Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-09-26

away i'll manner as before" Should they re-
turn yet again, they were then to be anenable
to the previous law for Punishment on pain of
death.
No hanging, and no branding, ever took
place by force of this law. Under its provisions
for other penalties the contest between the
rulers and the strangers was carried on for a
considerable time longer. Though at length
the yehemence on both sides cooled it had no..
on one side reached its highest point of fervor
AT first after the dscOntinuance of capital
punishment the Quakers became more absurd
than before Far and near they disturbed the
congregations at their worship. Geo Wilson
at Boston, and Elizabeth Horton at Cambridge
cried through the streets that the Lord was
coming with fire and sword. Thomas New
house, having delivered in the meeting house
in Boston the message with which he alleged
himself to be charged, broke two glass bottles
Gin prophetic manner" proclaiming, "Thus
will the Lord break you in pieces" One
wretched woman, Mary Brewster, made her.
self a spectacle by walking about in a gown
made Of sackcloth and another exhibited her.
self with her face smeared with grease and
lampblack. Deborah Wilson was constrain.
ed, being a young woman of very modest and
retired life and of sober conversation, to go
through the town of Salem naked, as a sign"
Lydia WardelIl, being young and tender,
chaste woman, as sign to them the church
at Newburyl, went in, though it was exceed
ing hard to er modest and shame-faced dispo.
sition, naked amongst them"
The number of Quakers who were fined,
imprisoned, or scourged, under a sentence
from the general court of Massachusetts,, was
about thirty. The number of those punished
in like manner by sentences of the county
courts is not ascertained. Some similar pro-
ceedings took place in New Haven and Ply.
mouth-especiaIly in Plymouth-which as be-
ing nearer Rhode Island, the Quakers most
trequented OF all the confederate colonies after
Massachusetts. But among the. colonies of
New England, it is the unhappy distinction of
the chartered-and therefore at once more self
confident and more endangered-colony of
Massachusetts, to have been the only one in
which Quakers, who refused 10 absent them
selves, were condemned to die Her right to
her territory was absolute, deplorable as was
the extreme assertion OF it, No house holder
has more unqualified title to declare who
shall have the shelter OF his roof than had the
governor and company of Massachusetts Bay,
to decide who should be soiourners or visitors
within their precincts. Their danger was real,
though the experiment proved it to be far less
than was at first supposed, The provocatcns
which were offered were exceedingly offensive
1t is hard to say what should have been done
with disturbers so unmanageable. But that
one thing should not have been done till they
had become more mischievous is plain enough.
Tney should not have been put to death.
Sooner than put them to DEATH it were de.
voutly to be wished that tile annoyed dwellers
in Massachusetts had opened their hospitable
drawing rooms to naked women, and suffered
their ministers to ascend the pupits by steps
paved with fragments OF glass bottles.