The Latter-day Saints who settled in Missouri from 1831 to 1839 had come for the most part from the New England States and New York. There were, therefore, marked differences in character between them and the old settlers of Missouri; differences of ideas as to industrial and social life; of moral and religious life. The Saints were descendants chiefly of the Puritans, and both by inheritance and training had fallen heirs to the Puritan's strict views of industry, religion and morality. The Puritans taught that all labor was honorable, and industry a duty. {XXI} Religion occupied a large share of their attention--entered in fact into all the affairs of life--though its duties meant largely a regular attendance upon church service; a strict observance of the proprieties while there; a rigid observance throughout of the Sabbath day. Neither work nor amusements were tolerated on that day. In the olden time among some of their forefathers it had been unlawful to sit in Boston Common on the Sabbath or to walk in the streets of Boston, except to church. Once a man was publicly whipped for shooting a fowl on Sunday. A woman was threatened with banishment for smiling in church. A person absent from church for more than one Sunday was in danger of being fined, whipped, or set in the stocks. Swearing was prohibited in nearly all the New England colonies, and a split stick was sometimes placed on the swearer's tongue. [2] Both food and dress were plain, and the latter, in some instances, was regulated by law. Amusements were few. Dancing and card-playing were forbidden, and there was little music. The state sought to take entire charge of the individual, and supposed that tendency toward immorality could be stemmed by legislation. In early Connecticut no one under twenty was allowed to use tobacco, and none to use it more than once a day. The laws were severe and the penalties cruel. The stocks and whipping-post and pillory were in frequent requisition to correct moral delinquents. An offender might be made to stand on a stool in church with the name of his misdemeanor displayed on his breast. Among the common punishments were cropping or boring the ears and branding with a hot iron. [3] Of course in later years there was a general relaxation from these severities, and many of these customs and laws, by the time our generation of Saints came on the scene, were obsolete. Still, the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which the Saints and their fathers had been reared was austere in its moral character, and stood in marked contrast to the moral atmosphere of the South, where, in respect of such things as church attendance, religious observances, personal liberty in eating, drinking and amusements, there was wider freedom.