Previous to the year 1632, the laws of Plymouth colony were little more than the customs of the people.[323] In 1636 these were digested, and prefaced with a declaration of rights; and, with various alterations and additions, the whole manuscript collection was printed in 1671.[324] Let us open the ponderous old folio, and cull from the mass a few specimen and characteristic samples. Early provision was made for the education of youth. Many of the Pilgrims were men of liberal culture, as Winslow and Brewster,[325] and all recognized its value and necessity; so, in order that knowledge and civil liberty might clasp hands, it was enacted, “that twelve pounds should be raised for the salary of a teacher, and that children should be forced to attend school.”[326] Decreed: “For ordering of persons and distributing the lands, That freemen shall be twenty-one years of age; sober and peaceable; orthodox in the fundamentals of religion. That drunkards shall be subject to fines, to the stocks, and be posted; and sellers be forbidden to sell them liquors. “Horse-racing is forbidden; so also walking about late o’ nights. “The minister’s salary shall be paid by rate levied on all the citizens. Sabbath work and travelling is forbidden; also all visiting on that day. “Profane swearing punishable by ‘placing in the stocks; lying, by the stocks or by fine.’ “Fowling, fishing, and hunting, shall be free. “Every wolf’s head shall be worth, to an Indian, twelve shillings or ‘a coat of duffels;’ to a white man, twenty shillings. “Haunters of ale-houses shall be disciplined by the church. “A motion of marriage to any man’s daughter, if made without obtaining leave, shall be punished by fine or corporal punishment, at the discretion of the court, so it extend not to the endangering of life or limb. “Women shall not wear short sleeves; nor shall their sleeves be more than twenty-two inches wide:”[327] an enactment the object of which was, to prevent indecent extremes and extravagance in dress. So runs this “quaint old volume of forgotten lore.” If some of these laws seem severe, as we scan them through the vista of two centuries, and in an age when sumptuary laws are perhaps too little known, it may be said in their defence, that they were quite upon a level with the kindred legislation of Europe, even in their most obnoxious features, while their progressive and liberal tone is as new and unique as the colony which gave them birth, and whose ideas they mirror.