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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:55 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:55 -0700 |
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diff --git a/12885-h/12885-h.htm b/12885-h/12885-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47c26bb --- /dev/null +++ b/12885-h/12885-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3389 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= + "text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline +In America., by Henry Reed Stiles, M.D. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12885 ***</div> + +<h1><a name="Page_3"></a>BUNDLING;</h1> +<h2>Its Origin, Progress and Decline +In America.</h2> + +<h2>BY HENRY REED STILES, M.D.,</h2> +<h4>AUTHOR OF HISTORY OF BROOKLYN, HISTORY OF WINDSOR, CT., ETC.</h4> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>"I find by all historians, whether ancient or modern, +whom I consulted in searching for this work, the fact +well recorded, and established beyond all controversy, +that the Yankee nation are a set of talking, guessing, +swapping and <i>bundling</i> sons of women."</p> + +<p><i>Grant Thorburn's Notes on Virginia</i>.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<center>ALBANY:<br /> +KNICKERBOCKER PUBLISHING COMPANY.<br /> +1871.</center> + +<br /> + +<center><a name="Page_4"></a>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,<br /> +BY HENRY R. STILES,<br /> +In the office of the Librarian of Congress, +at Washington.</center> + +<br /> + +<h4><a name="Page_5"></a>TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND,<br /> +DEACON JABEZ H. HAYDEN,<br /> +OF WINDSOR LOCKS, CONNECTICUT,</h4> + +<br /> + +<center>Whose jealous love of his native state, led him, in defense<br /> +of her good fame, to make some strictures<br /> +upon a statement relative to <i>bundling</i>, in my<br /> +<i>History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor,<br /> +Conn.</i>, which strictures (made and<br /> +taken in the kindest spirit of personal<br /> +friendship) set me upon<br /> +the further investigation<br /> +of this interesting<br /> +subject.</center> + +<h3><b>This Essay,</b></h3> + +<center>The result of that investigation, and the justification (as +I claim) of my original statement,</center> + +<center>is</center> +<center>MOST RESPECTFULLY</center> +<center>DEDICATED</center> +<center>BY THE</center> +<center>AUTHOR</center> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<br /> +<a name="PREFATORY"></a><h2><a name="Page_6"></a>PREFATORY.</h2> + +<p>In the <i>History and Genealogies of Ancient +Windsor, Conn.</i>, published in 1859, speaking +of the influence of the old French wars upon +the religious, moral and social life of New +England, I used this language:</p> + +<p>"Then came war, and young New England +brought from the long Canadian campaigns, +stores of loose camp vices and recklessness, +which soon flooded the land with immorality +and infidelity. The church was neglected, +drunkenness fearfully increased, and social +life was sadly corrupted. <i>Bundling</i>—that +ridiculous and pernicious custom which pre<a name="Page_7"></a>vailed +among the young to a degree which +we can scarcely credit—sapped the fountain +of morality and tarnished the escutcheons of +thousands of families."</p> + +<p>Hereupon there came a buzzing around +my ears. Divers good sons of Connecticut +winced under the soft impeachment of having +a bundling ancestry, and intimated that +my sketch of society in the olden times was +somewhat overdrawn. In 1861, an esteemed +antiquarian friend in Connecticut wrote me +as follows: "Some of your friends feel that, +in your <i>History of Windsor</i>, you showed too +much inclination to malign, or at least +ridicule, Connecticut institutions, though I +think none of them accuse you of malice +in the matter, and they fear that this subject +of bundling cannot be ventilated with<a name="Page_8"></a>out +endangering the fair fame of old Connecticut."</p> + +<p>Upon that hint I speak. Although born +in the city of New York, I am the son of +Connecticut parents, and proud to trace my +descent through six generations of honest, +hard-working, God-fearing Connecticut yeomanry. +By the mere accident of birth I +cannot feel myself absolved from that allegiance +to the Wooden Nutmeg State, which is +imposed upon me by the ties of ancestry, of +relationship, of youthful associations, and +last, not least, by the deep interest which I +have taken in the history of one of its eldest-born +towns. I am, indeed, at this day, to +all intents and purposes, as wholly and truly +a Connecticut man as if born within her borders; +and as proud of her past, as hopeful of +<a name="Page_9"></a>her future, and as jealous of her reputation +as any one could desire. I trust, therefore, +that I may be allowed to disclaim any "inclination +to malign, or at least ridicule Connecticut +institutions," a task which, in my +case, would savor of ingratitude, and which +I should consider unworthy of my humble +pen.</p> + +<p>I cannot but think, also, that those who +have found, or think that they have found, +an inimical design in any pleasantries in +which I may have indulged while describing +the customs and manners of by-gone days—have +betrayed a <i>thin-skinnedness</i>, and an +ignorance of the true glory of Connecticut +history, when they imagine that her fair +fame can be seriously tarnished by the fly-specks +of certain customs—at no time without +<a name="Page_10"></a>their vigorous opponents—and long since +rendered obsolete by the march of improvement.</p> + +<p>The fun of the thing, however, is, that the +sentence which has thus called forth the animadversions +of the critics, will be found, with +its context, on closer examination, to have +applied to the <i>New England Colonies</i>, and +not to Connecticut alone! In their haste to +vindicate the land of steady habits, they seem +to have assumed more than their share of +the reproach involved in my simple historical +statement.</p> + +<p>As for myself, I am no believer in the +theory that the objectionable portions of history +should be kept in the background, and +that only the bright side should be turned +towards the world. If, as one has happily +<a name="Page_11"></a>said, "history is experience teaching by example," +we most surely need to have both +sides fairly presented to us before we can +properly extract therefrom the lesson of good +or of evil which is therein taught. It is unnecessary +to pursue the argument further. +Suffice it to say, that perfection is as little +to be expected in the history of a state or a +community, as in the life of an individual. +As to our ancestors, we must take them as +history shows them to us—"men of like +passions with ourselves," and "in all respects +tempted as we are," yet neither worse, nor, +again, very much purer or better than ourselves.</p> + +<p>In this spirit I have undertaken to trace, +in the following pages, the origin, progress +and decline of the custom of bundling in +<a name="Page_12"></a>America, together with such facts as clearly +prove that it was not confined to this continent, +but prevalent in various countries of +the world.</p> + +<p>"HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE."</p> + +<p>H. R. S.</p> + +<br /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<br /> +<a name="BUNDLING"></a><h2>BUNDLING.</h2> +<a name="Page_13"></a> +<div class="blkquot"><p>BUNDLING. "A man and a woman lying on the same bed +with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in +America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, +husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers +to <i>bundle</i> with their wives and daughters."—<i>Grose, +Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue</i>.</p> + +<p>BUNDLE, <i>v.i.</i> "To sleep on the same bed without undressing; +applied to the custom of a man and woman, +especially lovers, thus sleeping."—<i>Webster, 1864</i>.</p> + +<p>BUNDLE, <i>v.n.</i> "To sleep together with the clothes on."—<i>Worcester, 1864</i>.</p></div> + +<p>Bundling, as may be seen from the above +quoted definitions, was practiced in two forms: +first, between <i>strangers</i>, as a simple domestic +make-shift arrangement, often arising from the +necessities of a new country, and by no means +peculiar to America; and, secondly, between +<i>lovers</i>, who shared the same couch, with the +mutual understanding that innocent endearments +<a name="Page_14"></a>should not be exceeded. It was, however, in +either case, a custom of convenience.</p> + +<p>We may notice, in this connection, that it is +very common, even at the present day, in New +England, to speak of one as having "bundled in +with his clothes on," if he goes to bed without +undressing; as, for instance, if he came home +drunk, or feeling slightly ill, lay down in the +daytime, or in a cold night found the blankets +too scanty.</p> + +<p>The point which first claims our attention in +the discussion of this custom, is its probable +<i>origin</i>, and its <i>antiquity</i> in</p> +<br /> + +<h4>THE BRITISH ISLES.</h4> + +<br /> + +<p>For, though British travelers have uniformly endeavored +to fix the odium of this custom upon +us their transatlantic cousins, as being peculiarly +"An American institution," it is, nevertheless, +an indisputable fact that bundling has for centuries +flourished within their own kingdom. +<a name="Page_15"></a>For what else, in fact, was that universal custom +of promiscuous sleeping together which prevailed +among the ancient Britons at the time of the +Roman conquest, and which led Cæsar to consider +them as polyandrous polygamists, and other +ancient writers to give them an unenviable character +for morality?<a name="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1">[1]</a> Bundling, of course! in +its rudest aboriginal form.</p> + +<p>As to its moral aspects, being more charitably +inclined towards our British friends than they +oftentimes are to us, we are willing to accept +Logan's defense of their ancestors. "The custom," +he says, "which continued until lately in +some parts, and yet exists among a few of the +<a name="Page_16"></a>rudest, who sleep altogether on straw or rushes, +according to the general ancient practice, there +is reason to believe, led to the aspersion cast on +the British and Irish tribes. How natural it +must have been for a casual observer to suppose, +from seeing men and women reposing in the +same place, that the marriage rites were not in +force. To judge of the ancient inhabitants by +the rudest of the present Highlanders and Irish, +who often sleep in the same apartment, and are +sometimes exposed to each other in a state of +semi-nudity, we should not come to a conclusion +unfavorable to their morality,<a name="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2">[2]</a> for this mode of +<a name="Page_17"></a>life is not productive of that conjugal infidelity +which St. Jerome and others insinuate as preva<a name="Page_18"></a>lent +among the old Scots. * * * Nations +that are even in a savage state are sometimes +<a name="Page_19"></a>found more sensitive on that point of honor than +nations more advanced in civilization; and all, +<a name="Page_20"></a>perhaps, that can be admitted is, that certain +formalities may have been practiced by the +Britons, from which the <i>bundling</i> of the Welsh, +and the <i>hand-fasting</i> in some parts of Scotland, +are derived. The conversation which took place +between the Empress Julia and the wife of a +Caledonian chief, as related by Xiphilin, cer<a name="Page_21"></a>tainly +evinces a grossness and indelicacy in the +amours of the British ladies, if true; but it appears +to be a reply where wit and reproof were +more aimed at than truth. The case of the Empress +Cartismandua shows the nice feeling of the +Britons as to the propriety of female conduct. +The respect of the Germans for their females, +and the severity with which they visited a deviation +from virtue, have been described; and the +further testimony of Tacitus may be adduced, +who says that but very few of the greatest dignity +chose to have more than one wife, and when +they did it was merely for the honor of alliance. +It may be here stated that the Gaëls have no +word to express cuckold, and that prostitutes +were, by Scots' law, like that of the ancient +Germans, thrown into deep wells; and a woman +was not permitted to complain of an assault if +she allowed more than one night to elapse before +the accusation."—<i>Logan's Scottish Gaël</i>, 5th Am. +edition, p. 472.<a name="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5">[5]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_22"></a>Indeed, whatever may have been the real state +of morality among the ancient Scotch and Irish—and +it is quite probable that it has been unfairly +depicted by casual and prejudiced observers—the +ancient custom of bundling, which has been +handed down from earliest times, has not greatly +contaminated their descendants of the present +day. For, whatever their national vices, the +Scotch and Irish of our day maintain a character +for chastity superior to that of many of their +more fortunate and more civilized neighbors. +Bundling, as now practiced in these kingdoms, is +<a name="Page_23"></a>merely a matter arising from the ignorance, or +the poverty of the inhabitants; and, while not +salutary in its moral or physical influence, is, at +all events, less abused than we might reasonably +expect.</p> + +<p>In regard to</p> +<br /> + +<h4>WALES.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>We learn from Woodward's admirable history +of that kingdom, the following facts concerning +the domestic habits of its people in the twelfth +century:</p> + +<p>"At night a bed of rushes was laid down along +one side of the room, covered with a coarse kind +of cloth, made in the country, called <i>brychan;</i> +and all the household lay down on this bed in +common, without changing their dresses. The +fire was kept burning through the night, and the +sleepers maintained their warmth by lying +closely; and when, by the hardness of their +couch, one side was wearied, they would get up and +<a name="Page_24"></a>sit by the fire awhile, and then lie down again on +the other side. It is to this custom of promiscuous +sleeping, that some of the worst habits of the +Welsh at the present day may be ascribed; and +from the same custom which their forefathers, +the ancient Britons, practiced, arose Cæsar's +supposition that they were polyandrous polygamists."</p> + +<p>These habits, which were a matter of necessity +with the ancient Welsh, have become converted, +by the lapse of time, among their descendants +of the present day, into an amatory +custom precisely similar to that practiced formerly +in New England.<a name="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6">[6]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_25"></a>A tourist through Wales, in the year 1797,<a name="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7">[7]</a> +thus speaks of the Welsh <i>bundling</i>: "And here, +amongst the usages and customs, I must not +omit to inform you that what you have, perhaps, +often heard, without believing, respecting the +<i>mode of courtship</i> amongst the Welsh peasants, is +true. The lower order of people do actually +carry on their love affairs in bed, and what would +extremely astonish more polished lovers, they +are carried on honorably, it being, at least, as +usual for the Pastoras of the mountains to go +from the bed of courtship to the bed of marriage +as unpolluted and maidenly as the Chloes of +fashion; and yet you are not to conclude that +this proceeds from their being less susceptible of +the <i>belle-passion</i> than their betters; or that the +cold air which they breathe has 'froze the genial +current of their souls.' By no means; if they +<a name="Page_26"></a>cannot boast the voluptuous languor of an Italian +sky, they glow with the bracing spirit of a more +invigorating atmosphere. I really took some +pains to investigate this curious custom, and +after being assured, by many, of its veracity, had +an opportunity of attesting its existence with my +own eyes. The servant maid of the family I +visited in Caernarvonshire, happened to be the +object of a young peasant, who walked eleven +long miles every Sunday morning to favor his +suit, and regularly returned the same night +through all weathers, to be ready for Monday's +employment in the fields, being simply a day +laborer. He usually arrived in time for morning +service, which he constantly attended, after +which he escorted his Dulcinea home to the +house of her master, by whose permission they +as constantly passed the succeeding hour in bed, +according to the custom of the country. These +tender sabbatical preliminaries continued without +interruption near two years, when the treaty +of alliance was solemnized, and, so far from any +<a name="Page_27"></a>breach of articles happening in the meantime, it +is most likely that it was considered by both +parties as a matter of course, without exciting +any other idea. On speaking to my friend on +the subject, he observed that, though it certainly +appeared a dangerous mode of making love, he +had seen so few <i>living</i> abuses of it, during six +and thirty years' residence in that country, where +it nevertheless had always, more or less, prevailed, +he must conclude it was as innocent as any +other. One proof of its being <i>thought</i> so by the +parties, is the perfect ease and freedom with +which it is done; no awkwardness or confusion +appearing on either side; the most well-behaved +and decent young woman going into it without a +blush, and they are by no means deficient in modesty. +What is pure in idea is always so in conduct, +since bad actions are the common consequence +of bad thoughts; and though the better +sort of people treat this ceremony as a barbarism, +it is very much to be doubted whether more <i>faux +pas</i> have been committed by the Cambrian boors +<a name="Page_28"></a>in this <i>free access</i> to the bed chambers of their +mistresses, than by more fashionable Strephons +and their nymphs in groves and shady bowers. +The power of habit is perhaps stronger than the +power of passion, or even of the charms which +inspire it; and it is sufficient, almost, to say a +thing is the <i>custom of a country</i>, to clear it from +any reproach that would attach to an innovation. +Were it the practice of a few only, and to be +gratified by stealth, there would, from the strange +construction of human nature, be more cause of +suspicion; but being ancient, general, and carried +on without difficulty, it is probably as little dangerous +as a <i>tête a tête</i> in a drawing-room, or in +any other full dress place where young people +meet to say soft things to each other."