Lord Lyveden inquired: "Do these meetings take place at particular periods, such as harvest time, or is it over the whole of the year?"

Answer: "The whole of the year; very commonly the young man visits the young woman once a week."

Lord Chelmsford said: "In England that would be called keeping company. It is a very extraordinary way of keeping company when the parents allow their daughter to go out with the young man at midnight, or the young man to come into her bedroom."

Answer: "Yes; the parents know no other way of doing it. I have reasoned with the parents often when attending a case of illegitimate birth, pointing out to the parents how it is they have been led on, but they cannot imagine any other way of doing it; their daughters must have husbands, and there is no other way of courting."

Mr. Justice O'Hagan asking—"Does it prevail generally in Scotland?" was answered—"Universally among the agricultural laborers."

In reply to an inquiry by Mr. Dunlop, whether these young men lived under any kind of supervision and knowledge of their masters, or whether they could go out and in as they pleased, Dr. Strahan stated that "plowmen, for instance, very often live in bothies, or in the farm house; they get out after all are in bed, out of the window; or, if they live in a bothie, without any trouble. They go to the neighboring farm-house, they knock at the window, the girl comes to the window, and, if she know the young man—or, after a little parley, if she does not know him—she either comes out and goes with him to an outhouse, or he comes into her bedroom. You must remember that they have no other means of intercourse."

"That is the point you press so much?"

"Yes; a young woman cannot see either a sweetheart or an acquaintance in any other way. I believe if it was not for fear of being out at night, the girls would visit one another in the same way; they have no other means of visiting; the customs of the country are such that a young man could not be seen going in day-light to visit his sweetheart."

Mr. Justice O'Hagan: "If the father knew that the young man was coming into the house, and knew that he was with his daughter, would he not interfere?"

"He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing that his daughter was in an out-house or barn with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting his eyes to it in the same way that a person in the higher ranks would shut his eyes to his daughter going out for a walk with a young man."

Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to the middle class a young man would not marry a girl that had had a child to another man; and very probably he would not marry a girl that had had a child to himself; but in the lower classes it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a woman that has had a child, or that is with child to himself; but it is very frequent to marry a woman that has had a child to another man; the only objection is the burden of the child; the burden of the child might be an obstacle, but the disgrace would be none."

"Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that the woman, by marrying this other man, wipes off her disgrace with the former?"

"Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace is not so much as to prevent the young man marrying her."

The attorney-general: "It is hardly within our inquiry, but still it is interesting to know; can you tell me whether, in these cases, where the woman marries a man who is not the father of her child, any confusion, as to the parent of the previously born child, arises? Are they apt in law, to pass as the children of the subsequent husband?"

"No, I do not think so."

"The distinction is always kept up?"

"The distinction is always kept up; very often the illegitimate child goes by his own father's name, even among the other children; and I do not think there is apt to be any confusion of that kind."

Still, it seems that, in severely Calvinistic Scotia, the church does not wholly wink at this state of things. The sinning couple, after marriage, have to go through a certain whitewashing at church before they are admitted to what are called church privileges. They have to go before a kirk session, consisting of the minister and perhaps half a dozen elders, when they are admonished. If the parties are married, they appear but once; if not married, generally three times. They tender themselves for rebuke without invitation, as without it the child cannot be baptized, or admission given to the sacrament. They apply to the minister in private, and confess their fault, and he causes them to be summoned before the church session.



INDEX. African tribes, courtship among, 42 America, English misrepresentation of, 62. America, bundling in, 44 inherits bundling from Holland, 45. bundling not peculiar to, 13. bundling universal in 1750, 106.

Ballads against bundling, 81, 100. in favor of bundling, 88, 93. Brychan, a cloth, 23. Bundling, antiquity of, 14. Bundling, abuse of, in New England, 75. ballads on, 81, 88, 93, 100. ceased with eighteenth century, 106, confined to the lower classes, 107. Bundling, described by Lt. Anbury in 1777, 66. definition of, 13. decision of N. Y. Supreme Court on, 111. effect of, 75. in America, 44. in British isles, 14, 22. in Cape Cod, 110. in Holland, 35. Bundling in Maine about 1828, 117. in New England States, 48. in Wales, 23, 115. introduced in America from Holland, 45. mentioned by Rev. Sam'l Peters, 51. mentioned by Washington Irving, 49. mentioned by Dr. A. Burnaby, 1759, 58. mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, 20. not peculiar to America, 13. Bundling originating in poverty in Scotland and Ireland, 23. origin of, 14. originally confined to the lower classes in America, 65. practiced in Pennsylvania till late years, 109. preached against, 54. recollections of by old persons, 106. Bundling regarded as a serious evil, 106. sanctioned by parents, 69. sermon against, 77. two forms of, 13. universal now in lower classes of Scotland, 130. universal in America in 1750, 106. -up, in Wales, 42.

Cape Cod, bundling practiced there in 1827, 110. Central Asia, courtship in, 42. Confession in public necessary for baptism of children, 76. Courtship, customs of, in Great Britain, 127. Courtship among Welsh peasantry, 29. in Central Asia, 42. in the 14th century, 37. among N. A. Indians, 40. in Switzerland, 38. Cuckold, no word in Gaelic for, 21. Customs of courtship, different in the cantons of Switzerland, 39.

Dayaks of Borneo, courtship of, 42. Dorfen, in Switzerland, 39.

Empress Cartismandua, 21. Julia, 20. Epilogue on bundling at Westminster school, 1815, 61.

Free-bench, 22. French war, demoralizing influence of, 74.

Germans, respect of, for women, 21. Gordon, Sir Robert, 19. Sir Adam, 19. Great Britain, bundling common at the present day in, 126. Great Britain, immorality of lower classes in, 127. Gwent, a district in Wales, 34. Gwentian Code of Wales, 34.

Hand-fasting, a Scotch custom, 17, 19. common among all classes, 20. Highland law of marriage, 16. Highlanders, curious custom of the, 17. Holland, bundling in, 35, 36.

Illegitimacy not considered a disgrace in Scotland, 131.

Kiltgang in canton of Lucerne. 39. Kweesten, a Dutch custom, 36.

La Hontan, Indian custom described by, 41. Lichtgetren, in Switzerland, 39. Love and courtship in the 14th century, 37.

Maine, bundling in, 1828, 118. Marriage laws of Great Britain, royal commission on, 127. Marriage, Welsh laws relating to, 24.

Namzat bezé, an African custom, 42. Natural children legitimatized in Scotland, 18. New bundling song, a, 81. New England, bundling in, 48. New song in favor of courting, a, 88. New York Supreme Court on bundling, 111. N. Am. Indians, chastity of, 41-52. courtship among, 41.

Pennsylvania, bundling in, 109. Poem against bundling, a, 100. Polygamy among ancient nations, 15. in Great Britain, 15. Prostitutes, punishment of in Scotland and Germany, 21. Public confession of unlawful cohabitation made in New England, 75. records of, 75.

Quest, definition of and origin, 35. Queesting, 35.

Royal commission on marriage laws of Great Britain, 127.

Savage nations, amatory customs of, 40. Scotland, courtship of, 128. conjugal infidelity in, 17. admonition by church of, 133. Scotch and Irish moral character, 22. Scott, Walter, mention of bundling by, 20. Stubetegetren in Switzerland, 39. Sutherland, son of a hand-fast marriage claims earldom of, 19. Switzerland, courtship in, 38.

Tarrying, common in England, 64. in New England, 70. Texel, bundling in the island of, 36.

United States, bundling in the, 44.

Vlie and Wieringen, bundling practiced in islands of, 35.

Wales, bundling in, 23. described by Bingley, 28; by Barbor, 30; by Carr, 32; by Pratt, 25. chastity in, 115. Welsh laws relating to marriage, 24. Whore on the snow crust, the, 93. Wieringen, see Vlie. Wynet-werth, a Welsh term, 35.



