LIQUOR LAWS NOT SUMPTUARY. 771 



noting the ancient colonial legislation against liquor-selling, and 

 judgments against drunkenness. 1630, Massachusetts : " It is 

 ordered that all Rich: Cloughe's strong water shall presently 

 be seazed upon, for his selling greate quantytie thereof to severall 

 men's servants, which tvas the occasion of much disorder, druncTce- 

 nes, and misdemeanour." If we are to believe Dr. Hammond, 

 " the Massachusetts Court of Assistants and General Court," who 

 passed this order, either did not know why they passed it, or 

 deliberately falsify the record, giving certain fictitious reasons 

 for their action in place of the one constant, true one for all 

 such action, known to Dr. Hammond now, but absent from the 

 history of the case. This is reconstructing history with a ven- 

 geance. For our own part, we prefer to believe the Massachusetts 

 actors and witnesses themselves. 1632 : " It is ordered that the 

 remainder of Mr. Allen's stronge water, being estimated about 

 two gallands, shall be delivered into the hands of the deacons of 

 Dorchester, for the benefit of the poore there, for his selling of it 

 dyvers tymes to such as were drunke with it, hee knowing thereof." 

 Neither the recording officer, nor the Dorchester deacons, nor the 

 General Court, seem to have known that the real reason here was 

 that those who made themselves drunk could not afford the ex- 

 pense ! 



Dr. Hammond gives a couple of instances of colonial pun- 

 ishment of drunkenness. Here are others. 1633. Massachusetts: 

 Robert Coles fined £10 for " abusing himself shamefully with 

 drink," and enjoined to stand with " A Drunkard " in great let- 

 ters on a white sheet on his back, " soe longe as the Court thinks 

 meete." [The penalties for repetition next year — disfranchise- 

 ment, etc. — referred to by Dr. Hammond, were remitted, May, 1634, 

 on submission and testimony of good behavior.] T. Hawkins and 

 John Vauhan fined 20s for a similar offense and selling " strong 

 water, contrary to an order of Court." In 1643 and 1650 the colony 

 made the harboring of drunkards penal. But there is not the 

 slightest evidence that the proceedings in these cases were for 

 sumptuary reasons. 1639 : Wm. C was fined 40s. "for misde- 

 meanor in drinking, and corporal punishment remitted upon his 

 promise to avoid such occasions." The same year, in New Haven, 

 John Jenner, " accused of being drunk, was acquitted, it appear- 

 ing to be of infirmity, and occasioned by the extremity of the 

 cold." " Mr. Molenour, accused, but not clearly proved, was res- 

 pited." It could hardly have been the object in these cases to pre- 

 vent the expenditure for the liquor, or to dictate what the persons 

 concerned should or should not drink ! Nor when Thomas Frank- 

 land was punished " for drinking strong liquors to excess and en- 

 tertaining disorderly persons into his cellar to drinking meetings." 

 The First Code of Connecticut, 1650, mentions "divers abuses that 