</p> + +<p>In an antiquarian tour by the Rev. W. Bingley, +in 1804,<a name="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8">[8]</a> we also find the following description +of this custom: "The peasantry of part of +<a name="Page_29"></a>Caernarvonshire, Anglesea, and Merionethshire, +adopt a mode of <i>courtship</i> which, till within the +last few years, was scarcely even heard of in +England. It is the same that is common in +many parts of America, and termed by the inhabitants +of that country, <i>bundling</i>. The lover +steals, under the shadow of the night, to the bed +of the fair one, into which (retaining an essential +part of his dress) he is admitted without any +shyness or reserve. Saturday or Sunday nights +are the principal times when this courtship takes +place, and on these nights the men sometimes +walk from a distance of ten miles or more to +visit their favorite damsels. This strange custom +seems to have originated in the scarcity of fuel, +and in the unpleasantness of sitting together in +the colder part of the year without a fire. Much +has been said of the innocence with which these +meetings are conducted, but it is a very common +thing for the consequence of the interview to +make its appearance in the world within two or +three months after the marriage ceremony has +<a name="Page_30"></a>taken place. The subject excites no particular +attention among the neighbors, provided the +marriage be made good before the living witness +is brought to light. Since this custom is entirely +confined to the laboring classes of the community, +it is not so pregnant with danger as, on a +first supposition, it might seem. Both parties +are so poor that they are necessarily constrained +to render their issue legitimate, in order to secure +their reputation, and with a mode of obtaining +a livelihood."</p> + +<p>Another traveller<a name="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9">[9]</a> also mentions "a singular +custom that is said to prevail in Wales, relating +to their mode of courtship, which is declared to +be carried on in bed; and, what is more extraordinary, +it is averred that the moving tale of +love is agitated in that situation without endangering +a breach in the preliminaries." Referring +to Mr. Pratt's account of the custom, +before quoted, he proceeds to remark: "Our +<a name="Page_31"></a>companion, like every one else that we spoke +with in Wales on the subject, at once denied the +existence of this custom: that maids in many +instances admitted male bed-fellows, he did not +doubt; but that the procedure was sanctioned +by <i>tolerated custom</i> he considered a gross misrepresentation. +Yet in Anglesea and some parts +of North Wales, where the original simplicity of +manners and high sense of chastity of the natives +is retained, he admitted <i>something of the kind</i> +might appear. In those thinly inhabited districts +a peasant often has several miles to walk after +the hours of labor, to visit his mistress; those +who have reciprocally entertained the <i>belle passion</i> +will easily imagine that before the lovers +grow tired of each other's company the night will +be far enough advanced; nor is it surprising that +a tender-hearted damsel should be disinclined to +turn her lover out over bogs and mountains until +the dawn of day. The fact is, that under +such circumstances she admits a <i>consors lecti</i>, +but not in <i>nudatum corpus</i>. In a lonely Welsh +<a name="Page_32"></a>hut this bedding has not the alarm of ceremony; +from sitting, or perhaps lying, on the hearth, they +have only to shift their quarters to a heap of +straw or fern covered with two or three blankets +in a neighboring corner. The practice only +takes place with <i>this view of accommodation</i>."</p> + +<p>Still another glimpse of this favorite Welsh +custom is presented by a tourist in 1807.<a name="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10">[10]</a> He +says:</p> + +<p>"One evening, at an inn where we halted, we +heard a considerable bustle in the kitchen, and, +upon enquiry, I was let into a secret worth knowing. +The landlord had been scolding one of his +maids, a very pretty, plump little girl, for not +having done her work; and the reason which +she alleged for her idleness was, that her master +having locked the street door at night, had prevented +her lover enjoying the rights and delights +of <i>bundling</i>, an amatory indulgence which, considering +that it is sanctioned by custom, may be +<a name="Page_33"></a>regarded as somewhat singular, although it is not +exclusively of Welsh growth. The process is +very simple; the gay Lothario, when all is silent, +steals to the chamber of his mistress, who receives +him in bed, but with the modest precaution +of wearing her under petticoat, which is +always fastened at the bottom—not unfrequently, +I am told, by a sliding knot. It may astonish a +London gallant to be told that this extraordinary +experiment often ends in downright wedlock—the +knot which cannot slide. A gentleman of +respectability also assured me that he was obliged +to indulge his female servants in these nocturnal +interviews, and that too at all hours of the night, +otherwise his whole family would be thrown into +disorder by their neglect; the carpet would not +be dusted, nor would the kettle boil. I think +this custom should share the fate of the northern +Welsh goats. * * * * Habit has so reconciled +the mind to the comforts of <i>bundling</i>, that +a young lady who entered the coach soon after +we left Shrewsbury, about eighteen years of age, +<a name="Page_34"></a>with a serene and modest countenance, displayed +considerable historical knowledge of the custom, +without one touch of bashfulness."<a name="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Thus much for Wales, where the custom seems +to have been entirely confined to the lower +classes of society, and where we have reason to +think it still prevails to some extent to this day.<a name="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12">[12]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_35"></a>The same author whom we last quoted also +speaks of a "courtship similar to <i>bundling</i>, carried +on in the islands of Vlie and Wieringen,</p> +<br /> + +<h4>IN HOLLAND,</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Under the name of <i>queesting</i>.<a name="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15">[15]</a> At night the +lover has access to his mistress after she is in +bed; and, upon an application to be admitted +upon the bed, which of course is granted, he +raises the quilt, or rug, and in this state <i>queests</i>, +or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her, and then +<a name="Page_36"></a>retires. This custom meets with the perfect +sanction of the most circumspect parents, and +the freedom is seldom abused. The author +traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, +whose economy considers fire and candles as superfluous +luxuries in the long winter evenings."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, +N. Y., late United States minister at the Hague, +has furnished us with the following note in relation +to this Nederduitsche custom: "As to +its being a Dutch custom, it was so to a limited +extent in Holland in former times, and may yet +be, though I did not hear of it when I was there. +Sewell gives the word <i>queesten</i>, or <i>kweesten</i>, in +his dictionary, printed over a century ago. The +word is defined in the dictionary of Wieland, the +principal lexicographer in that country, as follows: +'<i>Kweesten</i>. Upon the islands of Texel +and Vlieland<a name="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16">[16]</a> they use this word for a singular +custom of wooing, by which the doors and +<a name="Page_37"></a>windows are left open, and the lover, lying or +sitting outside the covering, woos the girl who is +underneath.' Sewell confines the custom to certain +islands or lands near the sea."</p> +<br /> + +<h4>LOVE AND COURTSHIP IN THE 14TH CENTURY.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>In feudal times, in the last part of the fourteenth +century, it became the practice for the +vassals, or feudatories, to send their sons to be +educated in the family of the suzerain, while the +daughters were similarly placed with the lady of +the castle. These formed a very important part +of the household, and were of gentle blood, +claiming the honorary title of <i>chambriéres</i> or +chamber-maidens. The demoiselles of this period +were very susceptible to the passion of love, +which was the ruling spirit of the inmates of the +castle. Feudal society was, in comparison to +the previous times, polished and even brilliant, +but it was not, under the surface, pure. Many +good maxims were taught, but they were not all +practiced. "There was an extreme intimacy +<a name="Page_38"></a>between the two sexes, who commonly visited +each other in their chambers or bedrooms. +Thus in the poem of Guatier d'Aupias, the hero +is represented as visiting in her chamber the +demoiselle of whom he is enamored. Numerous +similar examples might be quoted. At times, +one of the parties is described as being actually +in bed, as is the case in the romance of <i>Blonde of +Oxford</i>, where Blonde visits Jehan in his chamber +when he is in bed, and stays all night with +him, in perfect innocence as we are told in the +romance. We must remember that it was the +custom in those times for both sexes to go to bed +perfectly naked."<a name="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17">[17]</a></p> +<br /> + +<h4>IN SWITZERLAND,</h4> +<br /> + +<p>According to an English observer,<a name="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18">[18]</a> analogous +modes of courtship still exist. In speaking of +<a name="Page_39"></a>the canton <i>Unterwald</i> he says: "In the story of +the destruction of the castles, we read that the +surprise was effected by a young girl admitting +her lover to her room by a ladder, and an English +guide-book remarks, that this is still the fashion +of receiving lovers in Switzerland. Reference +is had to the manner of wooing, which in some +cantons is called <i>lichtgetren</i>, in others <i>dorfen</i> and +<i>stubetegetren</i>, and answers to the old-fashioned +<i>going-a-courting</i> in England. The customs connected +with it vary in different cantons, but exist +in some form in all except two or three.</p> + +<p>In the canon <i>Lucerne</i>, the <i>kiltgang</i> is the universal +mode of wooing; the lover visiting his +betrothed in the evening, to be pelted on the way +by all mischievous urchins; or if he is seated +quietly with her by the winter fire, they are sure +to be serenaded by all manner of <i>cat voices</i> under +the window, which are continued till he issues +forth, perhaps at dawn in the morning; and however +long may be a courtship, these <i>cater-waulings</i> +are the invariable attendants, and not the +<a name="Page_40"></a>most lamentable consequences of these nightly +visits, recognized, however, as entirely respectable +and conventional in every canton."</p> + +<p>And again in the canton <i>Vaud</i>, he says, "the +<i>kiltgang</i>, or nightly wooings, are the universal +custom with the universal consequences, but in +general the wife is treated with marked respect, +is made keeper of the treasury, and consulted as +the oracle of the family."</p> + +<p>Among the amatory customs of various</p> +<br /> + +<h4>SAVAGE NATIONS</h4> +<br /> + +<p>and tribes, there are certain which somewhat +resemble <i>bundling</i>, except in the greater degree +of freedom allowed—a freedom which, in the +eyes of civilized nations, is absolute immorality. +Of this description is the manner of wooing +described by La Hontan as prevalent among the +Indians of North America.<a name="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19">[19]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_41"></a>Yet, in many of these instances, if we were +to carefully examine the social system and customs +of our savage friends, and were willing to +judge them rather by the results of our own observation, +than by our preconceived opinions, we +should probably find that the absolute <i>practical +morality</i> of these <i>untutored natives</i>, was quite +equal, if not superior, to that of the educated +and civilized whites.<a name="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20">[20]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_42"></a>Among these <i>customs de amour</i>, however, to +which we have alluded as existing among different +savage tribes, there are none which bear so perfect +a resemblance to <i>bundling</i>, as that described +by Masson in his <i>Journeys in Central Asia, Belochistan, +Afghanistan,</i> etc. (III, 287.) He says:</p> + +<p>"Many of the Afghan tribes have a custom of +wooing similar to what in Wales is known as <i>bundling-up</i>, +and which they term <i>namzat bezé</i>. The +lover presents himself at the house of his betrothed +with a suitable gift, and in return is allowed +to pass the night with her, on the understanding +that innocent endearments are not to be +exceeded."</p> + +<p>Spencer St. John tells us, in speaking of the +piratical and ferocious Sea Dayaks of Borneo, +that "besides the ordinary attention which a +<a name="Page_43"></a>young man is able to pay to the girl he desires to +make his wife—as helping her in her farm work, +and in carrying home her load of vegetables or +wood, as well as in making her little presents, as +a ring or some brass chain-work with which the +women adorn their waists, or even a petticoat—there +is a very peculiar testimony of regard +which is worthy of note. About nine or ten at +night, when the family is supposed to be fast +asleep within the musquito curtains in the private +apartments, the young man quietly slips +back the bolt by which the door is fastened on +the inside, and enters the room on tiptoe. On +hearing who it is, she rises at once, and they sit +conversing together and making arrangements for +the future, in the dark, over a plentiful supply of +<i>sirih-leaf</i> and <i>batle-nut</i>, which it is the gentleman's +duty to provide, for his suit is in a fair way +to prosper; but if, on the other hand, she rises +and says, 'be good enough to blow up the fire,' +or 'light the lamp' (a bamboo filled with resin), +then his hopes are at an end, as that is the usual +<a name="Page_44"></a>form of dismissal. Of course, if this kind of +nocturnal visit is frequently repeated, the parents +do not fail to discover it, although it is a point of +honor among them to take no notice of their +visitor; and, if they approve of him, matters +then take their course, but if not, they use their +influence with their daughter to ensure the utterance +of the fatal 'please blow up the fire.'"