But beside Quakers and witches, the ministers had other female tormentors to deal with.  There was the perpetual anxiety of the unregenerated toilet.  “Immodest apparel, laying out of hair, borders, naked necks and arms, or, as it were, pinioned with superfluous ribbons,”—­these were the things which tried men’s souls in those days, and the statute-books and private journals are full of such plaintive inventories of the implements of sin.  Things known as “slash apparel” seem to have been an infinite source of anxiety; there must be only one slash on each sleeve and one in the back.  Men also must be prohibited from shoulderbands of undue width, double ruffs and cuffs, and “immoderate great breeches.”  Part of the solicitude was for modesty, part for gravity, part for economy:  none must dress above their condition.  In 1652, three men and a woman were fined ten shillings each and costs for wearing silver-lace, another for broad bone-lace, another for tiffany, and another for a silk hood.  Alice Flynt was accused of a silk hood, but, proving herself worth more than two hundred pounds, escaped unpunished.  Jonas Fairbanks, about the same time, was charged with “great boots,” and the evidence went hard against him; but he was fortunately acquitted, and the credit of the family saved.

The question of veils seems to have rocked the Massachusetts Colony to its foundations, and was fully discussed at Thursday Lecture, March 7th, 1634.  Holy Mr. Cotton was utterly and unalterably opposed to veils, regarding them as a token of submission to husbands in an unscriptural degree.  It is pleasant to think that there could be an unscriptural extent of such submission, in those times.  But Governor Endicott and Rev. Mr. Williams resisted stoutly, quoting Paul, as usual in such cases; so Paul, veils, and vanity carried the day.  But afterward Mr. Cotton came to Salem to preach for Mr. Skelton, and did not miss his chance to put in his solemn protest against veils; he said they were a custom not to be tolerated; and so the ladies all came to meeting without their veils in the afternoon.  Probably the most astounding visible result from a single sermon within the memory of man.

Beginning with the veils, the eye of authority was next turned on what was under them.  In 1675 it was decided, that, as the Indians had done much harm of late, and the Deity was evidently displeased with something, the General Court should publish a list of the evils of the time.  And among the twelve items of contrition stood this:  “Long hair like women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own or others’ hair made into periwigs;—­and by some women wearing borders of hair, and their cutting, curling, and immodest laying out of their hair,” (does this hint at puff-combs?) “which practice doth increase, especially among the younger sort.”  Not much was effected, however,—­“divers of the elders’ wives,” as Winthrop lets out, “being in some measure partners in this