TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



simple matter to guard one's house-door against the 

 Sheriff so that he shall never find it open, there are 

 numerous examples where debtors and bankrupts, sub- 

 ject to arrest, have in this way kept up a voluntary im- 

 prisonment in their houses for several years. In this 

 condition they can carry on at home any sort of trade 

 or craft without fear of disturbance ; but by this in- 

 dulgence of the law (and this is really the object of the 

 law) it happens that many recover themselves, gain- 

 ing time and finding expedients, who else in debtors' 

 prisons would go to ruin, through loss of time and in- 

 terrupted business, even if they had not been broken 

 already. On the Sunday these voluntary prisoner? 

 may go at large where they please ; on the Lord's day 

 no Sheriff may touch them even in the open street. 



Another example of the indulgence of these laws is 

 the following : A man at Bladensburgh made proposals 

 of marriage to a woman, then changed his mind of a 

 sudden, and married another. Not long afterwards he 

 repented at having jilted the first, took her to himself 

 along with his first-married, and has lived with both 

 for several years ; both have children by him, and, 

 what is more important still, they behave themselves 

 in a very sisterly manner. None of the neighbors is 

 offended with him, and no civil officer makes inquiries^ 



With sorrow I observed at Bladensburgh two strik- 

 ing instances of the sad custom, indulged in without 

 thought or conscience almost throughout America, I 

 mean the evil habit of giving the tenderest children and 

 sucklings spirituous and distilled drinks. This hap- 

 pens partly with a view to relieving them of windiness 

 and colicks, regarded as the sole causes of their im- 

 portunate crying, partly (and this is absolutely without 