</p> + +<p>And now, having discussed the custom of +bundling as it formerly existed in Great Britain, +and having proved its identity with the <i>queesting</i> +of Holland, and the <i>namzat bezé</i> of Central Asia, +we propose to follow our investigations to the +continent of America, and to trace, if we can, +its origin and progress in the</p> +<br /> + +<h4>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,</h4> +<br /> + +<p>in doing which, it is quite likely that, we follow +the identical line of travel and colonization—viz: +from Old to New England, and from Netherlands +(the father-land) to New Nether<a name="Page_45"></a>lands—by +which the custom of bundling was +really transplanted to these western shores. For, +although the grave and (sometimes) veracious +historian of New York, Diedrich Knickerbocker, +hath endeavored to fasten upon the Connecticut +settlers the odium of having introduced the +custom into New Netherland,<a name="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21">[21]</a> to the great +offense of all properly disposed people; yet we +may reasonably doubt whether the young mynheers +and frauliens of New Amsterdam, in that +day, were any more innocent of this lover's pastime, +than their vivacious Connecticut neighbors. +Indeed, can it be for one moment sup<a name="Page_46"></a>posed +that the good Hollanders—a most unchanging +and conservative race—should have +been so far false to the traditions of their +fathers, and the honor of the fatherland, as to +leave behind them, when they crossed the seas, +the good old custom of <i>queesting</i>, with its time-honored +associations and delights? Or can it be +imagined that those astute lawgivers and political +economists, the early governors and burgomasters, +were so blind to the necessities and +interests of a new and sparsely populated country, +as to forbid bundling within their borders? +Indeed, it would be but a sorry compliment to +the wisdom of that sagacious and far-sighted +body of merchants comprised in the High and +Mighty West India Company, to believe that +they were unwilling to introduce under their +benign auspices, a custom so intimately connected +with their own national social habits, and so +promising to the prospective interests and enlargement +of their <i>new plantations</i>, as this. And, truly, +Diedrich himself, doth, in another part of his +<a name="Page_47"></a>book, inadvertently betray the fact that bundling +was by no means a purely Yankee trick, for he +speaks of the redoubtable Anthony Van Corlaer—purest +of Dutchmen—as "passing through +Hartford, and Pyquag, and Middletown, and all +the other border towns, twanging his trumpet like +a very devil, so that the sweet valleys and banks +of the Connecticut resounded with the warlike +melody, and stopping occasionally to eat pumpkin +pies, dance at country frolics, and <i>bundle</i> with the +beauteous lasses of those parts, whom he rejoiced +exceedingly with his soul-stirring instrument." +Which passage, while it proves that the practice +of bundling prevailed in Connecticut, proves +equally well that Anthony the trumpeter was by +no means inexperienced in its delights, nor unwilling +to enjoy its comforts, whether under the +name of <i>bundling</i> or <i>queesting</i>.</p> + +<p>Indeed, we do most truly believe that the cunning +Knickerbocker, in his desire to vindicate, as +he thought, the character of his race against the +accusation of immorality, hath by his denial not +<a name="Page_48"></a>only committed a grievous sin against "the truth +of history," but hath greatly added thereto, by +attempting to foist off the opprobrium of the +same on to the shoulders of the Connecticut +folks. But history will not remain forever falsified, +and the day has at length arrived when +every historical tub must "stand on its own bottom," +and the world will henceforth know that +the New Netherlanders did not take bundling by +inoculation from the Yankees, but that they +brought it with them to the New World, as an +ancestral heirloom.</p> + +<p>This point being thus satisfactorily settled, to +the honor of the Dutchman, and the extreme satisfaction +of all future historians, we next proceed +to investigate the bundling prevalent in</p> +<br /> + +<h4>THE NEW ENGLAND STATES,</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Where, as we have already shown, it was, as +with the Dutchmen, an <i>inherited</i> custom. Its +comparatively innocent and harmless character +has, however, been fearfully distorted and ma<a name="Page_49"></a>ligned +by irresponsible satirists, and prejudiced +historians. Take, for example, the following +passage from Knickerbocker's <i>History of New +York</i>,<a name="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22">[22]</a> wherein he pretends to describe "the +curious device among these sturdy barbarians +[the Connecticut colonists], to keep up a harmony +of interests, and promote population. +* * * * They multiplied to a degree which +would be incredible to any man unacquainted +with the marvellous fecundity of this growing +country. This amazing increase may, indeed, +be partly ascribed to a singular custom prevalent +among them, commonly known by the name of +<i>bundling</i>—a superstitious rite observed by the +young people of both sexes, with which they +usually terminated their festivities, and which +was kept up with religious strictness by the more +bigoted and vulgar part of the community. This +ceremony was likewise, in those primitive times, +considered as an indispensable preliminary to +<a name="Page_50"></a>matrimony; their courtships commencing where +ours usually finish, by which means they acquired, +that intimate acquaintance with each +other's good qualities before marriage, which has +been pronounced by philosophers the sure basis of +a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and +ingenious people display a shrewdness at making +a bargain, which has ever since distinguished +them, and a strict adherence to the good old +vulgar maxim about 'buying a pig in a poke.'</p> + +<p>"To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I +chiefly attribute the unparalleled increase of the +Yanokie or Yankee tribe; for it is a certain fact, +well authenticated by court records and parish +registers, that wherever the practice of bundling +prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy +brats annually born unto the state, without +the license of the law, or the benefit of clergy. +Neither did the irregularity of their birth operate +in the least to their disparagement. On +the contrary, they grew up a long-sided, raw-boned, +hardy race of whoreson whalers, wood +<a name="Page_51"></a>cutters, fishermen, and peddlers; and strapping +corn-fed wenches, who by their united efforts +tended marvellously towards populating those +notable tracts of country called Nantucket, +Piscataway, and Cape Cod."</p> + +<p>Hear, also, that learned, but audacious and +unscrupulous divine, the Rev. Samuel Peters, +who thus discourseth at length upon the custom +of bundling in Connecticut, and other parts of +New England. After admitting that "the women +of Connecticut are strictly virtuous, and to be +compared to the prude rather than the European +polite lady," he says:</p> + +<p>"Notwithstanding the modesty of the females +is such that it would be accounted the greatest +rudeness for a gentleman to speak before a lady +of a garter, knee, or leg, yet it is thought but a +piece of civility to ask her to <i>bundle;</i> a custom +as old as the first settlement in 1634. It is certainly +innocent, virtuous and prudent, or the +puritans would not have permitted it to prevail +among their offspring, for whom in general they +<a name="Page_52"></a>would suffer crucifixion. Children brought up +with the chastest ideas, with so much religion as +to believe that the omniscient God sees them in +the dark, and that angels guard them when absent +from their parents, will not, nay, cannot, act +a wicked thing. People who are influenced more +by lust, than a serious faith in God, who is too +pure to behold iniquity with approbation, ought +never to <i>bundle</i>. If any man, thus a stranger to +the love of virtue, of God, and the Christian +religion, should <i>bundle</i> with a young lady in New +England, and behave himself unseemly towards +her, he must first melt her into passion, and expel +heaven, death, and hell, from her mind, or +he will undergo the chastisement of negroes +turned mad—if he escape with life, it will be +owing to the parents flying from their bed to +protect him. The Indians, who had this method +of courtship when the English arrived among +them in 1634, are the most chaste set of people +in the world. Concubinage and fornication are +vices none of them are addicted to, except such +<a name="Page_53"></a>as forsake the laws of Hobbamockow and turn +Christians. The savages have taken many female +prisoners, carried them back three hundred +miles into their country, and kept them several +years, and yet not a single instance of their violating +the laws of chastity has ever been known. +This cannot be said of the French, or of the +English, whenever Indian or other women have +fallen into their hands. I am no advocate for +temptation; yet must say, that <i>bundling</i> has prevailed +160 years in New England, and, I verily +believe, with ten times more chastity than the +sitting on a sofa. I had daughters, and speak +from near forty years' experience. <i>Bundling</i> +takes place only in cold seasons of the year—the +sofa in summer is more dangerous than +the bed in winter. About the year 1756, Boston, +Salem, Newport, and New York, resolving +to be more polite than their ancestors, forbade +their daughters <i>bundling</i> on the bed with any +young man whatever, and introduced a sofa to +render courtship more palatable and Turkish, +<a name="Page_54"></a>whatever it was owing to, whether to the sofa, +or any uncommon excess of the <i>feu d'esprit</i>, there +went abroad a report that this <i>raffinage</i> produced +more <i>natural consequences</i> then all the <i>bundling</i> among +the boors with their <i>rurales pedantes</i>, +through every village in New England besides.</p> + +<p>"In 1776, a clergyman from one of the polite +towns, went into the country, and preached +against the unchristian custom of young men and +maidens lying together on a bed. He was no +sooner out of the church, then attacked by a +shoal of good old women, with, 'Sir, do you +think we and our daughters are naughty, because +we allow <i>bundling?</i>' 'You lead yourselves into +temptation by it.' They all replied at once, 'Sir, +have you been told thus, or has experience +taught it you?' The Levite began to lift up his +eyes, and to consider of his situation, and bowing, +said, 'I have been told so.' The ladies, <i>una +voce</i>, bawled out, 'Your informants, sir, we conclude, +are those city ladies who prefer a sofa to a +bed: we advise you to alter your sermon, by +<a name="Page_55"></a>substituting the word <i>sofa</i> for <i>bundling</i>, and on +your return home preach it to them, for experience +has told us that city folks send more +children into the country without fathers or +mothers to own them, than are born among us; +therefore, you see, a sofa is more dangerous than +a bed.' The poor priest, seemingly convinced +of his blunder, exclaimed, '<i>Nec vitia nostra, neo +remedia pati possumus</i>,' hoping thereby to get rid +of his guests; but an old matron pulled off her +spectacles, and, looking the priest in the face like +a Roman heroine, said, '<i>Noli putare me hæc auribus +tuis dare</i>.' Others cried out to the priest to +explain his Latin. 'The English,' said he, 'is +this: Wo is me that I sojourn in Meseck, and +dwell in the tents of Kedar!' One pertly retorted, +'<i>Gladii decussati sunt gemina presbyteri +clavis</i>.' The priest confessed his error, begged +pardon, and promised never more to preach +against bundling, or to think amiss of the custom; +the ladies generously forgave him, and +went away.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_56"></a>It may seem very strange to find this +custom of bundling in bed attended with so much innocence in New +England, while in Europe it is thought not safe or scarcely decent to +permit a young man and maid to be together in private anywhere. But in +this quarter of the old world the viciousness of the one, and the +simplicity of the other, are the result merely of education and habit. +It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to +sacrifice the virtuous fair one, whenever an opportunity offers, and +thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the new +world. It is egregiously absurd to judge all of all countries by one. In +Spain, Portugal and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and +Holland, suspicion; in the West and East Indies, lust; in New England, +superstition. These four blind deities govern Jews, Turks, Christians, +infidels, and heathen. Superstition is the most amiable. She sees no +vice with approbation but persecution, and self-preservation is the +cause of her seeing that. My <a name="Page_57"></a>insular readers will, +I hope, believe me, when I tell them that I have seen, in the West +Indies, naked boys and girls, some fifteen or sixteen years of age, +waiting at table and at tea, even when twenty or thirty virtuous English +ladies were in the room; who were under no more embarrassment at such an +awful sight in the eyes of English people that have not traveled abroad, +than they would have been at the sight of so many servants in livery. +Shall we censure the ladies of the West Indies as vicious above all +their sex, on account of this local custom? By no means; for long +experience has taught the world that the West Indian white ladies are +virtuous prudes. Where superstition reigns, fanaticism will be minister +of state; and the people, under the taxation of zeal, will shun what is +commonly called vice, with ten times more care than the polite and +civilized Christians, who know what is right and what is wrong from +reason and revelation. Happy would it be for the world, if reason and +revelation were suffered <a name="Page_58"></a>to control the mind and +passions of the great and wise men of the earth, as superstition does +that of the simple and less polished! When America shall erect societies +for the promotion of chastity in Europe, in return for the establishment +of European arts in the American capitals, then Europe will discover +that there is more Christian philosophy in American bundling than can be +found in the customs of nations more polite.</p> + +<p>"I should not have said so +much about bundling, had not a learned divine<a name="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23">[23]</a> of the English church +published his travels through some parts of America, wherein this +remarkable custom is represented in an unfavorable light, and as +prevailing among the <i>lower class</i> of people. The truth is, the custom +prevails among all classes, to the great honor of the country, its +religion, and ladies. The virtuous may be tempted; but the tempter is +despised. Why it should be thought <a name="Page_59"></a>incredible for a young man and young +woman innocently and virtuously to lie down together in a bed with a +great part of their clothes on, I cannot conceive. Human passions may be +alike in every region; but religion, diversified as it is, operates +differently in different countries. Upon the whole, had I daughters now, +I would venture to let them <i>bundle</i> on the bed, or even on the sofa, +after a proper education, sooner than adopt the Spanish mode of forcing +young people to prattle only before the lady's mother the chitchat of +artless lovers. Could the four quarters of the world produce a more +chaste, exemplary and beautiful company of wives and daughters than are +in Connecticut, I should not have remaining one favorable sentiment for +the province. But the soil, the rivers, the ponds, the ten thousand +landscapes, together with the virtuous and lovely women which now adorn +the ancient kingdoms of Connecticote, Sassacus, and Quinnipiog, would +tempt me into the highest wonder and admiration of them, could they once +be freed of<a name="Page_60"></a>the skunk, the moping-owl, rattlesnake +and fanatic Christian."</p> + +<p>Or, to take another example of the abuse +heaped by our English cousins upon this so-called +"American custom of bundling." We extract +the following from an article entitled <i>British +Abuse of American Manners</i>, published in 1815.<a name="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24">[24]</a> +It seems that it had long been a custom in the +Westminster school, in the city of London, for +the senior students, who were about to leave that +seminary for the university, at the age of sixteen +to eighteen, to have an annual dramatic performance, +which was generally a play of Terence.<a name="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25">[25]</a> +To this, as annually performed, there was usually +a Latin prologue, and also an epilogue composed +for the occasion and this epilogue turned, for +the most part, on the manners of the day that +<a name="Page_61"></a>would bear the gentle correction of good humored +satire, in elegant Latinity. In the epilogue presented +at one of these exhibitions, about 1815, +in connection with the performance of Terence's +<i>Phormio</i>, the following balderdash (with much +else, as applied to American life and manners) +was introduced and spoken by these ingenuous +and virtuous British youth, before a large and +enlightened audience:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"Nec morum dicere promtum est,<br /></span> +<span>Sit ratio simplex, sitne venusta magis.<br /></span> +<span>Æthiopissa palam mensæ formulatur herili<br /></span> +<span>In puris naturalibus, ut loquimur.<br /></span> +<span>Vir braccis se bellus amat nudare décentér,<br /></span> +<span>Strenuus ut choreas ex-que-peditus agat.<br /></span> +<span>Quid quod ibi; quod congere ipsis conque moveri<br /></span> +<span>Dicitur, incolumi nempe pudicitiâ,<br /></span> +<span>Sponte suâ, sine fraude, torum sese audet in unum.<br /></span> +<span>Condere cum casto casta puelle viro?<br /></span> +<span>Quid noctes coenaque Deûm? quid amœna piorum.<br /></span> +<span>Concilia?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_62"></a>Which being translated is as follows:</p> + +<p>"Nor is it easy to say whether the tenor of +their manners is more to be admired for simplicity +or elegance; a negro wench, as we are +told, will wait on her master at table in native +nudity; and a beau will strip himself to the +waist, that he may dance unincumbered, and +with more agility. There, too, we hear of the +practice of <i>bundling</i> without any infraction of +female modesty; and the chaste maiden, without +any deception, but with right good will, ventures +to share the bed with her chaste swain! Oh, +what nights and banquets, worthy of the gods! +What delightful customs among these pious +people?"