April 28. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



321 



county, Canada, at the age of one hundred and 

 fifteen years. J. Waxlen. 



BLUE LAWS. 



" ' In a code of laws made in the dominion of New- 

 haven, at its first settlement,' in 1G37, by emigrants from 

 England, are the following prohibitions under severe 

 penalties : 



" ' No one shall ran on the Sabbath day, or walk in 

 his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from 

 meeting. 



" ' No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beda, sweep 

 house, cut hair, or shave, on the Sabbath day. 



" ' No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or 

 fasting day.' 



" These more than Judaizing Christians seem to have 

 forgotten the divine declaration, ' I will have mercy, and 

 not sacrifice;' for in the same code it is enacted, that 

 ' no food or lodging shall be aflbrded to a Quaker, Adamite, 

 or other heretic:' and that, 'if any person turns Quaker, 

 he shall be banished, and not sufi'ered to return upon pain 

 of death.' See account of the 'Blue Laws ' of Connecticut, 

 Monthly Review (1782), Ixvi. 2oG. ; Monthly Repository, 

 (1807), ii. 481." — Note to Rutt's edition of Burton's 

 Diary, ii, 262. 



The gravity with which the editor of the Diary 

 comments on the early legislation of these " more 

 than Judaizing Christians" of New Haven, makes 

 it apparent that he found no difficulty in believing 

 the statements he so seriously presents, and was 

 not aware to what extent he was taxing the cre- 

 dulity of his readers. To an American reader, 

 however, this extract from a mythic code, intro- 

 duced to illustrate a work professedly historical, 

 seems as much out of place as would a reference 

 to Munchausen's frozen horn in a treatise on 

 acoustics, or a description of Laputa, compiled for 

 some universal gazetteer, on the authority of 

 Lemuel Gulliver. 



As Mr. Rutt is not the only writer who has 

 adopted the story of the " Blue Laws" as authen- 

 tic history, a note or two upon the subject may 

 not be unacceptable to the readers of " N. & Q." 



1. As New Haven Colony was not settled until 

 1638, there were neither prohibitions nor penalties 

 imposed there in 1637. 



2. The first code of laws enacted by the colony 

 was compiled by Gov. Eaton (the first governor), 

 by appointment of the general court, in 1655, and 

 printed in London the next year. It is entitled : 



"New-Haven's Settling in New England, and some 

 Lawes for Government; published for the Use of that 

 Colony. Though some of the Orders intended for present 

 Convenience may probably be hereafter altered, and as 

 need requireth other Lawes added. London : printed by 

 M. S. for Livewell Chapman, at the ' Crowne ' in Pope's 

 Head Alley, 1656." 



This volume (now very rare in this country) 

 contains "the fundamental agreement" adopted 

 by the first planters ; and " certain laws, liberties, 

 and orders made, granted, and established at 



several times by the General Court of the Colony," 

 " now collected, and farther published ;" and com- 

 prises the first and only code adopted by New 

 Haven, before the union of that colony with Con- 

 necticut in 1665. There is in it no trace of either 

 of the laws quoted by the editor of the Diary ; 

 nor are those laws, or either of them, to be found 

 in the original manuscript records of New Haven, 

 or Connecticut Colony. There were laws enjoin- 

 ing the observance of the Sabbath in this, as in 

 all the other colonies of New England ; and a 

 law against entertaining " any Quakers, Ranters, 

 Adamites, or such like notorious heretiques," 

 " above the space of fourteen dayes," was enacted 

 by the General Court of each of the confederate 

 colonies in 1656, which was sufficiently severe and 

 intolerant ; but of none of these laws do the ex- 

 tracts given above correctly present either the 

 letter or the spirit. 



3. The reference to " an account of the ' Blue 

 Laws of Connecticut' " is not likely to indicate 

 the best authority for verifying quotations from 

 " a code of laws made in the dominion of New 

 Haven," a separate and distinct colony until 1665. 



4. The Monthly JRevieic, in the place cited, 

 gives these laws as extracted from A General 

 Hidoi-y of Connecticut, &c., by a Gentleman of 

 the Province (London, 1781), of which work, and 

 its author, the reviewer remarks : 



" We find it destitute of every claim to this rare quality 

 (of impartiality); and observe in it so many marks of 

 party spleen and idle credulity, that we do not hesitate 

 to pronounce it altogether unworthy of the public attention^" 



And, again, by way of introducing some ex- 

 tracts from the volume : 



" The following silly and improbable tales will be 

 abundantly sufficient to expose the author's credulity, 

 and show how little credit is due to his narrative." 



The author of this History was the Rev. Samuel 

 Peters, who had been " of the province" until the 

 commencement of the revolution, when his loyalty 

 and his imprudence rendered him obnoxious to 

 the Whigs, and compelled him to leave the colony. 

 He went to England in 1774, and in no very 

 amiable mood prepared to revenge himself on the 

 people of Connecticut by writing their History. 

 In this work, and (prior to its publication) no- 

 where else, is to be found the so-called code of 

 " Blue Laws," forty-five in number, " very pro- 

 perly termed blue laws, i. e. bloody laws," as Peters 

 asserts. Some few of these laws, not remarkably 

 blue, considering the men and the times, are 

 tolerably correct abstracts of the laws actually 

 having place in Gov. Eaton's code of 1656 ; a few 

 others are borrowed from laws in force in some of 

 the other colonies ; and the rest, including those 

 cited by Mr. Rutt, are the fabrications of the re- 

 verend historian. There are two which ought not 

 to have been omitted in the note to the Diary, for 