FOOTNOTES.

[1] Cæsar says, that several brothers, or a father and his sons, would have but one wife among them. Solinus, indeed, says that the women in Thule were common, the king having a free choice; and Dio says the Caledonians had wives in common; yet these assertions may well be disputed. Strabo describes the Irish as extremely gross in this matter; O'Conner says polygamy was permitted; and Derrick tells us they exchanged wives once or twice a year; while Campion says they only married for a year and a day, sending their wives home again for any slight offense.—Logan's Scottish Gael, 5th Am. ed., p. 472.

[2] A History of the Highlands, and of the Highland Clans, etc. (Jas. Browne, LL.D., Advocate, 4 vols. London, 1853), IV, 398.

"The law of marriage observed in the Highlands has frequently been as little understood as that of succession, and similar misconceptions have prevailed regarding it. This was, perhaps, to be expected. In a country where a bastard son was often found in undisturbed possession of the chiefship or property of a clan, and where such bastard generally received the support of the clansmen against the claims of the feudal heir, it was natural to suppose that very loose notions of succession were entertained by the people; that legitimacy conferred no exclusive rights; and that the title founded on birth alone might be set aside in favor of one having no other claim than that of election. But this, although a plausible, would nevertheless be an erroneous supposition. The person here considered as a bastard, and described as such, was by no means viewed in the same light by the Highlanders, because, according to their law of marriage, which was originally very different from the feudal system in this matter, his claim to legitimacy was as undoubted as that of the feudal heir afterward became. It is well known that the notions of the Highlanders were peculiarly strict in regard to matters of hereditary succession, and that no people on earth was less likely to sanction any flagrant deviation from what they believed to be the right and true line of descent. All their peculiar habits, feelings and prejudices were in direct opposition to a practice which, had it been really acted upon, must have introduced endless disorder and confusion, and hence the natural explanation of this apparent anomaly seems to be, what Mr. Skene has stated, namely, that a person who was feudally a bastard might in their view be considered as legitimate, and therefore entitled to be supported in accordance with their strict ideas of hereditary right, and their habitual tenacity of whatever belonged to their ancient usages. Nor is this mere conjecture or hypothesis. A singular custom regarding marriage, retained till a late period amongst the Highlanders, and clearly indicating that their law of marriage originally differed in some essential points from that established under the feudal system, seems to afford a simple and natural explanation of the difficulty by which genealogists have been so much puzzled.

"This custom was termed hand-fasting, and consisted in a species of contract between two chiefs, by which it was agreed that the heir of one should live with the daughter of the other as her husband for twelve months and a day. If, in that time, the lady became a mother, or proved to be with child the marriage became good in law, even although no priest had performed the marriage ceremony in due form; but should there not have occurred any appearance of issue, the contract was considered at an end, and each party was at liberty to marry or hand-fast with any other. It is manifest that the practice of so peculiar a species of marriage must have been in terms of original law among the Highlanders, otherwise it would be difficult to conceive how such a custom could have originated, and it is in fact one which seems naturally to have arisen from the form of their society, which rendered it a matter of such vital importance to secure the lineal succession of their chiefs. It is perhaps not improbable that it was this peculiar custom which gave rise to the report handed down by the Roman and other historians, that the ancient inhabitants of Great Britain had their wives in common, or that it was the foundation of that law of Scotland by which natural children became legitimatized by subsequent marriage.[3] And as this custom remained in the Highlands until a very late period, the sanction of ancient custom was sufficient to induce them to persist in regarding the offspring of such marriages as legitimate."[4]

