Sudden Death

On the Causes of Poverty Under the Reign of Henry VIII

And what say you of the shameless luxury all about this abject poverty? Serving-folk, craftsmen, and even the farmers themselves show excessive vanity in diet and in apparel. What say you of the brothels, the infamous houses, and those other dens of vice, the taverns and alehouses? And what of all the nefarious games in which money runs fast away, condemning initiates to poverty or highway robbery? Cards, dice, foot-ball, quoits. And worst of all: tennis. Banish from the land these noxious plagues.

THOMAS MORE, Utopia, 1516