</p> + +<p>But this spirit of misrepresentation and ridicule, +so glaringly apparent in the foregoing extracts, +and which has so universally characterized +all those British travelers and authors who have +attempted to describe our social habits and manners, +is fitly rebuked, even as long ago as 1815, +by an anonymous writer, whose trenchant pen +<a name="Page_63"></a>reminds our British cousins of the old adage concerning +"those who live in glass houses," etc.</p> + +<p>"From the time of Jack Cade," says he, "to +Lord George Gordon, and down to the present +day, neither your <i>grave</i> or <i>gay</i> authorities on the +subject of <i>bundling</i> and <i>tarrying</i> are worthy of +criticism. There is a littleness in noticing, in the +<i>London Quarterly Review</i>, a work which heretofore +has been distinguished for its taste, chasteness +and celebrity, the observation of travelers +who, if men of truth, could only mean to mention +customs (if they were customs) of the most +vulgar and ignorant, which at any rate are now +as little known as are the operation of the blue +laws of Connecticut, or part of the penal code +enacted to keep in slavery and subjection the +sister kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26">[26]</a></p> + +<p>"Englishmen, examine your own cottages, particularly +in the north, and on the borders, and +extend your view to the western extremity of +<a name="Page_64"></a>your island. Pray, what term will you give to +that promiscuous bundling of the father, mother, +children, sons and daughters-in-law, cousins, and +inmates who call to <i>tarry</i>, and not unfrequently +stretch themselves in one common bed of straw +on the hovel's floor?<a name="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27">[27]</a></p> + +<p>"Nay, even, in some parts of your empire, +the hogs and the cows join the group, and form +a most audible respiration from their noses, getting +vent through the hole in the roof intended +for a chimney, or spreading throughout the clay +built edifice with odorific sweetness, though perhaps +not so fragrant and refreshing as was the +precious oil poured on the venerable head of +Aaron, which Sternhold and Hopkins tell us +filled the room with pleasure. In the early settlement +of this country there might have been +houses in the route of the inquisitive and insidi<a name="Page_65"></a>ous +European travelers, unprovided with a spare +bed on which he might stretch his limbs; but, +now, should Mr. Canning<a name="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28">[28]</a> himself visit us, he +need not fear being <i>bundled</i>—he need not travel +far in any part of the United States without enjoying +the luxury of a soft couch and clean +sheets, where he can ruminate on the injustice +he attempts on our national character."</p> + +<p>Badinage, ridicule and misrepresentation aside, +however, there can be no reasonable doubt that +<i>bundling</i> did prevail to a very great extent in +the New England colonies from a very early +date. It is equally evident that it was originally +confined almost entirely to the lower classes of +the community, or to those whose limited means +compelled them to economize strictly in their +expenditure of firewood and candlelight. Many, +perhaps the majority, of the dwellings of the +early settlers, consisted of but one room, in +which the whole family lived and slept. Yet +<a name="Page_66"></a>their innocent and generous hospitality forbade +that the stranger, or the friend whom night overtook +on their threshold, should be turned shelterless +and couchless away, so long as they could +offer him even half of a bed. As an example of +this we may cite the case of Lieut. Anbury, a +British officer, who served in America during +the Revolutionary War, and whose letters preserve +many sprightly and interesting pictures of +the manners and customs of that period. In a +letter dated at Cambridge, New England, November +20, 1777, he thus speaks:</p> + +<p>"The night before we came to this town +[Williamstown, Mass.], being quartered at a +small log hut, I was convinced in how innocent +a view the Americans look upon that indelicate +custom they call <i>bundling</i>. Though they have +remarkable good feather beds, and are extremely +neat and clean, still I preferred my hard mattress, +as being accustomed to it; this evening, however, +owing to the badness of the roads, and the +weakness of my mare, my servant had not +<a name="Page_67"></a>arrived with my baggage at the time for retiring +to rest. There being only two beds in the house, +I inquired which I was to sleep in, when the +old woman replied, 'Mr. Ensign,' here I should +observe to you, that the New England people +are very inquisitive as to the rank you have +in the army; 'Mr. Ensign,' says she, 'our Jonathan +and I will sleep in this, and our Jemima +and you shall sleep in that.' I was much astonished +at such a proposal, and offered to sit up +all night, when Jonathan immediately replied, +'Oh, la! Mr. Ensign, you wont be the first man +our Jemima has bundled with, will it Jemima?' +when little Jemima, who, by the bye, was a very +pretty, black-eyed girl, of about sixteen or seventeen, +archly replied, 'No, father, not by many, +but it will be with the first Britainer' (the name +they give to Englishmen). In this dilemma what +could I do? The smiling invitation of pretty +Jemima—the eye, the lip, the—Lord ha' mercy, +where am I going to? But wherever I may +be going now, I did not go to bundle with +<a name="Page_68"></a>her—in the same room with her father and +mother, my kind <i>host</i> and <i>hostess</i> too! I thought +of that—I thought of more besides—to struggle +with the passions of nature; to clasp Jemima +in my arms—to—do what? you'll ask—why, +to do—nothing! for if amid all these temptations, +the lovely Jemima had melted into kindness, +she had been an outcast from the world—treated +with contempt, abused by violence, and +left perhaps to perish! No, Jemima; I could have +endured all this to have been blest with you, +but it was too vast a sacrifice, when you was to +be the victim! Suppose how great the test of +virtue must be, or how cold the American constitution, +when this unaccountable custom is in +hospitable repute, and perpetual practice."<a name="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29">[29]</a></p> + +<p>Again, in a subsequent letter, the Lieutenant, +after describing a New England sleighing frolic, +says: "In England this would be esteemed +<a name="Page_69"></a>extremely imprudent, and attended with dangerous +consequences; but, after what I have related +respecting <i>bundling</i>, I need not say, in how +innocent a view this is looked upon. Apropos, +as to that custom, along the sea coast, by a continual +intercourse among Europeans, it is in some +measure abolished; but they still retain one +something similar, which is termed <i>tarrying</i>. +When a young man is enamored of a woman, +and wishes to marry her, he proposes the affair +to her parents (without whose consent no marriage, +in this colony, can take place); if they +have no objections, he is allowed to tarry with +her one night, in order to make his court. At +the usual time the old couple retire to bed, leaving +the young ones to settle matters as they can, +who having sat up as long as they think proper, +get into bed together also, but without putting +off their under garments; to prevent scandal. If +the parties agree, it is all very well, the banns +are published, and they married without delay; +if not, they part, and possibly never see each +<a name="Page_70"></a>other again, unless, which is an accident that +seldom happens, the forsaken fair proves pregnant, +in which case the man, unless he absconds, +is obliged to marry her, on pain of excommunication."<a name="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30">[30]</a></p> + +<p>The word <i>tarry</i>, in the sense of <i>to stop</i> or <i>to +stay</i>, was more used by our ancestors than by the +present generation; yet we think that Lieut. +Anbury was mistaken in his idea that the <i>tarrying</i> +was but for a single night. It is true that +marriages were early, and probably the courtships +were short, but we all know enough of +New England <i>sparking</i> to know that a single +night was cutting it rather short; and yet it is +easy to see how Anbury should get his erroneous +idea. True, if the lover was so unlucky as to +get his final dismissal the first night, there was +an end of the matter, and well might they fail to +meet again; but, in that case, it is not likely that +the favors of which he could boast would be +<a name="Page_71"></a>such as to seriously affect the reputation of the +girl with whom he tarried. The fact that in the +custom of <i>tarrying</i>, the parties also <i>bundled</i>, does +not authorize the synonymous use of the two +words, which have nothing in common. For, +doubtless many young men <i>tarried</i> with their +sweethearts, who did not <i>bundle</i> with them.</p> + +<p>Again, when, on a sabbath night, the faithful +swain arrived, having, perhaps, walked ten +or more weary miles, to enjoy the company of +his favorite lass, in the few brief hours which +would elapse before the morning light should call +him again to his homeward walk and his week of +toil, was it not the dictate of humanity as well +as of economy, which prompted the <i>old folks</i> to +allow the approved and accepted suitor of their +daughter to pursue his wooing under the downy +coverlid of a good feather bed (oftentimes, too, +in the very same room in which they themselves +slept), rather than to have them <i>sit up</i> and <i>burn +out uselessly</i> firewood and <i>candles</i>, to say nothing +of the risk of catching their <i>death a' cold?</i> In<a name="Page_72"></a>deed, +was not the sanction of bundling in such +cases a tacit admission, on the part of the parents, +of their perfect confidence in the young +folks, which necessarily acted upon the latter as, +at once, a strong restraint from wrong, and a +strong incentive to right doing? The influence +of early religious training, the powerful control +which the church had obtained upon the social +and domestic life of the people, and the superstitious +aspect which, in those days, the gospel was +made to wear, must also be taken into the +account. And, moreover, is it not probable +that the universality of the custom, which certainly +cleared it from anything like odium or +reproach, would naturally tend to preclude, in a +degree, any improper ideas in the minds of those +who practiced it? Such, then, we consider the +<i>status</i> of the custom in the earlier history of the +colonies, and among the <i>first generation</i> of settlers.</p> + +<p>"But," if the reader will allow us to quote +from a previous work, "the emigration from a +<a name="Page_73"></a>civilized to a new country,<a name="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31">[31]</a> is necessarily a step +backward into barbarism. The <i>second generation</i> +did not fill the place of the fathers. Reared +amid the trials and dangers of a new settlement, +they were in a great measure deprived of the +advantages, both social and educational, which +their parents had enjoyed. Nearly all of the +former could write, which cannot be said of +their children. Neither did the latter possess +that depth of religious feeling, or earnest practical +piety which distinguished the first comers. +Religion was to them less a matter of the heart +than of social privilege, and in the <i>half way +covenant</i> controversy we behold the gradual <i>letting +down of bars</i> between a pure church and a +grasping world.</p> + +<p>"The <i>third</i> generation followed in the footsteps +of their predecessors. Then came war; +and young New England brought from the long +Canadian campaigns, stores of loose camp vices, +<a name="Page_74"></a>and recklessness, which soon flooded the land +with immorality and infidelity. The church was +neglected, drunkenness fearfully increased, and +social life was sadly corrupted."<a name="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32">[32]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_75"></a>It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that +bundling should, in the increased laxity of public +morals, become more frequently abused. Its +pernicious effects became constantly more apparent, +and more decidedly challenged the attention +of the comparatively few godly men who +endeavored to stem and to control the rapidly +widening current of immorality which threatened +to overwhelm the land.<a name="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33">[33]</a> The powerful intel<a name="Page_76"></a>lect +of Jonathan Edwards thundered its anathemas +upon it; pious divines prayed against it in +<a name="Page_77"></a>their closets, and wrestled with it in their pulpits; +while many attempted by a revision of +their church polity, by greater carefulness in the +admission of members; by rules more stringently +framed and enforced, to preserve, as best they +might, the purity of the churches committed to +their charge, and to make them, if it were possi<a name="Page_78"></a>ble, +beacon lights amid the surrounding darkness +of the times.<a name="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34">[34]</a> The task, however, was well nigh +hopeless. The French wars were succeeded by +that of the American Revolution, and not before +the close of that struggle, may the custom +of bundling be said to have received its deathblow, +and even then it <i>died hard</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_79"></a>Its final disuse was brought about by a variety +of causes, among which may be named the improved +condition of the people after the Revolution, +enabling many to live in larger and better +warmed houses, and in the very few places +where the ministers dared to touch the subject in +the pulpit, as in Dedham, already referred to, a +decided effect was produced, but it was confined +to the neighborhood, having very little effect on +the general custom. Probably no single thing +tended so much to break up the practice as the +publication of a song, or ballad, in an almanac, +about 1785.</p> + +<p>This ballad described in a free and easy style +the various plans adopted by those who bundled, +and rather more than hinted at the results in certain +cases. Being published in an almanac, it +had a much larger circulation than could have +been obtained for it in any other way (tract societies +not being then in vogue), and the descriptions +were so <i>pat</i>, that each one who saw them +was disposed to apply them in a joking way to +<a name="Page_80"></a>any other who was known to practice bundling; +and the result was, such a general storm of +banter and ridicule that no girl had the courage +to stand against it, and continue to admit her +lovers to her bed.</p> + +<p>We have found many persons who distinctly +remember the publication of this song, and the +effect which it had on the public mind, but all +our efforts to find the almanac containing it, have +proved of no avail.</p> + +<p>We have, however, been favored with the use +of a broadside copy of a ballad, preserved among +the treasures of the American Antiquarian Society, +at Worcester, Massachusetts, which several +of our ancient friends have recognized as +identical with that in the almanac, one of them +proving it by repeating from memory several lines +from the Almanac version, which were precisely +like that of the broadside, a copy of which we +give herewith.</p> +<br /> +<a name="Page_81"></a><center>A NEW BUNDLING SONG;</center> + +<div class="blkquot"><p><i>Or a reproof to those Young Country Women, who + follow that reproachful Practice, and to their Mothers + for upholding them therein</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Since bundling very much abounds,<br /></span> +<span>In many parts in country towns,<br /></span> +<span>No doubt but some will spurn my song,<br /></span> +<span>And say I'd better hold my tongue;<br /></span> +<span>But none I'm sure will take offence,<br /></span> +<span>Or deem my song impertinence,<br /></span> +<span>But only those who guilty be,<br /></span> +<span>And plainly here their pictures see.<br /></span> +<span>Some maidens say, if through the nation,<br /></span> +<span>Bundling should quite go out of fashion,<br /></span> +<span>Courtship would lose its sweets; and they<br /></span> +<span>Could have no fun till wedding day.<br /></span> +<span>It shant be so, they rage and storm,<br /></span> +<span>And country girls in clusters swarm,<br /></span> +<span>And fly and buz, like angry bees,<br /></span> +<span>And vow they'll bundle when they please.<br /></span> +<span>Some mothers too, will plead their cause,<br /></span> +<span>And give their daughters great applause,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_82"></a>And tell them, 'tis no sin nor shame,<br /></span> +<span>For we, your mothers, did the same;<br /></span> +<span>We hope the custom ne'er will alter,<br /></span> +<span>But wish its enemies a halter.<br /></span> +<span>Dissatisfaction great appear'd,<br /></span> +<span>In several places where they've heard<br /></span> +<span>Their preacher's bold, aloud disclaim<br /></span> +<span>That bundling is a burning shame;<br /></span> +<span>This too was cause of direful rout<br /></span> +<span>And talk'd and told of, all about,<br /></span> +<span>That ministers should disapprove<br /></span> +<span>Sparks courting in a bed of love,<br /></span> +<span>So justified the custom more,<br /></span> +<span>Than e'er was heard or known before.<br /></span> +<span>The pulpit then it seems must yield,<br /></span> +<span>And female valor take the field,<br /></span> +<span>In places where their custom long<br /></span> +<span>Increasing strength has grown so strong;<br /></span> +<span>When mothers herein bear a sway,<br /></span> +<span>And daughters joyfully obey.