s
against these laws as in previous years. In 1675 the town of Dedham had
been similarly warned and threatened, but apparently was never
prosecuted. Connecticut called to its aid in repressing extravagant
dress the economic power of taxation by ordering that whoever wore gold
or silver lace, gold or silver buttons, silk ribbons, silk scarfs, or
bone lace worth over three shillings a yard should be taxed as worth
L150.

Virginia fussed a little over "excess in cloathes." Sir Francis Wyatt
was enjoined not to permit any but the Council and the heads of Hundreds
to wear gold on their clothes, or to wear silk till they made it--which
was intended more to encourage silk-making than to discourage
silk-wearing. And it provided that unmarried men should be assessed
according to their apparel, and married men according to that of their
family. In 1660 Virginia colonists were ordered to import no "silke
stuffe in garments or in peeces except for whoods and scarfs, nor silver
or gold lace, nor bone lace of silk or threads, nor ribbands wrought
with gold or silver in them."

The ministers did not fail in their duty in attempting to march with the
magistrates in the restriction and simplification of dress. They
preached often against "intolerable pride in clothes and hair." Even
when the Pilgrims were in Holland the preachers had been deeply
disturbed over the dress of their minister's wife, Madam Johnson, who
wore "lawn coives" and busks, and a velvet hood, and "whalebones in her
petticoat bodice," and worst of all, "a topish hat." One of the earliest
interferences of Roger Williams was when he instructed the women of
Salem parish always to wear veils in public. But John Cotton preached to
them the next Sunday, and he proved to the dames and goodwives that
veils were a sign and symbol of undue subjection to their husbands, and
Salem women soon proved their rights by coming barefaced to meeting.

Mr. Davenport preached about men's head-gear, that men must take off
their hats, and stand up at the announcement of the text. And if New
Haven men wore their hats in meeting, I can't see why they fussed so
over the Quakers' broadbrims.

After a while the whole church interfered. In 1769 the church at Andover
put it to vote whether "the parish Disapprove of the female sex sitting
with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as
being Indecent." In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was voted that it
was "an indecent