It appears, indeed, that as late as the sixteenth century, the issue of a hand-fast marriage claimed the earldom of Sutherland. The claimant, according to Sir Robert Gordon, described himself as one lawfully descended from his father, John, the third earl, because, as he alleged, "his mother was hand-fasted and fianced to his father;" and his claim was bought off (which shows that it was not considered as altogether incapable of being maintained) by Sir Adam Gordon, who had married the heiress of Earl John. Such, then, was the nature of the peculiar and temporary connection which gave rise to the apparent anomalies which we have been considering. It was a custom which had for its object, not to interrupt but to preserve the lineal succession of the chiefs, and to obviate the very evil of which it is conceived to afford a glaring example. But after the introduction of the feudal law, which, in this respect, was directly opposed to the ancient Highland law, the lineal and legitimate heir, according to Highland principles, came to be regarded as a bastard by the government, which accordingly considered him as thereby incapacitated for succeeding to the honors and property of his race; and hence originated many of those disputes concerning succession and chiefship, which embroiled families with one another, as well as with the government, and were productive of incredible disorder, mischief and bloodshed. No allowance was made for the ancient usages of the people, which were probably but ill understood; and the rights of rival claimants were decided according to the principles of a foreign system of law, which was long resisted, and never admitted except from necessity. It is to be observed, however, that the Highlanders themselves drew a broad distinction between bastard sons and the issue of the hand-fast unions above described. The former were rigorously excluded from every sort of succession, but the latter were considered as legitimate as the offspring of the most regularly solemnized marriage.

This practice obtained not only among chiefs, but common people.

Walter Scott, in the XXV chapter of the Monastery, in a note, says: "This custom of hand-fasting actually prevailed in the upland days. It arose partly from the want of priests. While the convents subsisted, monks were detached on regular circuits through the wilder districts, to marry those who had lived in this species of connexion. A practice of the same kind existed in the Isle of Portland."

[3] This is a mistake in point of law. The principle of legitimation by subsequent marriage, was first explicitly announced in an imperial constitution of Constantine, and being wisely recognized by the church, it was adopted by the canonists, through whom it passed into our law. The attempt to introduce it into England failed, in consequence of the attachment of the people to their ancient Saxon constitutions; and hence, although it was recognized in the statutes of Merton, it was subsequently discarded, and never afterwards found admission into the municipal system of the neighboring kingdom. There can be no doubt whatever that the principle is one which reason, morality and religion must equally approve.

[4] Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, vol. I, chap. vii, 166, 167.

[5] In Scottish Ballads and Songs, by James Maidment, Edinburgh, MDCCCLIX, under the title of Luckidad's Garland, p. 134, is a remarkable picture of the old and new times in Scotland, eighty or ninety years ago, three of the twenty-four verses of which the ballad is composed, being descriptive of something akin to bundling. In a London edition of Hudibras, also, published in 1811, is a note to line 913, of Part I, Canto I. As both of these extracts, however, are somewhat too broad for our pages, we content ourselves with simply referring thereto. In the same category, also, is the definition, in Bailey's Old English Dictionary, of the term free bench, as prevailing in the manors of East and West Embourn, Chaddleworth in the county of Berks, Tor in Devonshire, and other places of the west.

[6] History of Wales (by B. B. Woodward, B.A., London, 1853), p. 320; who adds, also, p. 186, the following:

"The laws which treat of the violation of the marriage bond and those which relate to chastity generally, recognize a degree of laxity respecting female honor, and, yet more remarkably, an absence of feminine delicacy, such as could scarcely be paralleled amongst the most uncivilized people now. They are of such a nature, that though most characteristic, they must be passed by with this general mention. The distinction between the Celtic and Teutonic races is perhaps in no case more plainly marked than in this: The Anglo-Saxon laws on this subject (always excepting those of the ecclesiastical authorities) are modesty itself, notwithstanding their plain speaking, compared with those of the Welsh legislators."

[7] Gleanings through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia, etc. (3d edition, by Mr. Pratt, London, 1797), I, pp. 105-107.

[8] North Wales, including its Scenery, Antiquities, Customs, etc. (by Rev. W. W. Bingley, A.M., 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1804), II, p. 282.

[9] A Tour throughout North Wales and Monmouthshire, etc., etc. (by J. T. Barbor, F.S.A., London, 1803), pp. 103-9.

