Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/206

 IQ4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

reached a definite height. According as this result is desired or deplored will a minimum number be demanded or only a maxi- mum number permitted. I cite first certain illustrations of the latter. In the early Greek period there were legal provi- sions that the crews of ships should not number more than five, in order to prevent development of piracy. From fear of com- bination among apprentices, the Rhine cities determined in 1436 that not more than three apprentices should appear in the same costume. Political prohibitions are most frequent in this sense. Philip the Fair in 1305 prohibited all assemblies of more than five persons, regardless of the rank of the persons or the form of their meeting. Under the ancien regime twenty nobles might not assemble even for conference, without special concession from the king. Napoleon III. prohibited all unions of more than twenty persons that were not specially authorized. In England the conventicle act of Charles II. made all religious assemblages of more than five persons under one roof penal, and the English reaction at the beginning of the nineteenth century forbade all assemblages of more than fifty persons, that were not announced a long time in advance. In cases of siege it is frequently the case that more than three or four persons are for- bidden to congregate upon the street, and recently the Berlin Kammergericht has decided that a Versammlung, in the sense of the law, i. e., which requires police notification, occurs when eight persons are present. In the purely economic realm the case is found, for example in the English law of 1708, which the influence of the Bank of England carried through, that legal associations for dealing in money should not include more than six participants. In such cases there must always be, on the side of the rulers, the conviction that only within groups of the given size is there to be found the courage or the rashness, the enterprise or the suggestibility, for certain transactions, the occurrence of which is not desired. This motive is most evident in the case of the laws in restraint of vice. When the number of persons present at a rout, of members of a procession, etc., is limited, it is because of the experience that in a larger mass the impulses that come through the senses easier gain the upper