Chapter XCIV: Section CCXXXVI: Expediency of Sumptuary Laws

To judge of the salutariness of sumptuary laws, we must keep the above three social periods in view throughout. At the close of the first period, every law which restricts the excesses of the immediately succeeding age (the middle age) is useful because it promotes the noble luxury of the second period.[236-1] And so, in the third period, legislation may at least operate to drive the most immoral and most odious forms of vice under cover, and thus to diminish their contagious seduction. It is a matter of significance that, in Rome, the most estimable of the emperors always endeavored to restrict luxury.[236-2] But too much should not be expected of such laws. _Intra animum medendum est; nos pudor in melius mutet._[236-3] It is at least necessary, that the example given in high places should lend its positive aid, as did that of Vespasian, for instance, who thus really opposed a certain barrier to the disastrous flood of Roman luxury.[236-4]

But a strong and flourishing nation has no need of such leading strings.[236-5] Where an excrescence has to be extirpated, the people can use the knife themselves. I need call attention only to the temperance societies of modern times (Boston, 1803), which spite of all their exaggeration[236-6] may have a very beneficial effect on the morally weak by the solemn nature of the pledge, and the control their members mutually exercise over one another. It is estimated that, of all who enter them, in the British Empire, at least 50 per cent. remain true to the pledge. In Ireland the government had endeavored for a long time to preserve the country from the ravages of alcohol by the imposition of the highest taxes and the severest penalties for smuggling. Every workman in an illegal distillery was transported for seven years, and every town in which such a one was found was subjected to a heavy fine. But all in vain. Only numberless acts of violence were now added to beastly drunkenness. On the other hand, the temperance societies of the country decreased the consumption of brandy between 1838 and 1842, from 12,296,000 gallons to 5,290,000 gallons. The excise on brandy decreased £750,000; but many other taxable articles yielded so much larger a revenue, that the aggregate government income there increased about £91,000.[236-7] [236-8] The Puritanical laws which some of the United States of North America have passed prohibiting all sales of spirituous liquors except for ecclesiastical, medical or chemical purposes, have been found impossible of enforcement.[236-9] [236-10]

[Footnote 236-1: Commendable laws relating to luxury in
Florence in the beginning of the 15th century. The outlay
for dress, for the table, for servants and equipages was
limited; but, on the other hand, it was entirely
unrestricted for churches, palaces, libraries, and works of
art. The consequences of this legislation are felt even in
our day. (_Sismondi_, Gesch. der Ital. Freistaaten im M. A.,
VIII, 261. Compare _Machiavelli_, Istor. Fior., VII, a.,
1472.)]

[Footnote 236-2: Thus Nerva (_Xiphilin._, exc. Dionis,
LXVIII, 2); Hadrian (_Spartian V. Hadrian_, 22); Antoninus
Pius (Capitol, 12); Marcus Aurelius (Capitol, 27); Pertinax
(Capitol, 9); Severus Alexander (_Lamprid_, 4); Aurelian
(_Lamprid_, 49); Tacitus (_Vopisc_, 10 seq).]

[Footnote 236-3: Extracted from the remarkable speech made
by the personally frugal Tiberius (_Sueton._, Tib., 34)
against sumptuary laws: _Tacit._, Annal., III, 52 ff.
Compare, however, IV, 63.]

[Footnote 236-4: _Tacit._, Ann., III, 55: but the
differences in fortune had, at the same time, become less
glaring. Henry IV. also dressed very simply for example's
sake, as did also Sully, and ridiculed those _qui portaient
leurs moulins et leur bois de haute-futaie sur leurs dos_.
(_Péréfixe_, Histoire du Roi Henry le grand, 208.)]

[Footnote 236-5: The gross luxuries of drunkenness and
gluttony are a direct consequence of universal grossness,
and disappear of themselves when higher wants and means of
satisfying them are introduced. (_v. Buch_, Reise durch
Norwegen und Lappland, 1810, I, 166; II, 112 ff.)]

