IMPROVEMENT IN SOCIAL CONDITION.

The history of the United States of North America is, in some respects, one of the most instructive that we can turn to; because we are accurately acquainted with the origin of this social community, and are also enabled to trace its history in all its important facts, from the first establishment of the several colonies up to the present condition of the Union. Of all historical records none can be put in comparison with legislative enactments, as showing the condition of the people at any given period, and the degree of mental culture diffused among them. In the American States, even under their former colonial government, there were few men of any importance in the provinces who did not participate in some of the functions of government; and we may therefore consider the laws enacted at that period as indicative of the opinions held by the most influential classes.

We happen to have before us an old collection of Virginia laws, entitled, ‘A complete collection of the Laws of Virginia, at a Grand Assembly held at James City, 23d March, 1662;’ a few extracts from which may not be uninteresting.

There appears to be in this volume only one law about education, which prescribes the founding of a college “for the advance of learning, education of youth, supply of the ministry, and promotion of piety.” The law states how the money is to be raised; but as to its application nothing more is said, except that a piece 127of land is to be got, and, “with as much speed as may be convenient, housing is to be erected thereon for entertainment of students and scholars.” The housing department seems to have been the uppermost thing in the legislature’s thoughts; the providing of good teachers was a secondary consideration.

There are several enactments about “rewards for killing wolves,” which at that time infested even the lower parts of Virginia. At the present day, owing to the increase of population, the wolf and other wild animals, though occasionally heard of, are but rarely seen even in the mountains, and seldom do any damage. The reward “for every wolf destroyed by pit, trap, or otherwise, is 200 pounds of tobacco.”

Tobacco was the most common standard of value in Virginia at that time, as we see from this and numerous other instances, where fines, &c. are estimated at so many pounds of tobacco. Thus it is stated in enactment 35, that “the court shall not take cognizance of any cause under the value of 200 pounds of tobacco, or twenty shillings sterling, which a private justice may and is hereby authorized and empowered to hear and determine.”

The following recipe for good order is contained in an enactment, entitled ‘Pillories to be erected at each Court:’—“In every county the court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping-post near the court-house, and a ducking-stool;—and the court not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool to be erected, shall be fined 5000 pounds of tobacco to the use of the public.”

In those days the following provision was made for extending the elective franchise, which appears founded on a rational principle: “Every county that will lay out 100 acres of land, and people it with 100 tytheable (taxable) persons, that place shall enjoy the like privilege” of sending a burgess. The burgesses, together with their attendants, were free from arrest, from the time of election till ten days after dissolution of the assembly; this privilege, however, was somewhat modified by several clauses. Every burgess was allowed during the sitting of the assembly “150 lbs. of tobacco and cask per day, besides the necessary charge of going to the assembly and returning.” This practice of paying legislators, which, in America, originated under the Colonial system, is still continued in the United States. It did not entirely cease in England until the reign of Charles II. Andrew Marvell, one of the burgesses of Hull, was the last member of the House of Commons who appears to have accepted the wages which all were entitled to receive.

Among commercial restrictions we find an enactment prohibiting the planting of tobacco after the 10th of July, which was done for “the improvement of our only commodity tobacco, which can no ways be effected but by lessening the quantity and amending the quality.” That the former effect might possibly be produced by the enactment, without securing the latter, seems pretty certain. Another object that the government had in view was to compel the people to become silk-growers against their will. “Be it therefore enacted,” says the legislature, “that every proprietor of land within the colony of Virginia shall, for every hundred acres of land holden in fee, plant upon the said land ten mulberry-trees at twelve foot distance from each other, and secure them by weeding and a sufficient fence from cattle and horses.” Tobacco fines, as usual, were enacted in case the planting and weeding were not duly performed; and further, “there shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for every pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of tobacco, to be raised in the public levy, and paid in the county or counties where they dwell that make it.” This act was passed in 1662, and probably continued in force for a long time; but Virginia did not therefore become a silk-growing country, nor has it yet, though many parts are well adapted to raise this commodity. People, we presume, have hitherto found other things more profitable than silk.

The following enactment has a most barbarous character about it, not unmixed with something extremely ludicrous as to the idea of the legislature trying to prevent women from talking: “Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbours, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages:—Be it therefore enacted, that in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than 500 pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each 500 pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuse to pay the tobacco.”

This old statute book of Virginia is full of enactments such as we have quoted; some exceedingly mischievous, and others very ludicrous. It would, however, be unfair to say that there are not also some good regulations in it. Were a history of our own or any other country to be written, founded on the legislative enactments and illustrated, whenever it was possible, by individual cases on record, we should then begin to have some idea of what history is. Instead of the splendours or the follies of a few who occupy the attention of the historian, we should be able to form a more complete picture of the condition of the whole community, and a more exact estimate of the progress which has been made in social knowledge.