<br /></span> +<span>And young men highly pleased too,<br /></span> +<span>Good Lord! what can't the devil do.<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_83"></a>Can this vile practice ne'er be broke?<br /></span> +<span>Is there no way to give a stroke,<br /></span> +<span>To wound it or to strike it dead.<br /></span> +<span>And girls with sparks not go to bed<br /></span> +<span>'Twill strike them more than preacher's tongue,<br /></span> +<span>To let the world know what they've done<br /></span> +<span>And let it be in common fame,<br /></span> +<span>Held up to view a noted shame.<br /></span> +<span>Young miss if this your practice be,<br /></span> +<span>I'll teach you now yourself to see:<br /></span> +<span>You plead you're honest, modest too,<br /></span> +<span>But such a plea will never do;<br /></span> +<span>For how can modesty consist,<br /></span> +<span>With shameful practice such as this?<br /></span> +<span>I'll give your answer to the life:<br /></span> +<span>"You don't undress, like man wife,"<br /></span> +<span>That is your plea, I'll freely own,<br /></span> +<span>But whose your bondsmen when alone,<br /></span> +<span>That further rules you will not break,<br /></span> +<span>And marriage liberties partake?<br /></span> +<span>Some really do, as I suppose,<br /></span> +<span>Upon design keep on some clothes,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_84"></a>And yet in truth I'm not afraid<br /></span> +<span>For to describe a bundling maid;<br /></span> +<span>She'll sometimes say when she lies down,<br /></span> +<span>She can't be cumber'd with a gown,<br /></span> +<span>And that the weather is so warm,<br /></span> +<span>To take it off can be no harm:<br /></span> +<span>The girl it seems had been at strift;<br /></span> +<span>For widest bosom to her shift,<br /></span> +<span>She gownless, when the bed they're in,<br /></span> +<span>The spark, nought feels but naked skin.<br /></span> +<span>But she is modest, also chaste,<br /></span> +<span>While only bare from neck to waist,<br /></span> +<span>And he of boasted freedom sings,<br /></span> +<span>Of all above her apron strings.<br /></span> +<span>And where such freedoms great are shar'd<br /></span> +<span>And further freedoms feebly bar'd,<br /></span> +<span>I leave for others to relate,<br /></span> +<span>How long she'll keep her virgin state.<br /></span> +<span>Another pretty lass we'll scan,<br /></span> +<span>That loves to bundle with a man,<br /></span> +<span>For many different ways they take,<br /></span> +<span>Through modest rules they all will break.<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_85"></a>Some clothes I'll keep on, she will say,<br /></span> +<span>For that has always been my way,<br /></span> +<span>Nor would I be quite naked found,<br /></span> +<span>With spark in bed, for thousand pound.<br /></span> +<span>But petticoats, I've always said,<br /></span> +<span>Were never made to wear in bed,<br /></span> +<span>I'll take them off, keep on my gown,<br /></span> +<span>And then I dare defy the town,<br /></span> +<span>To charge me with immodesty,<br /></span> +<span>While I so ever cautious be.<br /></span> +<span>The spark was pleased with his maid,<br /></span> +<span>Of apprehension quick he said,<br /></span> +<span>Her witty scheme was keen he swore,<br /></span> +<span>Lying in gown open before.<br /></span> +<span>Another maid when in the dark,<br /></span> +<span>Going to bed with her dear spark,<br /></span> +<span>She'll tell him that 'tis rather shocking,<br /></span> +<span>To bundle in with shoes and stockings.<br /></span> +<span>Nor scrupling but she's quite discreet,<br /></span> +<span>Lying with naked legs and feet,<br /></span> +<span>With petticoat so thin and short,<br /></span> +<span>That she is scarce the better for't;<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_86"></a>But you will say that I'm unfair,<br /></span> +<span>That some who bundle take more care,<br /></span> +<span>For some we may with truth suppose,<br /></span> +<span>Bundle in bed with all their clothes.<br /></span> +<span>But bundler's clothes are no defence,<br /></span> +<span>Unly<a name="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35">[35]</a> horses push the fence;<br /></span> +<span>A certain fact I'll now relate,<br /></span> +<span>That's true indeed without debate.<br /></span> +<span>A bundling couple went to bed.<br /></span> +<span>With all their clothes from foot to head,<br /></span> +<span>That the defence might seem complete,<br /></span> +<span>Each one was wrapped in a sheet.<br /></span> +<span>But O! this bundling's such a witch<br /></span> +<span>The man of her did catch the itch,<br /></span> +<span>And so provoked was the wretch,<br /></span> +<span>That she of him a bastard catch'd.<br /></span> +<span>Ye bundle misses don't you blush,<br /></span> +<span>You hang your heads and bid me hush.<br /></span> +<span>If you wont tell me how you feel,<br /></span> +<span>I'll ask your sparks, they best can tell.<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_87"></a>But it is custom you will say,<br /></span> +<span>And custom always bears the sway,<br /></span> +<span>If I wont take my sparks to bed,<br /></span> +<span>A laughing stock I shall be made;<br /></span> +<span>A vulgar custom 'tis, I own,<br /></span> +<span>Admir'd by many a slut and clown,<br /></span> +<span>But 'tis a method of proceeding,<br /></span> +<span>As much abhorr'd by those of breeding.<br /></span> +<span>You're welcome to the lines I've penn'd,<br /></span> +<span>For they were written by a friend,<br /></span> +<span>Who'll think himself quite well rewarded,<br /></span> +<span>If this vile practice is discarded.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The party in favor of bundling were able, too, +to <i>keep a poet</i>, as is shown by the following ballad, +which we transcribe from a printed copy preserved +by the American Antiquarian Society.</p> + +<br /> + +<a name="Page_88"></a><center>A NEW SONG +IN FAVOUR OF COURTING.</center> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Adam at first was form'd of dust,<br /></span> +<span>As scripture doth record;<br /></span> +<span>And did receive a wife call'd Eve,<br /></span> +<span>From his Creator Lord.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>From Adam's side a crooked bride,<br /></span> +<span>The Lord was pleas'd to form;<br /></span> +<span>Ordain'd that they in bed might lay<br /></span> +<span>to keep each other warm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>To court indeed they had no need,<br /></span> +<span>She was his wife at first,<br /></span> +<span>And she was made to be his aid,<br /></span> +<span>Whose origin was dust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>This new made pair full happy were,<br /></span> +<span>And happy might remain'd,<br /></span> +<span>If his help mate had never ate,<br /></span> +<span>The fruit that was restrain'd.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_89"></a>Tho' Adam's wife destroy'd his life,<br /></span> +<span>In manner that was awful;<br /></span> +<span>Yet marriage now we all allow<br /></span> +<span>To be both just and lawful.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>But women must be courted first,<br /></span> +<span>Because it is the fashion,<br /></span> +<span>And so at times commit great crimes,<br /></span> +<span>Caus'd by a lustful passion.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>And now a days there are two ways,<br /></span> +<span>Which of the two is right,<br /></span> +<span>To lie between sheets sweet and clean,<br /></span> +<span>Or sit up all the night;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>But some suppose bundling in clothes<br /></span> +<span>Do heaven sorely vex;<br /></span> +<span>Then let me know which way to go,<br /></span> +<span>To court the female sex.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Whether they must be hugg'd or kiss'd<br /></span> +<span>When sitting by the fire<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_90"></a>Or whether they in bed may lay,<br /></span> +<span>Which doth the Lord require?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>But some pretend to recommend<br /></span> +<span>The sitting up all night;<br /></span> +<span>Courting in chairs as doth appear<br /></span> +<span>To them to be most right.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Nature's request is, grant me rest,<br /></span> +<span>Our bodies seek repose;<br /></span> +<span>Night is the time, and 'tis no crime<br /></span> +<span>To bundle in your clothes,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Since in a bed a man and maid,<br /></span> +<span>May bundle and be chaste,<br /></span> +<span>It does no good to burn out wood,<br /></span> +<span>It is a needless waste.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Let coats and gowns be laid aside,<br /></span> +<span>And breeches take their flight,<br /></span> +<span>An honest man and woman can<br /></span> +<span>Lay quiet all the night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_91"></a>In Genesis no knowledge is<br /></span> +<span>Of this thing to be got,<br /></span> +<span>Whether young men did bundle then,<br /></span> +<span>Or whether they did not.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>The sacred book says wives they took,<br /></span> +<span>It don't say how they courted,<br /></span> +<span>Whether that they in bed did lay,<br /></span> +<span>Or by the fire sported.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>But some do hold in times of old,<br /></span> +<span>That those about to wed,<br /></span> +<span>Spent not the night, nor yet the light<br /></span> +<span>By fire, or in the bed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>They only meant to say they sent<br /></span> +<span>A man to chuse a bride,<br /></span> +<span>Isaac did so, but let me know<br /></span> +<span>Of any one beside.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Man don't pretend to trust a friend,<br /></span> +<span>To choose him sheep and cows,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_92"></a>Much less a wife which all his life<br /></span> +<span>He doth expect to house.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Since it doth stand each man in hand,<br /></span> +<span>To happify his life,<br /></span> +<span>I would advise each to be wise,<br /></span> +<span>And chuse a prudent wife.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Since bundling is not the thing,<br /></span> +<span>That judgments will procure,<br /></span> +<span>Go on young men and bundle then,<br /></span> +<span>But keep your bodies pure.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(Printed and sold by Nathaniel Coverly, Jun. Boston.)</p> +<br /> + +<p>The foregoing version is evidently not complete, +several verses having been left out on +account of their containing <i>more truth than +poetry</i>, but these may be supplied from a manuscript +copy, evidently made from memory, with +considerable variations from the printed copy, +which by no means improve it, though the schoolmaster +did his best, and probably saved for us a +<a name="Page_93"></a>very complete version of the ballad as it passed +from mouth to mouth before the printed copy +was made.</p> + +<p>It was transcribed from a volume of manuscript +ballads in the handwriting of Israel Perkins, +of Connecticut, written in 1786, when he +was eighteen years old, and teaching school.</p> +<br /> + +<center>THE WHORE ON THE SNOW CRUST.</center> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>1. Adam at first was formed of dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As we find on record;<br /></span> +<span>And did receive a wife cal'd Eve,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By a creative word.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>2. From Adam's side a crooked bride,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We find complete in form;<br /></span> +<span>Ordained that they in bed might lay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And keep each other warm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>3. To court indeed they had no need,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She was his wife at first,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_94"></a>And she was made to be his aid,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose origin was dust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>4. This new made pair full happy were,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And happy might remained,<br /></span> +<span>If his help meet had never eat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The fruit that was restrained.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>5. Tho' Adam's wife destroyed his life<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In manner that is awfull;<br /></span> +<span>Yet marriage now we all allow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">[To] Be both just and lawfull.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>6. And now a days there is two ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which of the two is write<br /></span> +<span>To lie between sheets sweet and clean<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or sit up all the night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>7. But some suppose bundling in clothes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The good and wise doth vex;<br /></span> +<span>Then let me know which way to go<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To court the fairer sex.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_95"></a>8. Whether they must be hug'd and buss'd<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When setting up all night;<br /></span> +<span>Or whether [they] in bed may lay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which doth reason invite?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>9. Nature's request is, give me rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our bodies seek repose;<br /></span> +<span>Night is the time, and 'tis no crime<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To bundle in our cloaths.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>10. Since in a bed, a man and maid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May bundle and be chaste:<br /></span> +<span>It doth no good to burn up wood<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It is a needless waste.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>11. Let coat and shift be turned adrift,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And breeches take their flight,<br /></span> +<span>An honest man and virgin can<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lie quiet all the night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>12. But if there be dishonesty<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Implanted in the mind,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_96"></a>Breeches nor smocks, nor scarce padlocks<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rage of lust can bind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>13. Cate, Nance and Sue proved just and true,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tho' bundling did practise;<br /></span> +<span>But Ruth beguil'd and proved with child,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who bundling did despise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>14. Whores will be whores, and on the floor<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where many has been laid,<br /></span> +<span>To set and smoke and ashes poke,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wont keep awake a maid.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>15. Bastards are not at all times got<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In feather beds we know;<br /></span> +<span>The strumpet's oath convinces both<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oft times it is not so.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>16. One whorish dame, I fear to name<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lest I should give offence,<br /></span> +<span>But in this town she was took down<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not more than eight months sence.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_97"></a>17. She was the first, that on snow crust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I ever knew to gender<br /></span> +<span>I'll hint no more about this whore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For fear I should offend her.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>18. 'Twas on the snow when Sol was low,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And was in Capricorn,<br /></span> +<span>A child was got, and it will not<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be long ere it is born.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>19. Now unto those that do oppose<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bundling traid, I say<br /></span> +<span>Perhaps there's more got on the floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than any other way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>20. In ancient books no knowledge is<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of these things to be got;<br /></span> +<span>Whether young men did bundle then,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or whether they did not.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>21. Sence ancient book says wife they took,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It dont say how they courted;<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_98"></a>Whether young men did bundle then,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or by the fire sported.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>[But some do hold in times of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That those about to wed,<br /></span> +<span>Spent not the night, nor yet the light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By fire, or in the bed.]<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>22. They only meant to say they sent<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A man to choose a bride;<br /></span> +<span>Isaac was so, but let me know,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If any one beside.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>23. Men don't pretend to trust a friend<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To choose him sheep or cows;<br /></span> +<span>Much more a wife whom all his life<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He does expect to house.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>24. Sence it doth stand each one in hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To happyfy his life;<br /></span> +<span>I would advise each to be wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And choose a prudent wife.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_99"></a>25. Sence bundling is not a thing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That judgment will procure;<br /></span> +<span>Go on young men and bundle then,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But keep your bodies pure.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Since this work went to press we have been +favored, by one of our antiquarian friends in +Massachusetts, with a copy of another poetical +blast against the practice of bundling. It was +written in the latter part of the last, or the first +decade of the present century, by a learned and +distinguished clergyman settled in Bristol county, +Massachusetts, who was a graduate of Harvard +University, and a doctor of divinity. The original +manuscript from which our copy is made, is +very carefully written out, with corrections apparently +of a later date, and now undoubtedly +appears for the first time in printed form.</p> + +<br /> + +<a name="Page_100"></a><center>A POEM AGAINST BUNDLING.</center> + +<center><i>Dedicated to y<sup>e</sup> Youth of both Sexes</i>.</center> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>1. Hail giddy youth, inclined to mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To guilty amours prone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Come blush with me, to think and see<br /></span> +<span class="i3">How shameless you are grown.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>2. 'Tis not amiss to court and kiss,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Nor friendship do we blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But bundling in, women with men,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Upon the bed of shame;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>3. And there to lay till break of day,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And think it is no sin,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Because a smock and petticoat<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Have chance to lie between.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>4. Such rank disgrace and scandal base,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">All modest youth will shun,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For 'twill infest, like plague or pest,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And you will be undone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_101"></a>5. Let boars and swine lie down and twine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grunt, and sleep, and snore,<br /></span> +<span>But modest girls should not wear tails<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor bristles any more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>6. Let rams the sheep mount up and leap,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Without restraint or blame,<br /></span> +<span>But will young men act just like them;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oh, 'tis a burning shame!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>7. It is not strange that horses range<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unfettered to the last,<br /></span> +<span>But youthful lusts in fetters must<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be chained to virtue fast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>8. Dogs and bitches wear no breeches,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Clothing for man was made,<br /></span> +<span>Yet men and women strip to their linen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And tumble into bed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>9. Yes, brutal youth, it is the truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your modesty is gone,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_102"></a>And could you blush, you'd think as much,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And curse what you have done.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>10. To have done so some years ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was counted more disgrace<br /></span> +<span>Than 'tis of late to propagate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A spurious bastard race.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>11. Quit human kind and herd with swine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Confess yourself an whore;<br /></span> +<span>Go fill the stye, there live and die,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or never bundle more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>12. Shall gentlemen with ladies join<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To practice like the brutes,<br /></span> +<span>Then let them keep with cattle and sheep,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And fodder on their fruits.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>13. This cursed course is one great source<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of matches undesigned,<br /></span> +<span>Quarrels and strife twixt man and wife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And bastards of their kind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_103"></a>14. But in excuse of this abuse<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It oftentimes is said,<br /></span> +<span>Father and mother did no other<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than strip and go to bed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>15. But grant some did as you have said,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet do they not repent,<br /></span> +<span>And wish that you may never do<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What they so much lament?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>16. A stupid ass can't be more base<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than are those guilty youth<br /></span> +<span>Who fill with smart a parent's heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And turn it into mirth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>17. Others do plead hard for the bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their health and weariness,<br /></span> +<span>So drunkards will drink down their swill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And call it no excess.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>18. Under pretense of self defense,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Others will scold and say,<br /></span> +<span><a name="Page_104"></a>An honest maid is chaste abed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As any other way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>19. But where's the man that fire can<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into his bosom take,<br /></span> +<span>Or go through coals on his foot soles<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And not a blister make?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>20. Temptation's way has led astray<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The likeliest of you all,<br /></span> +<span>And yet you'r found on slippery ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And think you cannot fall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>21. A female meek, with blushing cheek,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seized in some lover's arms,<br /></span> +<span>Has oft grown weak with Cupid's heat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And lost her virgin charms.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>22. But last of all, up speaks romp Moll<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And pleads to be excused,<br /></span> +<span>For how can she e'er married be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If bundling be refused?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span><a name="Page_105"></a>23. What strange mistake young women,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To hope for sparks this way!<br /></span> +<span>Your fond bold acts can't lay a tax<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That men will ever pay.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>24. So cheap and free some women be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That men are cloyed with sweet,<br /></span> +<span>As horse or cow starve at the mow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With fodder under feet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>25. 'Tis therefore vain yourselves to screen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The practice is accurst,<br /></span> +<span>It is condemned by God and man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pious and the just.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>26. Should you go on, the day will come,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When Christ your Judge will say,<br /></span> +<span>In <i>bundles</i> bind each of this kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cast them all away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>27. Down deep in hell there let them dwell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And bundle on that bed;<br /></span> +<span>There burn and roll without control,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Till all their lusts are fed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_106"></a>The evidence presented in the preceding pages, +establishes, as we think, the following facts:</p> + +<p>1st. That the custom, so far as it pertained to +the American States, had its origin as a matter +of convenience and necessity.</p> + +<p>2d. That in all stages of its history it was +chiefly confined to the humbler classes of society.</p> + +<p>3d. That its prevalence may be said to have +closed with the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>It is our opinion that it came nearest to being +a universal custom from 1750 to 1780, and that +it was, at all times, regarded by the better classes +as a serious evil, and was no more countenanced +by them then the frequenting of grog +shops is by the better class of the present day.</p> + +<p>This opinion is corroborated by the remarks +of several old persons whom we have consulted +as to their recollections of the custom. Among +these, Mr. B., of East Haddam, Ct., now in his +95th year, says that he well remembers it; that +it could not be called general, though frequent. +It was not practiced among the more intelligent, +<a name="Page_107"></a>educated classes, nor among those who lived in +large, well warmed houses. He says it was not +the fashion to bundle with any chap who might +call on a girl, but that it was a special favor, +granted only to a favorite lover, who might consider +it a proof of the high regard which the +damsel had for him; in short, it was <i>only accepted +lovers</i> who were thus admitted to the bed of the +fair one, and, as he expresses it, only after long +continued urging in most cases.<a name="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36">[36]</a> He thinks +the fashion ceased about 1790 to 1800, and in +consequence of education and refinement; and +that <i>no more mischief was done then than there +is now-a-days</i>.</p> + +<p>In the same strain, also, spoke the genial +Colonel H., a native of Berlin, Ct., born in +1775. He was perfectly conversant with the +custom, had known the old ladies, in some cases, +to go up stairs before retiring, to see that the +bundling couple were comfortable, <i>tuck 'em up</i>, +<a name="Page_108"></a>and put on more bedclothes! And stoutly +asseverated his belief "that there wasn't any +more mischief done in those days than there is +now."</p> + +<p>Indeed, all the old people with whom we have +conversed on the matter, although in some cases +a little unwilling to own that they had ever practiced +it themselves, were unanimous in their belief +that the abuse of chastity under the bundling +regime was no more frequent than it is now. +One old gentleman of whom we have heard, in +reply to the half reproachful, half joking question +of his grandson, whether he wasn't ashamed, +replied: "Why, no! What is the use of sitting +up all night and burning out fire and lights, +when you could just as well get under kiver and +keep warm; and, when you get tired, take a nap +and wake up fresh, and go at it again? Why, +d—n it, there wasn't half as many bastards then +as there are now!"<a name="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37">[37]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_109"></a>Even within the present century we have found +traces of the continuance of the practice of +bundling, though the instances are perhaps few, +and in some measure exceptional. Until a very +late day the custom (as a matter of convenience) +was prevalent among the Dutch settlers of +Pennsylvania, and it is not improbable that +traces may still continue to exist in some of +the more remote counties of that state. An old +schoolmaster who flourished in Glastenbury, Ct., +some twenty years ago, when relating his experiences +in teaching in southern Pennsylvania, and +speaking of <i>boarding around</i>, informed us that +when for any reason he did not choose to go to +his boarding place for the time being, he was +accustomed to stop at a tavern kept by an honest +old Dutchman. On one occasion, having asked +<a name="Page_110"></a>the landlord if he could stay over night, he was +told that he could; and after chatting with his +host through the evening, was shown to bed. +The landlord set down the candle and had gone +out of the room, when our friend noticed the +only bed in the room was already occupied, and +calling to the host, notified him of the fact; +when he cried back: "Oh! dat ish only mine +taughter; she won't hurt nopoty," and coolly +went his way. And our friend affirmed that he +found the daughter not only harmless, but also +quite competent to take care of herself.</p> + +<p>In New England, we believe that Cape Cod +has the dubious honor of holding out the longest +against the advance of civilization, bundling, as +we have it on good authority, having been practiced +there as late as 1827.<a name="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38">[38]</a> In Greenwich, +<a name="Page_111"></a>New Jersey, it was in vogue in 1816. In the +state of New York this custom came under +judicial cognizance in the year 1804, when the +supreme court held, that although bundling was +admitted to be the custom in some parts of the +state, it being proven that the parents of the +girl, for whose seduction the suit was brought, +countenanced her practicing it, they had no +right to complain, or ask satisfaction for the consequences, +which, the court say, "<i>naturally followed it!</i>"<a name="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39">[39]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="APPENDIX_I"></a><h2><a name="Page_113"></a>APPENDIX I.</h2> + +<p>BUNDLING.</p> +<br /> + +<p>[From <i>The Yankee</i> of August 13, 1828, published at +Portland, Maine, and edited by John Neal.]</p> + +<p>By Rochefoucault, in accounting for the populousness +of Massachusetts, the New Englanders +are charged with bundling.</p> + +<p>By Chastelleux, whose book I am not able to +refer to now, the charge is repeated, and by half +a score of other honest, good natured people, +who have made books about the New World.