[Footnote 579: These are in the Athenæum copy of the _MSS. Records of the County Court of Suffolk, 1671-80_. There is also a unique example in the _MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk_ (1675), No. 1412. This is a case of appeal to the assistants from the county court at Salisbury, where John Garland and wife had been fined £5 for having a child eleven weeks too early. On his appeal John says, significantly: "I and She had parents Concent to marry and Legally published & Stayed after publication a Considerable time, that had any Such Act been co[=m]ited by us we could haue preuented it by marrying sooner;" and he further alleges that it was an untimely birth caused by the wife's fall. In reply, the attorney for the county of Norfolk said Garland had pretended to quote "Aristottle" to prove a child might come in the seventh month, but that if the court "please to Cast an eye vpon John garland ... they will judg Him to be no deepe man in phylosophie." Whereupon the worthy barrister, rejecting pagan learning, imparted the following bit of strictly orthodox biology: "It was well knowne to the Honored Court at Salisbury that the usuall time of woman was a set time As in genesis the 18 and the 10 compared with 2 of kings the 4th & the 16 verse, the Honored Court likewise knew that that time wast aboue seauen month as is the first of luke the 36 vers compared with the 39 & 40 and 56 & 57 verse of that chapter." The "jury" reversed the decision of the lower court.] [Footnote 580: "If any man commit fornication with a single woman, they shall be punished, either by enjoining marriage, or fine, or corporal punishment, or all or any of these," as the court may determine: WHITMORE, _Col. Laws of Mass._ (1660-72), 153. Later disfranchisement, in the case of a freeman, was added: _ibid._, 231. See also WHITMORE, _op. cit._ (1672-86), 54, 208; _Conn. Col. Rec._, I, 527; _New Haven Col. Rec._, II, 590; _Plym. Col. Rec._, XI, 12, 46, 95, 172.] Similar evidence is afforded by the incomplete records of the county court of Middlesex for the period 1629-86, supplemented by the Files. These contain in all thirty cases of transgression before marriage, eight of which fall within the ten years covered by the Suffolk records already considered. Most of the severe sentences (Table III) occur in this period and the six years immediately following, although the heaviest fine, twenty pounds for the couple, is imposed in 1663.[581] Seemingly, from the few cases known, single persons were treated more harshly than those who were betrothed.[582]