Press-gang stories, more or less authentic, are numerous. Here are samples which serve to show that the searchers did not nicely discriminate between those who were and were not legally subject to impressment. A well-dressed man was seized. He protested that he was a gentleman of position. "The very boy we want," gleefully replied his captors; "for we've such a set of topping blackguards aboard the tender, that we wanted a gentleman to teach 'em manners." Sham press-gangs for the black-mailing of honest citizens were common. In one case a couple had given all their money to go free, when the real gang coming up made booty of both parties, and had them aboard in no time. The quarrymen at Denny Bowl, sixty strong, were heard to brag in their cups what _they_ would do did the press-gang dare to molest _them_, whereupon "three merry girls" got into breeches, put cockades in their hats, took sword and pistol, and advanced, when the quarrymen ran like hares. And to conclude, there is the legend of the gang that raided "The Cock and Rummer" in Bow Street. They seized the cook. The customers, fearing for their dinner, or themselves, rushed to the rescue. Long the strife hung dubious, when the constable (he ought to have been a Bow Street runner) stalked in. The gang, with a fine sense of humour, let the cook go, seized _him_, and away at a great rate, though not fast enough to get clear. SUMPTUARY LAWS "Act of Parliament" is a term apt to mislead. To-day it is enforced by so powerful a machinery that practice conforms to precept; but in mediæval England much law was dead letter. Statutes were often mere admonitions; they expressed but an ideal, a pious intention. This was specially true of the Sumptuary Laws, whereby the dress and food of the king's subjects were nicely regulated. If you turn over a book of costumes you find that man's attire has varied more than woman's. The sorts and conditions of men were marked by rigid lines. This fact was shown forth in their dress, and that again re-acted on their modes of thought and habits of life. "Men's apparel," says Edmund Spenser, "is commonly marked according to their condition, and their conditions are often-times governed by their garment, for the person that is gowned is by his gown put in mind of gravity, and also restrained from lightness by the very unaptness of his Tweed." Of old time man's dress was rich and varied, but how to catch its vanished effect? In Courts of Justice there is still the splendid, if occasional, bravery of the judge. See the same man in private, gaze on divinity disrobed, and the disenchantment measures for you what is lost in the splendid garb of other days. In mediæval Europe the Church first condemned a too ornate appearance. Thus, under our early Norman Kings, long hair was much in vogue. In 1104 Bishop Serlo, preaching before Henry I. and his Court in Normandy, attacked this fashion roundly, compared his hearers to