Another piece of luxury the poor enjoy, that is not looked upon as such, and which there is no doubt but the wealthiest in a golden age would abstain from, is their making use of the flesh of animals to eat. In what concerns the fashions and manners of the ages men live in, they never examine into the real worth or merit of the cause, and generally judge of things not as their reason, but custom direct them. Time was when the funeral rites in the disposing of the dead, were performed by fire, and the cadavers of the greatest emperors were burnt to ashes. Then burying the corps in the ground was a funeral for slaves, or made a punishment for the worst of malefactors. Now nothing is decent or honourable but interring; and burning the body is reserved for crimes of the blackest dye. At some times we look upon trifles with horror, at other times we can behold enormities without concern. If we see a man walk with his hat on in a church, though out of service time, it shocks us; but if on a Sunday night we meet half a dozen fellows drunk in the street, the sight makes little or no impression upon us. If a woman at a merry-making dresses in man's clothes, it is reckoned a frolic amongst friends, and he that finds too much fault with it is counted censorious: upon the stage it is done without reproach, and the most virtuous ladies will dispense with it in an actress, though every body has a full view of her legs and thighs; but if the same woman, as soon as she has petticoats on again, should show her leg to a man as high as her knee, it would be a very immodest action, and every body will call her impudent for it.