DON QUIXOTE

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the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according
to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in; and he
that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for
it. He reduced the prices of all manner of shoes, boots, and stockings,
but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly
high. He established a fixed rate for servants' wages, which were
becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon
those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed
that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse, unless he could
produce authentic evidence that it was true, for it was his opinion that
most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the
true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to
harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so; for
many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a make-believe
crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that
to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of
the great governor Sancho Panza.