hows
out all the more plainly. With barbaric openness of cruel intent, a
figure stuffed to represent a human form was often the target, and it
was a matter of grave decision whether a shot in the head or bowels were
the fatal one. Sometimes the day was enlivened by a form of amusement
ever beloved of the colonists--by public punishments. For instance, at
the training day at Kittery, Me., in 1690, two men "road the woodin
Horse for dangerous and churtonous carig and mallplying of oaths."

The training days of colony times developed into Muster Days, the
crowning pinnacle of gayety, dissipation, and noise in a country boy's
life in New England for over a century.

We owe much to these trainings and these trials of marksmanship. In
conjunction with the universal skill in woodcraft and in hunting, they
made our ancestors more than a match for the Indian and the Frenchman,
and in Revolutionary times gave them their ascendency over the English.

Election Day was naturally a time of much excitement to New Englanders
in olden times, as nowadays. In fact, the entire week partook of the
flavor of a holiday. This did not please the ministers. Urian Oakes
wrote sadly that Election Day had become a time "to meet, to smoke,
carouse and swagger and dishonor God with the greater bravery." Various
local customs obtained. "'Lection cake," a sort of rusk rich with fruit
and wine, was made in many localities; indeed, is still made in some
families that I know; and sometimes "'lection beer" was brewed. In early
May the herb gatherers (many of them old squaws) brought to town various
barks and roots for this beer, and they also vended it on the streets
during Election week. An Election sermon was also preached.

Boston had two Election Days. "Nigger 'Lection" was so called in
distinction from Artillery Election. On the former anniversary day the
election of the governor was formally announced, and the black
population was allowed to throng the Common, to buy gingerbread and
drink beer like their white betters. On the second holiday the Ancient
and Honorable Artillery had a formal parade, and chose its new officers,
who received with much ceremony, out-of-doors, their new commissions
from the new governor. Woe, then, to the black face that dared be seen
on that grave and martial occasion! In 1817 a negro boy named William
Read, enraged at being refused the high privileges and pleasures of
Artillery Day, blew up in Boston Harbor a ship call