Laying down the law leaves a lot to the imagination

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 23, 2002 | by Stephen Goode

The Website dumblaws.com provides a great deal of entertainment while at the same time telling its readers a lot about history. It lists current U.S. laws and those that used to be on the books and which strike the Website's creators as strange and sometimes inexplicable.

The Website also lists dumb laws from foreign countries, a few of which come from England. Some obviously are medieval in origin, while others are from later times, but each has something to say about the English past:

* Sundays, at least in the past, were regarded as special. In the city of York, for example, a law held that it was legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow--except on Sundays. In Hereford, it was illegal on Sunday to shoot a Welshman with a longbow in the Cathedral Close.

* Public nudity continues to be frowned upon in the United Kingdom on most occasions. But a law evidently still on the books in Liverpool makes it illegal for a woman to be topless in public, except when she's a clerk in a tropical-fish store.

* The reign of Edward VI (1547-1553), who was the son of Henry VIII and was known as the "boy king," saw the enactment of a number of laws the origins of which are obscure. One declared that "Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks." Another pronounced: "It is illegal to stand within 100 yards of the reigning monarch when not wearing socks."

* The reasons behind laws regarding food seem especially obscure. In England it remains illegal for a lady to eat chocolates on a public conveyance, for instance, and it once was a serious breach of the law to eat mince pie on Christmas Day.

Dumblaws.com does offer an explanation for the latter. It dates from the mid-17th century when Oliver Cromwell ruled England. He and his fellow puritans outlawed maypoles, holly and ivy decorations, and mince pies on Christmas because they were pagan in origin.