The evil consequences of this anomalous state of the law were rendered all the more serious through the custom of "bundling" which obtained a wide prevalence in New England as it did also in New York and the other middle colonies. According to Stiles, who has produced the only general history of the subject, bundling "was practiced in two forms; first, between _strangers_, as a simple domestic makeshift arrangement, often arising from the necessities of a new country, and by no means peculiar to America; and, secondly between _lovers_, who shared the same couch, with the mutual understanding that innocent endearments should not be exceeded."[557] It is the second form with which we are here most concerned; and in its origin this likewise appears to have been "a custom of convenience." It was long regarded as a gross or licentious practice peculiar to New England. Thus Irving taunts the people of Connecticut with having tried to deprave the manners of the "Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts" through the introduction of that "horrible" usage.[558] But the Dutch maidens needed no lessons from their Yankee sisters in this regard; for in their "queesting" they had brought with them a form of bundling from Holland.[559] Indeed, it is not at all improbable that in this case Pilgrim and Puritan alike may have been strongly influenced by Dutch precedent, as they certainly were in more important institutions. Such an inference seems all the more justifiable, for as yet no trace of bundling has been reported "in any localities of England itself, the mother country;"[560] though in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales evidences of its recent existence are not wanting,[561] and the custom seems clearly to be deeply planted in the ancient usage of the German race.[562] [Footnote 557: STILES, _Bundling in its Origin, Progress, and Decline_ (Albany, 1871), 13, 14. GROSE, _Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, thus explains the practice: "A man and a woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, when, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travelers to _bundle_ with their wives and daughters." This applies, of course, only to the first named and less interesting form of the custom. In almost the same words as those used by Stiles, MASSON, _Journeys in Belochistan, Afghanistan_, etc., III, 287, describes the bundling of lovers among the Afghans: see ADAMS, _Some Phases of Sexual Immorality_, 31, note. In general on this custom consult EARLE, _Customs and Fashions_, 62-64; WEEDEN, _Ecc. and Soc. Hist. of N. E._, II, 739, 864.] [Footnote 558: IRVING, _Knickerbocker's Hist. of New York_ (Philadelphia, 1871), Book III, chaps. vii, viii, 217-28; _cf._ STILES, _Bundling_, 45 ff.; ADAMS, _Some Phases of Sexual Immorality_, 31.]