. Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX . education and calling shouldtake upon themselves the garb of gentlemen bywearing gold and silver lace, buttons and points atthe knee, or walk in great boots, or women of thesame low rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or were likewise orders that no short sleevesshould be worn whereby the nakedness of thearms may be discovered; womens sleeves werenot to be more than half an ell wide; long hair andimmodest laying out of the hair and wearing bordersof hair were abhorrent. Poor folk must not appearwith naked breasts and arms ; or
. Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX . education and calling shouldtake upon themselves the garb of gentlemen bywearing gold and silver lace, buttons and points atthe knee, or walk in great boots, or women of thesame low rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or were likewise orders that no short sleevesshould be worn whereby the nakedness of thearms may be discovered; womens sleeves werenot to be more than half an ell wide; long hair andimmodest laying out of the hair and wearing bordersof hair were abhorrent. Poor folk must not appearwith naked breasts and arms ; or as it were pinionedwith superstitious ribbons on hair and who made garments for servants or children,richer than the garments of the parents or mastersof these juniors, were to be fined. Similar laws werepassed in Connecticut and Virginia. I know of noone being psented under these laws in Virginia,but in Connecticut and Massachusetts both men andwomen were fined. In 1676, in Northampton,thirty-six young women at one time were brought. The Tub-preache Dress of the New England Mothers 63 up for overdress chiefly in hoods ; and an amusingentry in the court record is that one of them, Han-nah Lyman, appeared in the very hood for whichshe was fined; and was thereupon censured forwearing silk in a fnonting manner, in an offensiveway, not only before but when she stood only in Ordinary but Extraordinary girls were all fined; but six years later, whena stern magistrate attempted a similar persecution,the indictments were quashed. It is not unusual to find the careless observer orthe superficial reader — and writer — commentingupon the sumptuary laws of the New World asif they were extraordinary and peculiar. Thereappeared in a recent American magazine a longrehearsal of the unheard-of presumption of Puritanmagistrates in their prohibition of certain articles ofdress. This writer was evidently wholly ignorantof the existence of similar laws i
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