In 1673, again, the magistrates “experienced to our great grief” that rolling ninepins was more in vogue on Sunday than on any other day. And we learn that there were social clubs that “Set on the Sabbath,” which must speedily be put an end to. Thirty men were found by the _schout_ in one _tap-huys_; but as they were playing ninepins and backgammon two hours after the church-doors had closed, prosecution was most reluctantly abandoned. Of course scores of “tappers” were prosecuted, both in taverns and private houses. Piety and regard for an orderly Sabbath were not the only guiding thoughts in the burgomasters’ minds in framing these Sunday liquor laws and enforcing them; for some tapsters had “tapped beer during divine service and used a small kind of measure which is in contempt of our religion and must ruin our state,”--and the state was sacred. In the country, as for instance on Long Island, the carting of grain, travelling for pleasure, and shooting of wild-fowl on Sunday were duly punished in the local courts. I do not think that children were as rigid church attendants in New York as in New England. In 1696, in Albany, we find this injunction: “y^e Constables in eache warde to take thought in attending at y^e church to hender such children as Profane y^e Sabbath;” and we know that Albany boys and girls were complained of for coasting down hill on Sunday,--which enormity would have been simply impossible in New England, except in an isolated outburst of Adamic depravity. In another New York town the “Athoatys” complained of the violation of the Sabbath by “the Younger Sort of people in Discourssing of Vane things and Running of Raesses.” As for the city of New York, even at Revolutionary times a cage was set up on City Hall Park in which to confine wicked New York boys who profaned the Sabbath. I do not find so full provisions made for seating children in Dutch Reformed churches as in Puritan meeting-houses. A wise saying of Martin Luther’s was “Public sermons do very little edify children”--perhaps the Dutch agreed with him. As the children were taught the Bible and the catechism every day in the week, their spiritual and religious schooling was sufficient without the Sunday sermon,--but, of course, if they were not in the church during services, they would “talk of vane Things and run Raesses.”