</p> + +<p>But, if you enquire into the business, you are +pretty sure to be told, inquire where you may, +that bundling is not known <i>there</i>, but somewhere +further back in the woods, or further <i>down east</i>. +Nay, while in every part of the United States +the multitude speak of bundling as the habit of +their neighbors, either east, west, north, or south, +where the witches of the country were <i>located</i> +about a century ago by the grandfathers of this +<a name="Page_114"></a>generation, I, myself, though I have taken +trouble enough to learn the truth, have never yet +been able to meet with a case of bundling—of +bundling proper, I should say—in the United +States, nor with but one trustworthy individual +who had ever met with so much as one case, and +he had met with <i>but</i> one, for which he would +give his word. These things are trifles; but +when they are told in books that are read and +trusted to throughout Europe; such books, too, +as that of the Marquis de Chastelleux, or that of +De Rouchefoucault, it becomes a matter of serious +inquiry. The truth must be told, whatever it is, +for the truth cannot be so bad, whatever it may +be, as the untruth which is now repeated of us.</p> + +<p>The travels of Chastelleux are translated by +an Englishman who had been a long while in +this country. The book was undoubtedly written +with great care, by a very honest, able man, +who had very good opportunities of knowing the +truth; and is now set off by another very honest, +able man, who was, if anything, rather partial to +America—enough to make one wary of trusting +the report of any traveler who does not say in so +many words, after establishing a character for +himself—I saw this; I heard this; I take nobody's +word for what I now say, etc., etc. It +<a name="Page_115"></a>would be easy to enumerate a multitude of other +stories which are now believed in, about the people +of the United States, not only by the people +of Europe, and of Great Britain particularly, but +by the people of the United States themselves. +But a dry catalogue of such things would be of +little use.</p> + +<p>[Here he refers to the charge reported of New +Englanders, that that they <i>eat pork and molasses—pork and +molasses</i> TOGETHER, which is here denied +as a ridiculous story. H. R. S.]</p> + +<p>They bundle in Wales; bundling there is a +serious matter. A lady—a Welsh woman whose +word is truth itself—assured me not long ago, +that in her country they do not think a bit the +worse, of a girl for anticipating her duties, in +other words, for being a mother before she has +been a wife; they have discovered, perhaps, that +cause and effect may be convertible terms; that +in such a serious matter, none but a fool would +buy a pig in the poke, and that, after all, maternity +may lead to marriage there, as marriage leads +to maternity here. And why not? for after the +establishment of the lying-in hospitals of Russia, +the unmarried who bore <i>children to the state</i> were +proud of the duty, and were looked upon, we are +told, with great favor by the public. She added, +<a name="Page_116"></a>also, that she was once at a party made up of +sixteen or eighteen females, and females of good +characters, all but one or two of whom were +mothers, or had been so, before they were married. +By Chastelleux and his English translator +it would appear to have been very much the +same in America about the years 1780-1-2. It +is not so now. To have had a child before +marriage would now be fatal to a woman here, +whatever might be her condition or beauty; fatal +in every shape. No man would have courage to +marry her; no woman of character would associate +with her. Ask the first individual you +meet, above the age of twelve or thirteen here, +and you may have the name and history of every +poor girl in the neighborhood who has been so +unlucky as to have a child of her own without +leave, perhaps, within a period of six or eight +years in a populous neighborhood of twenty or +thirty miles about. A widow with half a score +of children, forty years ago, if we may believe +Dr. Franklin, was an object for the fortune +hunters of America. It is not so now. The +demand for widows, and for every sort of ready +made family is beginning to be over.</p> + +<p>That which is called bundling here, though bad +enough, is not a twentieth part so bad. Here +<a name="Page_117"></a>it is only a mode of courtship. The parties instead +of sitting up together, go to bed together; +but go to bed with their clothes on. This would +appear to be a perilous fashion; but I have been +assured by the individual above, that he had +proof to the contrary; for in the particular case +alluded to, the only case I ever heard of on +good authority, although he was invited by the +parents of a pretty girl who stood near him, to +bundle with her, and although he <i>did</i> bundle +with her, he had every reason to believe, that if +he had been very free, or more free than he +might have been at a country frolick after they +had invited him to escort her, to sit up with her, +to dance with her, he would have been treated +as a traitor by all parties. He had a fair opportunity +of knowing the truth, and he spoke of +the matter as if he would prefer the etiquette of +sitting up to the etiquette of going to bed with a +girl who had been so brought up. He complained +of her as a prude. The following communication +appears, however, to be one that may +be depended on:<a name="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40">[40]</a></p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_118"></a>MR. NEAL—If you wish to know the truth +about bundling, I think your correspondent +V. could tell you all about it—it seems by his +confession that he has practiced it on a large +scale. I never heard of the thing till about three +years ago; an acquaintance of mine had gone to +spend the summer with an aunt, who lived somewhere +near Sandy river.<a name="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41">[41]</a> The following is a +copy of one of her letters while there:</p> + +<p>"'I should have written sooner, so don't think +me unkind, for I have been waiting for something +to write about. You requested me to give +you a faithful description of the country, the +manners and customs of the inhabitants, etc. I +have not been here quite three months, but I +have been everywhere, seen everything, and got +acquainted with everybody. I shall certainly inform +you of everything I have seen or heard that +is worth relating.</p> + +<p>"'You remember how you told me, before I +left home, that I was so well looking that if I +<a name="Page_119"></a>went so far back in the country I should be very +much admired and flattered, and have as many +lovers as I could wish for. I find it all true. +The people here are remarkably kind and attentive +to me; they seem to think that I must be +something more than common because I have +always lived so near Portland.</p> + +<p>"'But I must tell you that since I have been +here I have had a beau. You must know that +the young men, <i>in particular</i>, are very attentive +to me. Well, among these is <i>one</i> who is considered +the finest young man in the place, and +well he may be—he owns a good farm, which +has a large barn upon it, and a neat two story +house, all finished. These are the fruits of his +own industry; besides he is remarkably good +looking, is very large but well-proportioned, and +has a good share of what I call real manly beauty. +Soon after my arrival here I was introduced to +this man—no, not <i>introduced</i> neither, for they +never think of such a thing here. They all +know me of course, because I am a <i>stranger</i>. +Some days, three, four, or half a dozen, call to +see me, whom I never before saw or heard of; +they come and speak to me as if I were an old +acquaintance, and I converse with them as freely +as if I had always known them from childhood. +<a name="Page_120"></a>In this kind of a way I got acquainted with my +beau, that <i>was;</i> he was very attentive to me from +our first meeting. If we happened to be going +anywhere in company he was sure to offer me +his arm—no, I am wrong again, he never +offered me his arm in his life. If you go to +walk with a young man here, instead of offering +you his arm as the young men do up our way, he +either takes your hand in his, or passes one arm +around your waist; and this he does with such a +provoking, careless honesty, that you cannot for +your life be offended with him. Well, I had +walked with my Jonathan several times in this +kind of style. I confess there was something in +him I could not but like—he does not lack for +wit, and has a good share of common sense; his +language is never studied—he always seems to +speak from the heart. So when he asked what +sort of a companion he would make, I very candidly +answered, that I thought he would make +a very agreeable one. "I think just so of you," +said he, "and it shall not be my fault," he continued, +"if we are not companions for life." +"We shall surely make a bargain," said he, after +sitting silent a few moments, "so we'll <i>bundle</i> +to-night." "<i>Bundle</i> what?" I asked. "<i>We</i> will +bundle together," said he; "you surely know +<a name="Page_121"></a>what I mean." I know that our farmers bundle +<i>wheat</i>, <i>cornstalks</i> and <i>hay;</i> do you mean that you +want me to help you bundle any of these?" +inquired I. "I mean that I want you to stay +with me to-night! It is the custom in this place, +when a man stays with a girl, if it is warm +weather, for them to throw themselves on the +bed, outside the bed clothes; if the weather is +cold, they crawl under the clothes, then if they +have anything to <i>say</i>, they say it—when they +get tired of talking they go to sleep; this is what +we call bundling—now what do you call it in +your part of the world?" "We have no such +works," answered I; "not amongst respectable +people, nor do I think that any people would, +that either thought themselves respectable, or +wished to be thought so."</p> + +<p>"'Don't be too severe upon us, Miss ——, I +have always observed that those who <i>make believe</i> +so much modesty, have in reality but little. +I always act as I feel, and speak as I think. I +wish you to do the same, but have none of your +make-believes with me—you smile—you begin +to think you have been a little too scrupulous—you +have no objection to bundling <i>now</i>, have +you?" "Indeed I have." "I am not to be +trifled with; so, if you refuse, I have done with +<a name="Page_122"></a>you forever." "Then be done as quick as you +please, for I'll not bundle with you nor with any +other man." "Then farewell, proud girl," said +he. "Farewell, honest man," said I, and off he +went sure enough.</p> + +<p>"'I have since made inquiries about <i>bundling</i>, +and find that it is <i>really</i> the custom here, and +that they think no more harm of it, than we do +our way of a young couple sitting up together. +I have known an instance, since I have been +here, of a girl's taking her sweetheart to a neighbor's +house and asking for a bed or two to lodge +in, or rather to <i>bundle</i> in. They had company +at her father's, so that their beds were occupied; +she thought no harm of it. She and her family +are respectable.</p> + +<p>"'Grandmother says bundling was a very common +thing in our part of the country, in old +times; that most of the first settlers lived in log +houses, which seldom had more than one room +with a fire place; in this room the old people +slept, so if one of their girls had a sweetheart in +the winter she must either sit with him in the +room where her father and mother slept, or take +him into her sleeping room. She would choose +the latter for the sake of being alone with him; +but sometimes when the cold was very severe, +<a name="Page_123"></a>rather than freeze to death, they would crawl +under the bed-clothes; and this, after a while, +became a habit, a custom, or a fashion. The man +that I am going to send this by, is just ready to +start, so I cannot stop to write more now. In my +next I'll give you a more particular account of +the people here. Adieu.'</p> + +<p>"<i>Mr. Editor</i>, you may be sure that what is +related in the foregoing letter is the truth. I +know that there is considerable <i>other</i> information +in it, mixed up with <i>that</i> about which you wished +to be informed, but I could not very well separate +it."</p> + +<p>So after all that has been said of the practice +of bundling in our country, by foreign writers, +travelers, and reviewers—after all the reproach +that has been heaped upon us, now that we are +able to get at the plain truth, it appears to be, +though certainly a bad practice, not half so bad +as the junketing and sitting up courtships that are +known elsewhere. Nay, more. Though in the +present state of society it is a practice that should +be utterly discountenanced everywhere, still it +would seem to have grown up out of the peculiar +circumstances of our first settlers; to be confined +<i>now</i> to remote and small districts (for I have +<a name="Page_124"></a>heard of only three instances, after all my inquiry); +and to be rapidly going out of practice. +Yet more; there can be no bad intentions, there +can be no evil consequences, where respectable +and modest women are not ashamed to acknowledge +that they bundle. I am anxious to know +the truth for the purpose of correcting both the +<i>misrepresentations</i> that are abroad, and the <i>practices</i> +that prevail here. Bundling, however, is +known in other countries, where they have less +excuse, and in Wales where they do <i>not</i> bundle, +as I have said before, it is no reproach for a +woman to have had a child before marriage. It +was so in Russia after Catharine established her +lying-in hospitals.</p> + +<p>In the next number of <i>The Yankee</i> (August +20th) there is the following editorial paragraph:</p> +<br /> + +<p>BUNDLING.</p> + +<p>There is a great outcry just now about the +paper on bundling which was in the last <i>Yankee</i>. +Now this very outcry proves the want of the +very paper alluded to. The article is about +bundling; and people who imagine bundling to +be what it is not, a highly improper and unchaste +<a name="Page_125"></a>familiarity, are offended with it; but the very +purpose of that paper is to show that bundling is +not what it is believed to be, that it is neither so +common nor so bad, not a fiftieth part so bad as +people have imagined.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_126"></a> +<a name="APPENDIX_II"></a><h2>APPENDIX II.</h2> +<a name="Page_127"></a><br /> + +<p>That the customs of courtship in many parts +of the United Kingdom at the present day, are +precisely what they were in some parts of New +England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, fifty +years ago, is evident from the revelations of the +<i>Royal Commission on the Marriage Laws</i>, in the +year 1868. Dr. Strahan, a physician and surgeon, +who for nearly forty years has practiced in +the Scottish county of Stirling, testifies before the +commission, that his attention was first drawn to +the subject in consequence of observing the very +great extent of immorality among the working +classes, not only as evidenced by the large number +of illegitimate children, but also by the still +larger number of marriages after the woman was +with child; and the number of children born +within eight months of wedlock. He found, to +his astonishment, that among the working classes +<a name="Page_128"></a>(i.e., the agricultural laborers), nine out of ten +women, when married, either had had illegitimate +children, or were pregnant at the time of marriage. +"I have," he says, "a large midwifery +practice, and I very rarely attend a woman with +her first child, where the child is not born within +a few months of wedlock, or else she has had an +illegitimate child before." He believes it is very +common for women to allow themselves to be +seduced in the hope of being married. They go +on until they are <i>enceinte</i>, and then, if the young +man is at all a decent fellow, the friends interfere +and the marriage is hurried on. The sketch +which Dr. Strahan supplies of Scotch courtships, +explains all this part of his observation. Young +men and women meet together at night, and the +ordinary time is the middle of the night, when +every one else is in bed. "It is universal," says +Dr. Strahan to the commission, "among the +working classes, to have this manner of courtship +of which I speak; there is no other courtship, +in any other form; the fathers and mothers +will not allow their daughters to meet a young +man in the day-time; the young man never visits +the family, but the parents quite allow this; they +have done it themselves before, and there is no +objection to it. The young man comes, makes +<a name="Page_129"></a>a noise at the window; the young woman goes +out, they go to some outhouse; or perhaps the +young man is admitted to the young woman's +bedroom after all are in bed, and there is an hour +or two of what is called courtship, but which +would more properly be called flirtation, because +it is not necessary that there should be any engagement +to marry in these cases."</p> + +<p>Lord Lyveden inquired: "Do these meetings +take place at particular periods, such as harvest +time, or is it over the whole of the year?"</p> + +<p><i>Answer</i>: "The whole of the year; very commonly +the young man visits the young woman +once a week."</p> + +<p>Lord Chelmsford said: "In England that +would be called <i>keeping company</i>. It is a very +extraordinary way of keeping company when the +parents allow their daughter to go out with the +young man at midnight, or the young man to +come into her bedroom."</p> + +<p><i>Answer</i>: "Yes; the parents know no other +way of doing it. I have reasoned with the parents +often when attending a case of illegitimate +birth, pointing out to the parents how it is they +have been led on, but they cannot imagine any +other way of doing it; their daughters must have +husbands, and there is no other way of courting."