[10] The Stranger in Ireland, by John Carr.

[11] "On his way to Ireland he passed through Wales, and gives us a slight sketch of the character of that people and country. It must afford no small gratification to a New England man to learn that the practice of BUNDLING is not peculiar to us, but that this pleasing though dangerous art was probably imported from abroad."—A review of The Stranger in Ireland, in Connecticut Courant for November 19th, 1806.

[12] In this connection we may give the following extract from Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, etc., etc., printed by command of his late Majesty King William IV, under the direction of the commissioners on the Public Records of the Kingdom. MDCCCXLI. Folio. From page 369.—The Gwentian[13] Code.

"A woman of full age who goes with a man clandestinely, and taken by him to bush, or brake, or house, and after connection deserted; upon complaint made by her to her kindred, and to the courts, is to receive, for her chastity, a bull of three winters, having its tail well shaven and greased and then thrust through the door-clate; and then let the woman go into the house, the bull being outside, and let her plant her foot on the threshold, and let her take his tail in her hand, and let a man come on each side of the bull; and if she can hold the bull, let her take it for her wynet-werth[14] and her chastity; and, if not, let her take what grease may adhere to her hands."

[13] Gwent, the appellation of the district in Wales inhabited by the Silures, comprised the diocese of Landav.

[14] This word means face shame or face worth.

[15] A good honest word, which although not exactly English, is at least first cousin to our quest, and quiz, etc.

Worcester gives the following: "Quse, v. a., to search after. Milton." [obsolete long, s like z.] Qust, v. n., to join search. B. Jonson. Quster, n., a seeker. Rowe.

Is it not allowable to derive from one of these words Qusing, or Qusting, pronounced Qweesting, and from the other Qusting [è short]? So that he who went queesting was simply searching after a wife, understood.

[16] These are two very small islands at the opening of the Zuider zee.

[17] From The Student and Intellectual Observer, London, November number, 1868, p. 310, in article by Thomas Wright, F.S.A. Chapter vii—Womankind in all Ages of Western Europe, etc.

[18] Cottages of the Alps (London, 1860), pages 77, 91, 132.

[19] New Voyage to North America, giving a full Account of the Customs, Commerce, Religion and Strange Opinions of the Savages of that Country, etc., etc. Written by Baron Lahontan, Lord Lieutenant of the French Colony at Placentia, in Newfoundland, now in England. London, 1703.

In describing the amatory customs of the Indians of this country, the author says (Vol. II, p. 37):

"You must know further, that Two Hours after Sunset the Old Supperannuated Persons, or Slaves (who never lie in their Masters' Huts) take care to cover up the Fire before they go. 'Tis then that the Young Savage comes well wrapt up to his Mistress's Hut, and lights a sort of a Match at the Fire; after which he opens the Door of his Mistress's Apartment and makes up to her bed: If she blows out the light, he lies down by her; but if she pulls her Covering over her Face, he retires; that being a Sign that she will not receive him."

[20] Verily, Peters's sarcasm savors as much of truth as humor when, speaking of bundling, he says: "The Indians who had this method of courtship among them in 1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world. Concubinage and fornication are vices none of them are addicted to, except such as forsake the laws of Hobbamockon and turn Christians. The savages have taken many female prisoners, carried them back three hundred miles into their country, and kept them several years, and yet not a single instance of their violating the laws of chastity has ever been known. This cannot be said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian or other women have fallen into their hands."

[21] "Great jealousy did they likewise stir up by their intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the simple lasses from their ponderous Dutch gallants. Among other hideous customs, they attempted to introduce among them that of bundling, which the Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty and foreign fashions natural to their sex, seemed very well inclined to follow, but that their mothers, being more experienced in the world, and better acquainted with men and things, strenuously discountenanced all such outlandish innovations."

[22] By Washington Irving, p. 211. 4th Am. edition.

[23] Dr. Andrew Burnaby. Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America, in the years 1759 and '60. London, 1775.

[24] The Portfolio (Philadelphia, May 1816), p. 397.

[25] Terences Plays were preferred to those of Plautus, for this purpose, inasmuch as the latter were more obscure, and abounded in obsoletisms, and therefore Terence was preferred in England as the text-book for schools.

[26] Ireland.

[27] The Reviewers Reviewed, or British Falsehoods detected by American Truths (New York, published by R. McDermot and D. D. Arden, No. 1, City Hotel, Broadway, 1815, 12mo, 72), pp. 34, 35.

[28] The Right Honorable Sir George Canning, the editor of the London Quarterly Review.

[29] Travels through the Interior Parts of America; in a Series of Letters (by an officer; a new edition, London, 1781, 8vo), vol. II, pp. 37-40.

[30] Anbury's Travels, pp. 87, 88.

[31] History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Conn., p. 495.

[32] The Rev. Alonzo B. Chapin, in his History of Ancient Glastenbury, Conn. (p. 80), says that the church records, during the pastorate of the Rev. John Eels [1759-1791], "compel us to believe that the influence of the French war had been as unfavorable to morals as destructive to life; and that the absurd practice of bundling prevalent in those days, was not infrequently attended with the consequences that might have been expected, and that both together, aided by a previous growing laxity of morals, and accelerated by many concurrent causes, had rolled a tide of immorality over the land, which not even the bulwark of the church had been able to withstand. The church records of the first society, from 1760 to 1790, raise presumptions of the strongest kind, that then, as since, incontinence and intemperance were among the sins of the people. What the condition of things in Eastbury [an ecclesiastical society in the east part of Glastenbury] was, we have no means of knowing, as that portion of the church records which treats of this point, was long ago carefully removed. [N.B. Italics are our own.] There is no reason, however, to suppose that this state of thing's was peculiar to Glastenbury, for there is too much evidence that it prevailed throughout the country."

Mr. Chapin's deductions from the revelations of the Glastenbury records, will be fully justified by the experience and observation of every antiquarian who has had occasion to dig deep among the civil and ecclesiastical records of almost any one of the older towns of New England. We have before us, while writing, a copy, made some years since, by ourselves, of the records of the first church of Woodstock, Conn., covering the period from 1727 to 1777, in which are a large number of entries, mostly the names of parties who made confessions of this sort before that church. These cases occur most frequently between the years 1737 and 1770. Our own observation among the records of the old churches in Windsor and East Windsor, is, in effect, the same, and we have occasionally happened upon the original manuscript confessions of individuals read to the church before they were formally admitted to its communion.

[33] History of Dedham, Mass, (by Erastus Worthington, 1827), page 108. Under ministry of Rev. Jason Haven, ordained February 6, 1756.

"Revolutionary times having produced a disposition to investigate all the former principles and opinions of men, in politics and church government, Mr. Haven caused the mode of admission into the church to be altered. This was done in 1793. The new method required the candidate to be propounded to the congregation by the minister. If no objections within fourteen days were made, he was then of course admitted. At the same time the church covenant and creed was altered, and made very general in its expressions. This creed had so few articles, that all persons professing and calling themselves Christians, would assent to it without any objections. The church had ever in this place required of its members guilty of unlawful cohabitation before marriage, a public confession of that crime before the whole congregation. The offending female stood in the broad aisle beside the partner of her guilt. If they had been married, the declaration of the man was silently assented to by the woman. This had always been a delicate and difficult subject for church discipline. The public confession, if it operated as a corrective, likewise produced merriment with the profane. I have seen no instance of a public confession for this fault, until the ministry of Mr. Dexter [1724-1755], and then they were extremely rare. In 1781 the church gave the confessing parties the privilege of making a private confession to the church, in the room of a public confession. In Mr. Havens ministry, the number of cases of unlawful cohabitation increased to an alarming degree. For twenty-five years before 1781, twenty-five cases had been publicly acknowledged before the congregation, and fourteen cases within the last ten years. This brought out the minister to preach on the subject from the pulpit. Mr. Haven, in a long and memorable discourse, sought out the cause of the growing sin, and suggested the proper remedy. He attributed the frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent, of females admitting young men to their beds, who sought their company with intentions of marriage. And he exhorted all to abandon that custom, and no longer expose themselves to temptations which so many were found unable to resist.

