THE SABBATH. 27 



the time these edicts were published the Provost com- 

 plained of the little obedience hitherto given to the 

 manifold acts of council for keeping the Sabbath. A 

 decree on January 14, 1659, runs thus: 



" Whereas many both young and old persons walk, 

 or sit and play on the Castle hill, and upon the streets 

 and other places on the Sabbath day after sermons, so 

 that it is manifest that family worship is neglected by 

 such, the Council appoint that there be several pairs of 

 stocks provided to stand in several public places of the 

 city, that whosoever is needlessly walking or sitting idly 

 in the streets shall either pay eighteen-pence sterling 

 penalty or be put in the stocks." 



The parents of children found playing are fined Gd. 

 a head. " And if any children be found on the Castle 

 hill after supper to pay I8d. penalty or to be put in 

 the stocks." Even this drastic treatment did not cure 

 the evil, for thirty years later the edict against " vag- 

 ing " on the Castle hill had to be renewed. At the same 

 time it was ordered that the public wells be closed on 

 Sunday from 8 A.M. till noon; then to open till 1 P.M., 

 and afterwards from 5 P.M. Xone to bring any greater 

 vessels to the wells for the carrying of water than a pint 

 stoup or a pint bottle on the Lord's Day. Our pres- 

 ent sanitary notions were evidently not prevalent in 

 Edinburgh in 1689. Mr. Cox remarks that " these or- 

 dinances were usually enacted at the instance of the 

 clergy." It would have been well had the evils which 

 the clergy inflicted on the world at the time here re- 

 ferred to been limited to the stern manipulation of Sab- 

 bath laws.* 



* In Massachusetts it was attempted to make Sabbath-break- 



'ing a capital offence, but Governor Winthrop had the humanity 



and good sense to erase it from the list of acts punishable with 



death. In the laws of the colony of Xew Plymouth, presumptu- 



3 



