Blue Laws in Old New England.

How the Puritans, Seeking and Finding Toleration for Themselves, Become Themselves Intolerant—Sunday Observance With a Vengeance—Death Penalty for Disobedient Children.

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

People who object to modern laws for the regulation of conduct may, after all, consider themselves fortunate. Sometimes anti-cigarette laws are resented as infringements on personal liberty. But what shall we say of a law under which, in a certain colony, the mere possession of dice or playing-cards was punishable by a fine?

The old "Blue Laws" of Connecticut, or, strictly, of New Haven Colony, are not, in their frequently quoted form, true Blue Laws. Attention was first attracted to the collection by the publication of a "General History of Connecticut" in England in 1781. The author was a Tory minister, the Rev. S.A. Peters, who had been forced to flee from the colony. In the circumstances, it is not remarkable that his volume should bear many signs of spiteful exaggeration.

The Rev. Mr. Peters, however, did not invent the Blue Laws, though he has often been charged with so doing. All but two or three of the forty-five are to be found in the works of earlier writers, or, slightly modified, in the statute books of the various New England colonies. Many of them are not in the New Haven statute books. Those which we quote have been carefully selected from the best obtainable authorities.

The Puritans came to America to find a place where they could practise their religion without interference. Here are some of the Blue Laws which indicate the Puritan intolerance of the religion of others:

If any man, after due conviction, shall have, or worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death.—Lev. xxiv:15-16.

If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished and not suffered to return upon the pain of death.

No priest shall abide in this Dominion; he shall be banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized by any one without a warrant. (In force before 1656.)

No man shall hold any office who is not sound in the faith, and faithful to his Dominion; and whoever gives a vote to such person shall pay a fine of one pound; for a second offense he shall be disfranchised.

No Quaker or dissenter from the established worship of this Dominion shall be allowed to give a vote for the election of magistrates or any officer.

No food or lodging shall be afforded to a Quaker, Adamite, or other heretic.

How strictly the conduct of the individual was made to conform with religious rules may be gathered from the following laws as to Sunday observance, the name of authorities being given in parentheses, in some instances:

Every person in this jurisdiction, according to the mind of God, shall duly resort and attend worship upon the Lord's days at least, and upon public fasting, or thanksgiving days, and if any person, without just cause, absent, or withdraw from the same, he shall for every such sinful miscarriage forfeit five shillings. (1656.)

No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. (Barber.)

No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the Sabbath or fasting day. (Barber.)

No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. (Barber.)

Whosoever shall profane the Lord's day, or any part of it, by work or sport, shall be punished by fine, or corporally. But if the court, by clear evidence, find that the sin was proudly, presumptuously, and with a high hand committed against the command and authority of the blessed God, such person therein despising and reproaching the Lord shall he put to death. (1656.)

If any man shall kiss his wife or wife kiss her husband on the Lord's day, the party in fault shall be punished at the discretion of the Court of Magistrates.

Tradition says that a man of New Haven reached home on Sunday, after an absence of several months, and, meeting his wife at the door, kissed her. For thus violating the law he was arraigned before the court and fined.

Children were given excellent reason to mind their parents, as witness the following laws:

If any child above sixteen years old shall curse, or smite his, her or their parents, such child or children shall be put to death (Exod. xxi:17; Lev. xx:9; Exod. xxi:15), unless it be proved that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such child, etc. (Eaton.)

If any man have a stubborn, rebellious son of sixteen years old, who will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and being chastened will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey their voice, but lives in sundry crimes: such a son shall be put to death. (Enacted 1656.)

Puritan notions of propriety, as enforced by the laws, seem odd to modern minds. Thus we learn on authority of Barber, as well as from Peters, that "every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap." Sometimes half a pumpkin was used instead of a cap, to guide the hair-cutting of these "Round-heads." Other unique laws follow:

No minister shall keep a school. (Barber.)

A debtor in prison, swearing he has no estate, shall be led out and sold to make satisfaction. (Altered in 1656.)

Whoever brings cards or dice into this Dominion shall pay a fine of five pounds. (Barber.)

No one shall read common prayer, keep Christmas or Saints' days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jew's-harp. (Barber.)

Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, silver, or bone lace, above two shillings by the yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the offender at three hundred pounds estate. (Several acts governing the attire of the subjects.)

There was an ancient law in Massachusetts that ladies' dresses should be made long enough to hide their shoe-buckles. In 1660 an act of the General Court prohibited short sleeves, and required garments to be lengthened so as to cover the arms to the wrists and gowns to the shoe-buckles; "immoderate great breeches, knots of ribbon, broad shoulder bands, and they be, silk roses, double ruffs and cuffs" were forbidden. In the same colony, in 1653, I. Fairbanks was tried for wearing great boots, but was acquitted.

Laws governing marriage and the marriage relation were rigorous.

When parents refuse their children convenient marriages, the magistrate shall determine the point. (Reenacted with alterations.)

The selectmen finding children ignorant may take them from their parents and place them in better hands at the expense of their parents. (Record.)

A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband.

Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned.

No man shall court a maid in person or by letter without first obtaining consent of her parents; five pounds penalty for the first offense; ten pounds for the second; and for the third, imprisonment during the pleasure of the court.

A man that strikes his wife shall be fined ten pounds. A woman that strikes her husband shall be punished at the court's discretion.

Puritan New England was not alone among the colonies in adopting harsh laws. Virginia went to extremes, as appears in the following extract from "Laws of Virginia, at a Grand Assembly held at James City, 23d March, 1662":

In every county the court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping-post near the courthouse, and a ducking stool; and the court not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool to be erected, shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the public.

Among commercial restrictions we find an enactment prohibiting the planting of tobacco after July 10, 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."

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 feet 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 according to the statute; 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.

The following enactment is a mixture of the barbarous and the ludicrous:

Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, 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 five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco.