As might be expected, we find that, having a common origin and like general functions, these several controlling agencies act during each era with similar degrees of vigour.  Under the Chinese despotism, stringent and multitudinous in its edicts and harsh in the enforcement of them, and associated with which there is an equally stern domestic despotism exercised by the eldest surviving male of the family, there exists a system of observances alike complicated and rigid.  There is a tribunal of ceremonies.  Previous to presentation at court, ambassadors pass many days in practising the required forms.  Social intercourse is cumbered by endless compliments and obeisances.  Class distinctions are strongly marked by badges.  The chief regret on losing an only son is, that there will be no one to perform the sepulchral rites.  And if there wants a definite measure of the respect paid to social ordinances, we have it in the torture to which ladies submit in having their feet crushed.  In India, and indeed throughout the East, there exists a like connection between the pitiless tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the rigid restraint of unchangeable customs:  the caste regulations continue still unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in short, “every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim of jurisprudence.”

A similar relationship of phenomena was exhibited in Europe during the Middle Ages.  While all its governments were autocratic, while feudalism held sway, while the Church was unshorn of its power, while the criminal code was full of horrors and the hell of the popular creed full of terrors, the rules of behaviour were both more numerous and more carefully conformed to than now.  Differences of dress marked divisions of rank.  Men were limited by law to a certain width of shoe-toes; and no one below a specified degree might wear a cloak less than so many inches long.  The symbols on banners and shields were carefully attended to.  Heraldry was an important branch of knowledge.  Precedence was strictly insisted on.  And those various salutes of which we now use the abridgments were gone through in full.  Even during our own last century, with its corrupt House of Commons and little-curbed monarchs, we may mark a correspondence of social formalities.  Gentlemen were still distinguished from lower classes by dress; people sacrificed themselves to inconvenient requirements—­as powder, hooped petticoats, and towering head-dresses; and children addressed their parents as Sir and Madam.