Richard II., Henry IV., and Edward IV. legislated against the liveried suits of the nobility. This was also prohibited by Henry VII.; and yet, even under James I., says Hume, “we find ambassadors accompanied by a suite of 500 or 300 noblemen.” During the reign of Edward III. it was enacted that no man should be allowed more than two courses at dinner or supper, or more than two kinds of food in each course. Three courses were permitted on the festival days of the year. Foreign cloth was allowed to the royal family alone. Unless a man possessed at least £100 per annum he was forbidden furs, skins and silks. During the same reign, another act divided the people of England into classes, and prescribed the apparel of each. In the social scale it did not go higher than knights, and minutely regulated the clothing of women and children. It was repealed the following year. In 1363 it was enacted that servants should have only one meal a day of flesh or fish. The statute of 1444 attempted to regulate the price of clothing for each year: a bailiff, 50_s._; principal servant, 40_s._; ordinary servant, 33_s._ 4_d._ James I., of Scotland, forbade not only “sumptuous clothing,” but the use of pies and baked meats, to all under the rank of baron. The Scottish sumptuary law of 1612 was the last in Great Britain. The English laws were largely repealed during the reign of James I. A few remained on the statute book as late as 1856. Mr. Froude has exposed the folly of their existence. It has been said of the English laws they “were at all times inspired by a desire to arrest an irresistible movement, resulting from the very force of things--from the logical development of human activity. They were, moreover, powerless, and always evaded by a sort of tacit and general conspiracy of all the citizens, without anyone being able to find fault with the principle, without anyone thinking of contesting the power of the legislator on this point.” Roscher remarks: “In Ireland the government had endeavored for a long time to preserve that country from the ravages of alcohol, by the imposition of the highest taxes, and the severest penalties for smuggling. Every workman in an illegal distillery was transported for seven years, and every town in which such a one was found was subject to a heavy fine. All in vain. Only numberless acts of violence were now added to beastly drunkenness.”