affair, and levity a crime only milder than non-orthodoxy. Gaming even
for amusement was rigidly prohibited. It was a criminal act to kiss a
woman in the street, even in the way of chaste and honest salute. The
heads of households were called to account if the daughters neglected the
spinning-wheel. The stocks and the whipping-post were seldom unoccupied
by minor offenders, while the hangman was kept busy with criminals of
deeper dye. It should be needless to say that there was a good deal of
hypocrisy, and that public repentance was often simply a means for
escaping from social ostracism and obtaining admission to the pastures of
the elect. Hubbard intimates as much in what he says about Captain John
Underhill.

The laws enacted were based on the Mosaic code, and of Mosaic severity in
dealing with offences against morality and religion. It is to be
remembered, however, that down to the second quarter of the present
century the code of England itself was Draconic, although immoralities
punished by death in Massachusetts were not regarded as crimes in the
older country.

* * *

The most painful event connected with the harsh religious system of the
Puritans was the execution in 1659 of two Quakers, Marmaduke Stephenson
and William Robinson, of England, who had come to Massachusetts to preach
their doctrines. The first two Quakers to arrive in Boston were Ann
Austin and Mary Fisher, who landed here in 1656. They were forthwith
arrested, and examined for witch-marks, but none being found and there
being no excuse therefore for putting them to death as agents of Satan,
they were kept in close imprisonment, and the jailer and citizens were
forbidden to give them any food, the object apparently being to starve
them to death. The windows of the jail were boarded up to prevent food
from being handed into them and also to prevent the prisoners from
exhorting passers-by. A citizen named Upshall, who gave money to the
jailer to buy nourishment for the captives, was fined $100, and ordered
to leave the colony within thirty days, and was sentenced to pay beside
$15 for every day he should be absent from public worship before his
departure--evidently that he might be compelled to listen to pulpit
denunciations of his wickedness in saving from starvation two
fellow-human beings who worshipped God in a different fashion from their
persecutors. The exile was denied an asylum in Plymouth, and