[Footnote 236-6: While, formerly, they cared only to abstain
from spirits, the so-called "total abstinence" has prevailed
since 1832. Most teetotallers compare moderate drinking to
moderate lying or moderate stealing; they even declare the
moderate drinker worse than the drunkard, because his
example is more apt to lead others astray, and he is harder
to convert. (But, Psalm, 104, 15!) The coat of arms of the
English temperance societies is a hand holding a hammer in
the act of breaking a bottle. (Temperance poetry!)]

[Footnote 236-7: _McCulloch_, On Taxation, 342 ff. Speech of
_O'Connell_ in the House of Commons, 27 May 1842. The more
serious crimes decreased 1840-44, as compared with the
average number during the five previous years by 28, and the
most grievous by 50 per cent. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, II, § 331.)
Recently, the first enthusiasm awakened by Father Matthew
has somewhat declined, and the consumption of brandy
therefore increased. Yet, in the whole United Kingdom in
1853, only 30,164,000 gallons were taxed; in 1835,
31,400,000; although the population had in the meantime
increased from 10 to 11 per cent. In 1834, there were in the
United States 7,000 temperance societies with a membership
of 1,250,000. The members of these societies are sometimes
paid higher wages in factories; and ships which allow no
alcohol on board are insured at a premium of five per cent.
less. (_Baird_, History of the Temperance Societies in the
United States, 1837.)]

[Footnote 236-8: In the princedom of Osnabrück, the number
of distilleries was noticeably diminished under the
influence of the temperance societies; but the consumption
of beer was rapidly increased twenty-fold. (Hannoverisches
Magazin, 1843, 51. _Böttcher_, Gesch. der M. V. in der
Norddeutschen Bundestaaten, 1841.)]

[Footnote 236-9: Even in 1838, Massachusetts had begun to
restrict the sale at retail. The agitation for the
suppression of the liquor shops begins in 1841. According to
the Maine law of 1851, a government officer alone had the
right to sell liquor, and only for the purposes mentioned in
the text. The manufacture or importation of liquor for
private use was left free to all. A severe system of
house-searching, imprisonment and inquisitorial proceedings
in order to enforce the law. Similarly in Vermont, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts and Michigan. (Edinburg Rev., July,
1854.) There are, however, numberless instances related in
which the law has been violated unpunished since 1856, and
still more since 1872. See _R. Russell_, North America, its
Agriculture and Climate, and Edinburg Rev., April, 1873,
404.]

[Footnote 236-10: From the foregoing, it is intelligible why
most modern writers, even those otherwise opposed to luxury,
are not favorably inclined towards sumptuary laws. "It is
the highest impertinence and presumption in kings and
ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private
people and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary
laws or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries.
They are themselves always, and without any exception (?)
the greatest spendthrifts in the society. If their own
extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects
never will." (_Adam Smith_, I, ch. 3.) Compare _Rau_,
Lehrbuch II, § 358 ff. _R. Mohl_, Polizeiwissenschaft, II,
434 ff.

_Montesquieu's_ opinion that in monarchies luxury is
necessary to preserve the difference of class but that in
republics it is a cause of decline, is very peculiar. In the
latter, therefore, luxury should be restricted in every way:
agrarian laws should modify the too great difference in
property and sumptuary laws restrain the too glaring
manifestations of extravagance. (Esprit des Lois, VII, 4.)
As an auxiliary to the history of sumptuary laws, compare
_Boxmann_, De Legibus Romanorum sumptuarias, 1816. _Sempere
y Guarinos,_ Historia del Luxo y de las Leyes sumtuarias de
Espana, II, 1788; _Vertot_, Sur l'Establissement des Lois
somptuaires parmi les Français, in the Mémoires de
l'Academie des Inscr., VI, 737 seq, besides the sections on
the subject in _Delamarre_, Traité de la Police, 1772 ff.;
_Penning_, De Luxu et Legibus sumtuariis, 1826.
(_Holland._)]

CHAPTER III.

INSURANCE IN GENERAL.