Among legal weapons available to the church party are four ecclesiastical laws, the strict application of which—as regards the Rogerenes, at least—have fallen into disuse, viz.: the law against Sunday labor, that against going from one’s house on Sunday except to and from authorized meetings, the law against unauthorized meetings and those holding or attending such meetings, and the law by which any one not attending meetings of the ruling order or the services of some authorized Society of which he is a member, in a regular meeting-house on Sunday, can be fined for every such absence.[163] (Besides these are the large fines for baptizing and administering the Lord’s Supper on the part of unauthorized persons.) Footnote 163: There are traditions among descendants of the Rogerenes to the effect that one of the features of the persecution that called forth the countermove of 1764-6 was molestation of the Rogerenes for not attending regular (“lawful”) meetings. This tradition is found in different families situated far apart. Mr. John R. Bolles received such a statement from his mother (who was a daughter of John Rogers, 3d). Since this history asserts nothing upon tradition, this cannot be stated as a proven fact, although it appears fully probable. It is optional with the town magistrates to present persons guilty of breaking any of the above laws before the next County Court or to deal with such “at their own discretion,” a discretion which in a number of instances has taken the form of lynch law, by giving the offenders over to a mischievous mob. It is not the policy at this time to present the Rogerenes before the County Court; not only would such publicity be liable to create outside sympathy with the Rogerenes, but the fines of this court for such offenses are limited to an inconsiderable amount, expressed in shillings, while the “discretion” of the town magistrates allows of serious fines, expressed in pounds, as well as imprisonment, stocks and stripes. The damaging effect of a friendly jury is also to be avoided. (But one reference to the Rogerenes is to be found on the records of the County Court during the more or less turbulent period between 1758 and 1766; this reference occurs in regard to the barring of the doors of the New London prison by the prisoners, for which the penalty is conspicuously slight.—See end of this Chapter.) While this persecution, the most virulent that has ever been visited upon the Rogerenes as a Society, is nearing a crisis, occurs the death of Ebenezer Bolles, June 24, 1762, at the age of fifty-four, through contact with “poisonous wood.”[164] An obituary notice, in the next issue of the _Connecticut Gazette_, attests to the wealth, integrity, hospitality and general worthiness of this New London merchant, and also states that no physician or medicines were allowed in his sickness,[165] he “belonging to the Society of Rogerenes.” Footnote 164: