was the Puritan dower to the New Haven republic. Davenport and his associates read in the Bible that wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars,' and in accordance with this injunction each town was governed by seven pillars of the church, who were not only the pillars of the church but also the foundation and capstone of society, as they were the magistrates of the colony, and judges as well as jury. The New Haven fathers would not permit juries because they could find no warrant for the institution in the laws of Moses. In Hartford there was practically universal suffrage; in New Haven only church members were allowed to vote, which resulted in nearly one-half of the settlers being disfranchised and the power of government passing into the hands of the most illiberal element of the community, who used their power with all the perverted zeal that intolerance has always delighted in. It was not sufficient that they regulate the affairs of the little state, but they must needs make men walk according to their own peculiar notions. They were continually prying into what men and women said or thought, and word or thought that departed from the standard bigoted dogmatism set up was swiftly punished.

'Goodman Hunt and his wife, for keeping the councils of the said William Harding, baking him a pasty and plum cakes, and keeping company with him on the Lord's day, and she suffering

Proverbs ix, 9.

Harding to kiss her, were ordered to be sent out of town within one month after the date hereof (March 1, 1643), yea, in a shorter time if any miscarriage be found in them." The way to reform, to subdue the devil and chasten the spirit, lay through the statute-books, for the surest means to make men God-fearing and strengthen them against temptations of the flesh was to enact a law that would provide a punishment for its violation. The laws that New Haven enacted are delicious in their quaintness, and it is these enactments with which that veracious Tory refugee, the Rev. Samuel Peters, tickled the fancy of the world when he published his Blue Laws of Connecticut. There was so little of this spirit in Hartford that its occasional manifestation attracts attention by its rarity. There is mention made of a Hartford man being punished for saying that he looked forward with pleasure to meeting some of the members of his church in hell, and considering the temper of some of those members perhaps the remark was not unwarranted.

They were a godly and proper people, these Connecticut forefathers, to whom virtue was a precious thing and unchastity severely punished, and yet they saw no vice in "bundling," which was carried to greater lengths in Connecticut and Massachusetts than elsewhere, and at last became such a scandal that the church was forced to suppress it. Webster defines the intransitive verb

1 Johnston: Connecticut, p. 99.

2 See p. 185.

bundle "to sleep on the same bed without undressing; applied to the custom of a man and woman, especially lovers, thus sleeping"; and the last edition of the Century Dictionary gives this definition: "In New England (in early time) and in Wales, to sleep in the same bed without undressing; applied to the custom of men and women, especially sweethearts, thus sleeping." Defenders of the colonists have denied that bundling was a common or generally sanctioned custom, but Stiles, who has written an extremely interesting little book on the subject, which shows careful investigation and judicial impartiality, says:

"Badinage, ridicule and misrepresentation aside, however, there can be no reasonable doubt that bundling did prevail to a very great extent in the New England colonies from a very early day. It is equally evident it was originally confined entirely to the lower classes of the community, or to those whose limited means compelled them to economize strictly in their expenditure of firewood and candlelight. Many, perhaps the majority, of the dwellings of the early settlers, consisted of but one room, in which the whole family lived and slept. Yet their innocence and generous hospitality forbade that the stranger, or the friend whom night overtook on their threshold, should be turned shelterless and couchless away, so long as they could offer him even a half of a bed.” 1

1 Stiles: Bundling; its Origin, Progress, and Decline in America, pp. 66-67.

1

In Massachusetts the custom was not confined to the lower classes, if contemporary writers are to be believed; and mothers who carefully watched their daughters saw no impropriety in bundling. After the French and Indian wars, the young men returning from camp and army, where they had learned vices and recklessness, deprived bundling of any innocence it possessed. The evil became so apparent that a decided movement was made against it. Jonathan Edwards denounced it from the pulpit, and one by one the ministers who had allowed it to pass unnoticed joined in its suppression.1

Stiles says, "We may notice, in this connection, that it is very common, even at the present day, in New England, to speak of one as having 'bundled in with his clothes on,' if he goes to bed without undressing; as for instance, if he came home drunk, or feeling slightly ill, lay down in the daytime, or in a cold night found the blankets too scanty."

2

Bundling is said by the detractors of America to have originated in America, but like many other American institutions, especially those of which the

1 Fisher: Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. i, p. 287. 2 Stiles: op. cit., pp. 13–14.

I am told by a woman, who traces her descent back to colonial times and until her marriage lived in Marblehead, that in that quaint old Massachusetts seaport, bundling still survives to a limited extent, but only among the lowest classes.

"It is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that, wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually born into the state, without the license of the law or the benefit of clergy." - Irving, A History of New York, p. 210.

world no longer approves, it is an exotic. Stiles traces it back to England, Scotland, and Wales, and undoubtedly it was a transplanted custom.

One of the most interesting phases of American development is that marked spirit of justice which made it possible for liberty and bigotry to exist side by side without provoking civil war or conflict. In Massachusetts we have those gentle Pilgrims going their own way without interference from the Puritans made strong by their belief that they were raised up by the Lord for His especial purpose. In Connecticut Hooker preached tolerance and taught men liberality and went about his work unharmed by the zealots of New Haven, whose zeal for conversion was as great as that of the early Spaniards, who knew only one way to convince men of their errors. When Roger Williams revolted against the Massachusetts theocracy he was banished, which was a political necessity, but he was allowed to set up his own government unmolested. This broad spirit of humanity, this recognition of the rights of others, this almost scrupulous regard to obtain nothing by conquest and to abstain from force in dominating weaker colonies — compare this with the prevailing spirit existing in Europe, which was the legacy of history, and see how remarkable, almost inexplicable it appears. The natural temptation of Massachusetts would have been to incorporate Plymouth, peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary; of Hartford to have regarded with fear