CHAPTER XIV

BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES

_“By my Faith! Master Inkpen, thou hast put thy foot in it! Tis a pretty subject and a strange one, and a vast one, but we’ll leave it never a sole to stand on. The proverb hath ‘There’s naught like leather,’ but my Lady answers ‘Save silk:’”_

—Old Play.

BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES

O

ne of the first sumptuary laws in New England declared that men of mea