Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/74



At a Puritan banquets held at Detroit, Mich., December 17, 1908, among the speakers were Ray Stannard Baker, the Michigan author; R. F. Sutherland, of Windsor, Speaker of the Canadian Parliament, and Samuel J. Elder, the prominent Boston lawyer. Mr. Elder replied to the toast, "The Puritans," and treated the subject in a rather anecdotal way. He told a number of instances of the humor of the early Puritans, among other things mentioning Gov. Bradford's account of a ball game at Plymouth. It seemed that some of the newcomers refused to work on Christmas Day because it was "against their conscience" to work on that day, and were