“In 1644 William Hewes and John his son, for terming such as sing in the congregation fools, and William Hewes also for charging Reverend Mr. Corbitt with falsehood in his doctrine, were ordered to pay a fine of fifty shillings each, and to make humble confession in a public meeting at Lynn.”

William Hewes and his son were probably only criticising the music and the preaching in the “meeting-house.”  If people nowadays were fined for similar offences, the county would grow so rich that there would be no necessity for the present heavy tax.

    “In 1643 Roger Scott, for repeated sleeping in meeting on the
    Lord’s Day, and for striking the person who waked him, was, at
    Salem, sentenced to be severely whipped.”

It must be borne in mind that people in those days were not allowed to stay at home on the Lord’s Day and do their sleeping there.  Staying at home on Sunday is a modern innovation.

From the Massachusetts Colony Records, quoted by Mr. Northend, we learn that in March, 1761, Sir Christopher Gardner, who had passed much of his time “with roystering Morton of Merry Mount,” and who was living with a lady he called his cousin, upon receipt by the Governor of information of two wives in England “whom he has carelessly left behind,” after a long pursuit was captured and sent back to England.

It would seem, then, that there must have been, judging from this example, in “high places” some “indiscretions” and “unpleasant” gossip early in our history.

Mr. Northend finds that at “the same date one Nich.  Knopp, for pretending to cure scurvy by water of no value, which he sold at a very dear rate, was ordered to pay a fine of five pounds or be whipped, and made liable to an action by any person to whom he had sold the water.”

How would such a decree work in our day, if applied to the makers or venders of all the “water of no value” which is advertised on the fences and barns alongside of our railroads and highways?

Mr. Northend, speaking of the severity of the early laws, says:—­

“The criminal laws were taken principally from the Mosaic code; and although many of them at the present day seem harsh and cruel, yet as a whole they were very much milder than the criminal laws of England at the time, and the number of capital offences was greatly reduced.”

-------------------------

CURIOUS PUNISHMENTS IN SCHOOLS.

In some of the old schools in Salem (no doubt it was the same in other places) the teachers whose business it was to teach youths the “three R’s,”—­Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic,—­were too apt to be occupied, as we have been told, in scolding, devising or practising some mode of punishment.  We remember hearing of a school where the master kept a long cane pole (something like a fishing-rod) which he used for the purpose of reaching boys who needed correction; on account of the length of the pole he was enabled to do business without leaving his seat.  It was never suspected at the time how lazy this master was.