The natives of Java are in general better clothed than those of Western India. In many provinces of the interior, and in the elevated parts of the island, warm clothing is indispensable. They are for the most part clothed from the produce of their own soil and labour; but there are parts of their dress which they willingly derive from foreign countries. Blue cloths and chintzes, in particular, have always formed an extensive article of importation from Western India; and the chiefs consume considerable quantities of broadcloths, velvet, and other fabrics, in the jackets, pantaloons, and other articles of dress, in imitation of Europeans. Persons of condition are particular in being what they conceive well-dressed. A sloven is an object of ridicule; and, in point of expensive attire, they may be considered as restricted only by their means. Although the general character of the native costume is preserved, they seemed inclined to adopt many of the more convenient parts of the European dress; and, in proof of their having but few prejudices on this score, it may be observed, that, on occasions when the population of the country has been called out in the Native Provinces, the assemblage of the provincials presented themselves habited, many of them in cocked hats and stockings of Europeans, forming a most grotesque appearance. By the institutions of the country, a particular kind of dress is assigned to each different rank; and there are some patterns of cloth, the use of which is prohibited, except to the royal family: but these sumptuary laws are for the most part obsolete in the European provinces, and gradually becoming so in those of the native princes, particularly since those princes have engaged by treaty to discontinue their enforcement. There are also distinctions of rank expressed by the different modes of wearing the krîs, which will be treated of hereafter. It is part of the domestic economy, that the women of the family should provide the men with the cloths necessary for their apparel, and from the first consort of the sovereign to the wife of the lowest peasant, the same rule is observed. In every cottage there is a spinning-wheel and loom, and in all ranks a man is accustomed to pride himself on the beauty of a cloth woven either by his wife, mistress, or daughter.