We live in a world of laws. Speed limits and traffic laws regulate the manner in which we drive. Criminal prohibitions on everything from fraud and embezzlement to assault and battery provide order and control to everyday life in a free society. Personal injury laws may seem like they are intended to pad the pockets of doctors, lawyers and insurance companies but most were intended to protect people in the event of an accident.
But some laws just make you scratch your head. "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it," Henry David Thoreau once said. A strident abolitionist and sworn enemy of the tax man, he was probably referring to slavery and excise laws. Restrictions on things like arcade games, fake wrestling matches and card dealing may have been less offensive to the "Civil Disobedience" author, but that doesn't make them any less arcane and, in some cases, ridiculous.
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Coming up with a list of 10 most the most archaic laws still in effect is no problem. Limiting the list to just 10, however, is quite an undertaking. Read on to see the 10 most outdated, unnecessary and just plain strange laws still on the books.