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¡94

CURIOUS

LAWS

OF

THE early laws of Puritan Massachusetts possessed an almost Draconian severity. In some cases there was a fixed and definite penalty, but in most instances the ques tion of sentence was left to the discretion of a hard and relentless judiciary. The laws relating to idlers, thieves, agnostics, and drunkards are given in detail here, and the reader will see that justice was seldom, if ever, tempered with mercy. The law as to idle and disorderly persons was as follows: "Idlers. It is ordered that no person, householder or others, shall spend his time unprofitably, under pain of such punishment as the county court shall think meet to inflict. And the constables of every town are required to use special care to take notice of offenders of this kind, especially common coasters, tobacco takers, and un profitable fowlers, and present the same to the next magistrate." The law as to heretics and agnostics was es pecially severe: "Any one denying the Scriptures to be the word of God, should pay not exceeding £50, to be severely whipped, not exceeding forty strokes, unless he publicly recant, in which case he shall not

PURITAN

BOSTON.

pay above £10, or be whipped in case he pay not the fine. And if the said offender after his recantation, sentence or execution, shall the second time publish and obstinately and pertinaciously maintain the same wicked opinion, he shall be banished or put to death, as the court shall judge." The court sentences of thieves and drunk ards, which are given below, are extremely interesting. "Sergeant Perkins is ordered to carry forty turfs to the fort for being drunk." "Josiah Plaistow, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, is ordered to re turn them eight baskets, and to be fined £5, and hereafter to be called Josias, and not Mr. Josiah Plaistow, as he formerly used to be." "John Wedgewood, for being in the com pany of drunkards, to be set in the stocks." "April, 1632, Robert Coles is fined £10, and enjoined to stand with a white sheet of paper on his back, wherein a drunkard shall be written in great letters, so long as the court shall think best, for abusing himself shame fully with drink." Such were some of the laws of our Puri tan ancestors.