Note 520 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

See the facts collected by Davis, op. cit., 16-32. For Massachusetts, between 1633 and 1681, are a number of sentences to wear a badge for offenses other than adultery, such as drunkenness, theft, wanton behavior, incontinence, or the disturbing of public worship. In most instances the mark is to be worn temporarily; but in three cases it is a continuous punishment. Thus on March 4, 1633-34, for drunkenness, Robert Coles is "sentenced to be disfranchised, and to wear about his neck, and to hang about his outer garment a D made of red cloth set upon white, to continue for a year and not to leave it off at any time when he should come among company."—Davis, op. cit., 18; Mass. Col. Rec., I, 112. This appears to be the earliest reference to a red badge placed upon the outer garments. See also the case cited by Davis from Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England (Veazie's reprint, Boston, 1865), 178, 179, occurring either in Massachusetts or Plymouth prior to 1671; the similar case of sentence to wear a "Roman B cut out ridd cloth," for unclean and lascivious behavior and blasphemous words: in Plym. Col. Rec., III, 111, 112 (March 5, 1656-57); and one in Mass. Col. Rec. (Sept. 3, 1639), 269.