostracizing a heedless universe—and non-conformity to Wentworth standards involves ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... to correct the various evils which had crept into the state, and to obtain the enactment of several laws suitable to the altered condition of the commonwealth. He attempted, by severe sumptuary laws, to restrain the extravagance which pervaded all classes of society. But the most important of his changes this year (B.C. 40) was the reformation of the Calendar, which was a real benefit to his country ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... nobles. He erased, while censor, the name of the brother of Flaminius from the roll of senators, and the brother of Scipio from that of the equites. He attempted a vigorous reform, but the current of corruption could only be stemmed for awhile. The effect of the sumptuary laws, which were passed through his influence, was temporary and unsatisfactory. No legislation has proved of avail against a deep-seated corruption of morals, for the laws will be avoided, even if they are not defied. In vain was the eloquence of the hard, arbitrary, narrow, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... all the right shops to go to in London, he said; and he had ordered everything necessary to social salvation at the very best tailor's, so strictly in accordance with Philip's instructions that he thought he should now transgress no more the sumptuary rules in that matter made and established, as long as he remained in this realm of England. He had commanded a black cut-away coat, suitable for Sunday morning; and a curious garment called a frock-coat, buttoned tight over the chest, to be worn in the afternoon, especially ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... ceaseless endeavours to monopolise trade and extend territory—seemed to revel most was in searching out and punishing dissent from the Congregational Establishment, and, at times, with the individual liberty of citizens in sumptuary matters. No Laud ever equalled them in this, or excelled them in enforcing uniformity, not only of doctrine, but of opinions and practice in the minutest particulars. When a stand against England ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... entails, and by withholding the right of primogeniture in the succession of heirs. It has been proposed to prevent the ruin of moderate estates, and to restrain the use, and consequently the desire of great ones, by sumptuary laws. These different methods are more or less consistent with the interests of commerce, and may be adopted, in different degrees, by a people whose national object is wealth: and they have their degree of effect, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... also concerned herself with sumptuary laws for the ladies of my household?" Caterina asked with ineffable disdain, when remonstrance had been made. And they, having gained so much, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... that so shallow a distinction could avail nothing against harpies who denied the right of strangers to pass through their country with a few purchases of this nature, that had been clearly made for their own use. But, while the sumptuary laws of the custom-houses are very rigid, and set limits to the wants of travellers without remorse, like quarantine regulations, they have some rules that seem framed expressly to defeat ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... there were sumptuary laws to restrain the number of guests at feasts;—not only the master of the feast, but all the guests too, were liable to the penalty. It was also enacted, that more than ten asses should not be spent at any ordinary feast. Ten asses was the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... all they see. Any economical reform amongst the extravagant classes that would leave more and better food within reach of the hard-working classes would be highly beneficial to both. Sometimes I wish we could return to that sumptuary law of Queen Elizabeth which commanded the rich to eat fish and fast from flesh-meat certain days of the week." Here Mr. Jones too abruptly paused. Lady Angleby had grown exceedingly red in the face; Bessie Fairfax had grown ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... universities the non-existence of luxury in this or other modes, whilst, meantime, it is well known to the fair inquirer that each or all are indulgences, not at all or so much as in idea proscribed by the sumptuary edicts of those universities; but, simply, by the lower scale of their general revenues. And this lower scale, it will be said—how do you account for that? I answer, not so much by the general inferiority of continental Europe to Great Britain in diffusive ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... soon become a necessary for the lowest, or all but the lowest, members of society. Most of our readers are acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always been inefficient, or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public morality has been their pretext—the private gratification of jealousy their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the poor—in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... annoyance to her. Not that she wished to ape the fine dames in her small person. She knew her place better than that. She was a tradesman's daughter, and it would ill have beseemed her to attire herself in silk and velvet, even though the sumptuary laws had been repealed. But she did not see why she might not have a scarlet under-petticoat like Rachel Dyson, her own cousin, or a gay bird's wing to adorn her hat on holiday occasions. The utmost she had ever achieved for herself was a fine soft coverchief for her head, instead of ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... York in respect to natural advantages. The capitals of the other Continental nations are still less susceptible of being brought into the competition. The vast cities of China are possible only in the lowest condition of individual liberty,—class servitude, sumptuary and travel restrictions, together with all the other complicated enginery of an artificial barbarism, being the only substitute for natural cohesion in a community whose immense mass can procure nothing but the rudest necessaries of life from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... if a girl or woman of the lower classes were to come here, he would have proper clothing for them to wear—in spite of the sumptuary ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in what manner? By stifling me with virtuous rhetoric? Hah, it is rather awkward for you—is it not—that our sumptuary laws forbid you merchants to ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... that thrifty and individualistic folk made a complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the matter is, that because such things succeed in Germany, gives not the slightest reason for supposing that they will succeed with us. If this outline of their history and this sketch of their government ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... body of the book: at most they point to its several editions or redactions. In the Tale of the "Ensorcelled Prince" (vol. i. 77) Mr. Lane (i. 135) conjectured that the four colours of the fishes were suggested by the sumptuary laws of the Mameluke Soldan, Mohammed ibn Kala'un, "subsequently to the commencement of the eighth century of the Flight, or fourteenth of our era." But he forgets that the same distinction of dress was enforced by the Caliph Omar after the capture ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton |
