of men's minds and the stubbornness of their wills, to set down exact rules to confine all sorts of persons"; and so, leaving the wealthier class to their own conscience of fancy, they undertake to prescribe for "people of mean condition." It was therefore ordered (in 1651) that no one whose estate is not of the value of £200 "shall wear any gold or silver lace, or gold or silver buttons, or any bone-lace above 2s. per yard or silk hoods or scarfs"; and moreover, the selectmen of the town are required to fine anybody whom "they shall judge to exceed their rank and ability in the costliness or fashion of their apparel, in any respect"! And finally, a law passed in 1662 forbids "children and servants" to wear any apparel "exceeding the quality and condition of their persons or estate," "the grand jury and country court of the shire" being judges of the offence. One provision of the law of 1634 against "new and immodest fashions" is too remarkable to be omitted. It reads as follows: "Moreover, it is agreed, if any man shall judge the wearing of any the forenamed particulars, new fashions, or long hair, or anything of the like nature, to be uncomely or prejudicial to the common good, and the party offending reform not the same, upon notice given him, that then the next Assistant, being informed thereof, shall have power to bind the party so offending to answer it at the next Court, if the case so requires; provided, and it is the meaning of the Court, that men and women shall have liberty to wear out such apparel as they are now provided of (except the immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate great veils, long wings, etc.)." What intolerable tyranny of private surveillance is indicated in the phrase, "what any man shall judge to be uncomely"! In the second letter of instructions (dated June, 1629) to Endicott and his Council, they are exhorted to prevent the sale of "strong waters" to the Indians, and to punish any of their own people who shall become drunk in the use of them. In the preamble to a law enacted in 1646, one is led to expect an enforcement of the modern principles of abstinence and prohibition; since, after declaring that "drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those which hold out and profess the Gospel of Christ Jesus," it goes on to assert that "any strict laws against the sin will not prevail unless the cause be taken away." But it would seem that "the cause," in the eyes of our Puritan lawmakers, was an indiscriminate sale of spirituous drinks; for the law chiefly enacts that none but "vintners" shall have permission to retail wine and "strong water." It is also permitted to constables to search any tavern, or even any private house, "suspected to sell wine contrary to this order." Moreover, no person is "to drink or tipple at unseasonable times in houses of entertainment,"--the "unseasonable" time being declared to be after nine in the evening.