Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
History
Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880
Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
Boston (Mass.) -- Description and travel; Boston (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
It would seem that some of these decisions, or the general character of
the government, had caused some remark, as it was "ordered that Henry Lyn
shall be whipt and banished the Plantation before the 6th day of October
next, for writing into England falsely and maliciously against the
government and execution of Justice here." "Execution of justice" is good,
we should say.
Ward, in his "Trip to New England," a very coarse and abusive paper,
published in London, in 1706, in a book called "London Spy," says, in
Boston "if you kiss a woman in publick, tho' offered as a Courteous
Salutation, if any information is given to the Select Members, both shall
be whipt or fined." He relates, that "a captain of a certain ship, who had
been a long voyage, happen'd to meet his wife, and kist her in the street,
for which he was fined Ten Shillings, and forc'd to pay the Money. Another
inhabitant of the town was fin'd Ten Shillings for kissing his own wife in
his Garden, and obstinately refusing to pay the Money, endur'd Twenty
Lashes at the Gun, who, in Revenge for his Punishment, swore he would
never kiss her again either in Publick or Private."
John Dunton, in his famous work, "Dunton's Life and Errors," speaks of the
government, when he was in Boston, in 1686. He says, "Let it be enough to
say, The laws in force here, against immorality and prophaneness, are very
severe. Witchcraft is punish'd with death, as 'tis well known; and theft
with restoring fourfold, if the Criminal be sufficient.--An English woman,
admitting some unlawful freedoms from an Indian, was forc'd twelve months
to wear upon her Right arm an Indian cut in red cloath."
The "Body of Liberties," as it was strangely called, contained an hundred
laws, which had been drawn up pursuant to an order of the General Court,
by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the church at Ipswich, who had been formerly
a practitioner of law in England; and this book was printed by Daye, the
first printer, at Cambridge in 1641. (Thomas, p. 47.)
There was also published in 1649 a "Book of General Laws and Liberties,
concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts." By these, gaming by
shuffle-board and bowling at houses of entertainment, where there was
"much waste of wine and beer," were prohibited under pain for every keeper
of such house twenty shillings, and every person playing at said games,
five shillings. For "damnable heresies," as they were called, banishment
was the appropriate punishment.
Oldmixon mentions a singular law. He says, "The goodness of the pavement
may compare with most in London: to gallop a horse on it is 3 shillings
and four pence forfeit." This was more than a hundred years after the
settlement of the town, and less than forty years before the commencement
of the revolutionary war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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