Archaic British Laws

[fluffymark]

All English males over the age 14 are to carry out 2 or so hours of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy.

In London, you are not allowed to keep a pigsty in the front of your home.

Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks.

All male orgies are illegal, although add one woman and it’s legal.

Until 1976 cab drivers were required by law to carry a bale of hay to feed a horse.

It is illegal to stand within one hundred yards of the reigning monarch when not wearing socks.

It is still an offence to beat or shake any carpet rug or mat in any street in the Metropolitan Police District, although you are allowed to shake a doormat before 8am.

Placing a postage stamp that bears the Queen (or King) upside down is considered treason.

A Member of Parliament must not enter the House of Commons wearing a full suit of armour.

Committing suicide is classified as a capital crime – punishable by death.

A 1307 law ensures that the head of any dead whale found on the British coast becomes the property of the king and the tail belongs to the queen (she need the bones for her corset).

Royal Navy ships which enter the Port of London are required to provide a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London.

In Chester you are allowed to shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow provided it is done inside the city walls and after midnight.

It is still illegal for cabbies to carry rabid dogs or corpses and by law they must ask all passengers if they have small pox or the plague.

In Scotland, it is illegal to be a drunk in possession of a cow.

Anybody know any more amusing obsolete british laws?

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

A lot of them are urban myths etc., sadly. I suspect that the one about MPs wearing armour is true, and I'm pretty sure that cabbies aren't allowed to carry corpses or rabid dogs - other than that, it wouldn't surprise me if they were *all* false.

The one about the whale is especially silly - the baleen (which is in the head) is the part used for corsets.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

Number 4 is particularly irritating, because it refers to a law which was recently repealed (and quite widely reported), ie s1(2) of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which meant that any homosexual act which took place in the presence of a third person was illegal (so that an orgy with many men and one woman would only have been legal if the men had restricted themselves to sexual relations with the woman), which was held to be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights in 2000 in the case of ADT v UK, and repealed in schedule 7 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I mean, the section was quite notorious; you would think people would notice that it's been repealed.

Suicide has not been illegal since 1961, although it remains illegal to aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another.

However, I am prepared to accept that I am not allowed to keep pigs outside my house.