Note DE — LETTER XXVI.

I doubt if the power of the community over the individual has been pushed to such an extent anywhere else as in New England; in Connecticut there were laws forbidding a person to continue tippling more than half an hour at a tavern, or to drink more than half a pint of wine, and it was ordered that taverns and victualling-houses should be closed at half past nine o'clock. No young man not married could keep house without the consent of the town; and no housekeeper could receive a young man to sojourn in his family without the same permission. Laws were made against swearing, lying, uttering false news or reports, or using tobacco without a certificate from a physician that it was necessary to health. Other regulations prohibited smoking in public places, and this very year the city government of Boston has forbidden smoking in the Mall, which, however, I do not consider a measure of excessive rigour. It is unnecessary to say that the laws of the New England colonies were extremely severe in religious matters; every individual was required to join some Congregational society, and no one was eligible to any public trust, unless he had so done. Dissenters were taxed for the support of the established church. Jews and Quakers were banished, and forbidden to return under pain of death. The Blue Laws of Connecticut contained some curious provisions in respect to marriage, and at Taunton, in Massachusetts, in 1836, two justices forbade the bans of matrimony, on the ground that the parties could not provide for themselves after the marriage, and that they had not sufficient discernment to enter into a contract of such moment.