"The immediate effect of this discourse on the congregation has been described to me, and was such as we must naturally suppose it would be. A grave man, the beloved and revered pastor of the congregation, comes out suddenly on his audience, and discusses a subject on which mirth and merriment only had been heard, and denounces a favorite custom. The females blushed and hung down their heads. The men, too, hung down their heads, and now and then looked out from under their fallen eyebrows, to observe how others supported the attack. If the outward appearance of the assembly was somewhat composed, there was a violent internal agitation in many minds. And now, when forty-five years have expired, the persons who were present at the delivery of that sermon, express its effects by saying: 'How queerly I felt!' 'What a time it was!' 'This was close preaching indeed!' The custom was abandoned. The sexes learned to cultivate the proper degree of delicacy in their intercourse, and instances of unlawful cohabitation in this town since that time have been extremely rare."

[34] Butler's History of Groton (Pepperell & Shirley), page 174. At a church meeting, Feb. 29, 1739-40, the subject of compelling persons to confess themselves guilty of an offense, of which they said, "if not absolutely, yet next to impossible to convict them," was acted upon, and some relaxation made in the rule before adopted; but a part of the record is so worn as to be illegible.

Page 177. June 1, 1761. "The church also at this meeting, voted in relation to the confession necessary to be made by parents, to entitle their children to the rite of baptism, who might be supposed to have committed the offence of which, in Mr. Trowbridge's time, they supposed that, 'if not absolutely, yet next to impossible to convict them,' not materially varying from a seven-months rule heretofore adopted. These regulations were signed by the moderator, and assented to by the pastor elect."

Page 181. "During Mr. Dana's ministry [1761-1775] 124 persons (38 males, 86 females) were admitted to the church in full communion; 200 (77 males, 123 females) owned the baptismal covenant. Of the first class, 14 confessed having committed the offence aforementioned, and of the last class, 66, a proportion not indicative of good customs and morals."

[35] A typographical mistake for unruly.

[36] But this was as late as 1785 to 1790, when the custom was very near its end.

[37] Another, when in his 96th year, in speaking of his knowledge of the custom, after answering all inquiries, voluntarily mentioned his own personal experience. "In my younger days," said he, and his voice trembled, more from emotion then age, "I was on the bed with as many as five or six young women, but I thank God, that in all my long life I have never had carnal knowledge of any but my lawfully wedded wives."

[38] A physician who kept school on the Cape many years ago, says (June, 1869): "It is forty years since I was engaged on the Cape in teaching school, and a friend of mine then related to me some of his experience in a long career of courtship which included bundling. The family left the happy couple alone. After sitting up till nine or ten o'clock, the lady secures the fire, takes a light and retires, saying, you know the way up stairs, turn to the right, etc. At a proper time he follows, finding her nicely snuggled under the bed clothes, having previously put on a very appropriate and secure night dress, made neither like a bloomer or mantilla, but something like a common dress, excepting the lower part, which is furnished with legs, like drawers, properly attached. The dress is drawn at the neck and waist with strings tied with a very strong knot, and over this is put the ordinary apparel."

[39] Caines' Cases, II, 219; Seger vs. Slingerland.

[40] In reply to a query addressed to Mr. Neal, who is still living at Portland, Maine, as to whether this letter was a bona fide communication, that gentleman says: "It was an actual communication from a correspondent. Who that correspondent was, I never knew, but I never entertained a doubt, and, in fact, find such internal evidence of good faith, that I should never question the facts set forth."

[41] Sandy River is near Farmington, Franklin county, Maine.

THE END