It was always their custom neither to spit nor blow the nose, only it is clear this was instituted not from concern for the humours of the body, but in order to strengthen themselves by toil and sweat.

But nowadays, though this habit is still in vogue, to harden the body by exercise has quite gone out of fashion.

[9] Again, from the first it was their rule only to take a single meal in the day, which left them free to give their time to business and exercise.

The single meal is still the rule, but it commences at the earliest hour ever chosen for breakfast, and the eating and drinking goes on till the last moment which the latest reveller would choose for bed.

[10] It was always forbidden to bring chamber-pots into the banquet-hall, but the reason lay in their belief that the right way to keep body and brain from weakness was to avoid drinking in excess.