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: — 



4 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 ster- 

 ling penalty or be put in the stocks.' 



The parents of children found playing are fined 6d. 

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

 hill after supper to pay 18<i. penalty or to be put in 

 the stocks.' Even this drastic treatment did not cure 

 the evil, for thirty years later the edict against 

 ' vaging ' 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. None 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 present sanitary notions were evidently not 

 prevalent in Edinburgh in 1689. Mr. Cox remarks 

 that ' these ordinances were usually enacted at the in- 

 stance of the clergy.' It would have been well had 

 the evils which the clergy inflicted on the world at the 

 time here referred to been limited to the stern manipu- 

 lation of Sabbath laws. 1 



1 In Massachusetts it was attempted to make Sabbath- breaking 



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 New Plymouth, presumptuous Sabbath- 



3 



