Unconfined by rules.
1888. Texas was then [in 1866] a “go-as-you-please” State, and the lawlessness was terrible…. The lives of the newly appointed United States officers were threatened daily, and it was an uneasy head that wore the gubernatorial crown.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ pp. 218–9.
1890. Most of these long-distance matches are now of the go-as-you-please class; that is, there is no restriction as to the gait, the majority taking to a kind of jog-trot which yields the greatest results with the least fatigue.—Walter Camp, ‘Track Athletics in America,’ Century Mag., xl. p. 207/1 (June). (N.E.D.)
