et we shall note the same
hue and cry among colonial men that we may hear to-day--that women are
dress-crazy, and that the manner and expense of woman's dress are
responsible for much of the evil of the world.

We should not be greatly surprised, then, to discover that early in the
history of the colonies the magistrates tried zealously to regulate the
style and cost of female clothing. The deluded Puritan elders, who
believed that everything could and should be controlled by law, even
attempted until far into the eighteenth century to decide just how women
should array themselves. But the eternal feminine was too strong for the
law makers, and they ultimately gave up in despair. Both in Virginia
and New England such rules were early given a trial. Thus, in the old
court records we run across such statements as the following: "Sep. 27,
1653, the wife of Nicholas Maye of Newbury, Conn., was presented for
wearing silk cloak and scarf, but cleared proving her husband was worth
more than L200." In some of the Southern settlements the church
authorities very shrewdly connected fine dress with public spiritedness
and benevolence, and declared that every unmarried man must be assessed
in church according to his own apparel, and every married man according
to his own and his wife's apparel.[128] Again in 1651 the Massachusetts
court expressed its "utter detestation that men and women of meane
condition, education and calling should take upon them the garbe of
gentlemen by wearinge of gold or silver lace or buttons or poynts at
their knees, or walke in great boots, or women of the same ranke to wear
silke or tiffany hoods or scarfs."

A large number of persons were indeed "presented" under this law, and it
is plain that the officers of the times were greatly worried over this
form of earthly pride; but as the settlements grew older the people
gradually silenced the magistrates, and each person dressed as he or
she, especially the latter, chose.

_II. Contemporary Descriptions_

The result is that we find more references to dress in the eighteenth
century than in the previous one. The colonists had become more
prosperous, a little more worldly, and certainly far less afraid of the
wrath of God and the judges. As travel to Europe became safer and more
common, visitors brought new fashions, and provincialism in manner,
style, and costume became much less apparent. Madame Knight, who wrote
an account of her journey from Boston