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_130"></a>Mr. Justice O'Hagan asking—"Does it prevail +generally in Scotland?" was answered—"Universally +among the agricultural laborers."</p> + +<p>In reply to an inquiry by Mr. Dunlop, whether +these young men lived under any kind of supervision +and knowledge of their masters, or whether +they could go out and in as they pleased, Dr. +Strahan stated that "plowmen, for instance, very +often live in <i>bothies</i>, or in the farm house; they +get out after all are in bed, out of the window; +or, if they live in a bothie, without any trouble. +They go to the neighboring farm-house, they +knock at the window, the girl comes to the +window, and, if she know the young man—or, +after a little parley, if she does not know him—she +either comes out and goes with him to an outhouse, +or he comes into her bedroom. You +must remember that they have no other means of +intercourse."</p> + +<p>"That is the point you press so much?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; a young woman cannot see either a +sweetheart or an acquaintance in any other way. +I believe if it was not for fear of being out at +night, the girls would visit one another in the +same way; they have no other means of visiting; +the customs of the country are such that a +<a name="Page_131"></a>young man could not be seen going in day-light +to visit his sweetheart."</p> + +<p>Mr. Justice O'Hagan: "If the father knew +that the young man was coming into the house, +and knew that he was with his daughter, would +he not interfere?"</p> + +<p>"He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing +that his daughter was in an out-house or barn +with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting +his eyes to it in the same way that a person +in the higher ranks would shut his eyes to his +daughter going out for a walk with a young man."</p> + +<p>Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to +the middle class a young man would not marry a +girl that had had a child to another man; and +very probably he would not marry a girl that had +had a child to himself; but in the lower classes +it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a +woman that has had a child, or that is with child +to himself; but it is very frequent to marry a +woman that has had a child to another man; the +only objection is the burden of the child; the +burden of the child might be an obstacle, but the +disgrace would be none."</p> + +<p>"Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that +the woman, by marrying this other man, wipes +off her disgrace with the former?"</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_132"></a>Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace +is not so much as to prevent the young man marrying +her."</p> + +<p>The attorney-general: "It is hardly within our +inquiry, but still it is interesting to know; can +you tell me whether, in these cases, where the +woman marries a man who is not the father +of her child, any confusion, as to the parent of +the previously born child, arises? Are they apt +in law, to pass as the children of the subsequent +husband?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not think so."</p> + +<p>"The distinction is always kept up?"</p> + +<p>"The distinction is always kept up; very +often the illegitimate child goes by his own +father's name, even among the other children; +and I do not think there is apt to be any confusion +of that kind."</p> + +<p>Still, it seems that, in severely Calvinistic +Scotia, the church does not wholly wink at this +state of things. The sinning couple, after marriage, +have to go through a certain whitewashing +at church before they are admitted to what are +called church privileges. They have to go before +a kirk session, consisting of the minister and +perhaps half a dozen elders, when they are <i>admonished</i>. +If the parties are married, they ap<a name="Page_133"></a>pear +but once; if not married, generally three +times. They tender themselves for rebuke without +invitation, as without it the child cannot be +baptized, or admission given to the sacrament. +They apply to the minister in private, and confess +their fault, and he causes them to be summoned +before the church session.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="INDEX"></a><h2><a name="Page_135"></a>INDEX.</h2> + +African tribes, courtship among, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +America, English misrepresentation of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> +America, bundling in, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inherits bundling from Holland, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bundling not peculiar to, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bundling universal in 1750, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ballads against bundling, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in favor of bundling, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</span><br /> +Brychan, a cloth, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +Bundling, antiquity of, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br /> +Bundling, abuse of, in New England, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ballads on, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ceased with eighteenth century, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confined to the lower classes, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</span><br /> +Bundling, described by Lt. Anbury in 1777, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">definition of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decision of N. Y. Supreme Court on, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in America, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in British isles, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Cape Cod, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Holland, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</span><br /> +Bundling in Maine about 1828, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in New England States, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Wales, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduced in America from Holland, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned by Rev. Sam'l Peters, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned by Washington Irving, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned by Dr. A. Burnaby, 1759, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">not peculiar to America, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</span><br /> +<a name="Page_136"></a>Bundling originating in poverty in Scotland and Ireland, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin of, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">originally confined to the lower classes in America, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practiced in Pennsylvania till late years, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preached against, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recollections of by old persons, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> +Bundling regarded as a serious evil, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sanctioned by parents, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sermon against, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">two forms of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">universal now in lower classes of Scotland, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">universal in America in 1750, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">-up, in Wales, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cape Cod, bundling practiced there in 1827, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +Central Asia, courtship in, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +Confession in public necessary for baptism of children, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> +Courtship, customs of, in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +Courtship among Welsh peasantry, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Central Asia, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the 14th century, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">among N. A. Indians, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> +Cuckold, no word in Gaelic for, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +Customs of courtship, different in the cantons of Switzerland, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dayaks of Borneo, courtship of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +Dorfen, in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Empress Cartismandua, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Julia, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +Epilogue on bundling at Westminster school, 1815, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Free-bench, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +French war, demoralizing influence of, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Germans, respect of, for women, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +Gordon, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sir Adam, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</span><br /> +Great Britain, bundling common at the present day in, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +<a name="Page_137"></a>Great Britain, immorality of lower classes in, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +Gwent, a district in Wales, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +Gwentian Code of Wales, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hand-fasting, a Scotch custom, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common among all classes, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +Highland law of marriage, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> +Highlanders, curious custom of the, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> +Holland, bundling in, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Illegitimacy not considered a disgrace in Scotland, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kiltgang in canton of Lucerne. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +Kweesten, a Dutch custom, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +La Hontan, Indian custom described by, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +Lichtgetren, in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +Love and courtship in the 14th century, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Maine, bundling in, 1828, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +Marriage laws of Great Britain, royal commission on, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +Marriage, Welsh laws relating to, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Namzat bezé, an African custom, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +Natural children legitimatized in Scotland, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +New bundling song, a, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /> +New England, bundling in, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /> +New song in favor of courting, a, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /> +New York Supreme Court on bundling, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<br /> +N. Am. Indians, chastity of, <a href="#Page_41">41-52</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">courtship among, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pennsylvania, bundling in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +Poem against bundling, a, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Polygamy among ancient nations, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</span><br /> +Prostitutes, punishment of in Scotland and Germany, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<a name="Page_138"></a>Public confession of unlawful cohabitation made in New England, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">records of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Quest, definition of and origin, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +Queesting, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Royal commission on marriage laws of Great Britain, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Savage nations, amatory customs of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /> +Scotland, courtship of, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conjugal infidelity in, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admonition by church of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</span><br /> +Scotch and Irish moral character, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.<br /> +Scott, Walter, mention of bundling by, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +Stubetegetren in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +Sutherland, son of a hand-fast marriage claims earldom of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +Switzerland, courtship in, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tarrying, common in England, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in New England, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</span><br /> +Texel, bundling in the island of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +United States, bundling in the, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vlie and Wieringen, bundling practiced in islands of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wales, bundling in, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">described by Bingley, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Barbor, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>; </span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Carr, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Pratt, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chastity in, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</span><br /> +Welsh laws relating to marriage, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +Whore on the snow crust, the, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> +Wieringen, see Vlie.<br /> +Wynet-werth, a Welsh term, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="FOOTNOTES"></a><h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2> + + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> <i>Cæsar</i> says, that several brothers, or a father and his +sons, would have but one wife among them. <i>Solinus</i>, +indeed, says that the women in Thule were common, the +king having a free choice; and <i>Dio</i> says the Caledonians +had wives in common; yet these assertions may well be +disputed. <i>Strabo</i> describes the Irish as extremely gross +in this matter; <i>O'Conner</i> says polygamy was permitted; +and <i>Derrick</i> tells us they exchanged wives once or twice +a year; while <i>Campion</i> says they only married for a year +and a day, sending their wives home again for any slight +offense.—<i>Logan's Scottish Gael</i>, 5th Am. ed., p. 472.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> <i>A History of the Highlands, and of the Highland +Clans</i>, etc. (Jas. Browne, LL.D., Advocate, 4 vols. London, +1853), IV, 398. +</p><p> +"The law of marriage observed in the Highlands has +frequently been as little understood as that of succession, +and similar misconceptions have prevailed regarding +it. This was, perhaps, to be expected. In a country +where a bastard son was often found in undisturbed +possession of the chiefship or property of a clan, and +where such bastard generally received the support of the +clansmen against the claims of the feudal heir, it was +natural to suppose that very loose notions of succession +were entertained by the people; that legitimacy conferred +no exclusive rights; and that the title founded on +birth alone might be set aside in favor of one having +no other claim than that of election. But this, although +a plausible, would nevertheless be an erroneous supposition. +The person here considered as a bastard, and +described as such, was by no means viewed in the +same light by the Highlanders, because, according to +their law of marriage, which was originally very different +from the feudal system in this matter, his claim to +legitimacy was as undoubted as that of the feudal heir +afterward became. It is well known that the notions of +the Highlanders were peculiarly strict in regard to matters +of hereditary succession, and that no people on +earth was less likely to sanction any flagrant deviation +from what they believed to be the right and true line of +descent. All their peculiar habits, feelings and prejudices +were in direct opposition to a practice which, had +it been really acted upon, must have introduced endless +disorder and confusion, and hence the natural explanation +of this apparent anomaly seems to be, what Mr. +Skene has stated, namely, that a person who was feudally +a bastard might in their view be considered as legitimate, +and therefore entitled to be supported in accordance +with their strict ideas of hereditary right, and +their habitual tenacity of whatever belonged to their +ancient usages. Nor is this mere conjecture or hypothesis. +A singular custom regarding marriage, retained till +a late period amongst the Highlanders, and clearly indicating +that their law of marriage originally differed in +some essential points from that established under the +feudal system, seems to afford a simple and natural +explanation of the difficulty by which genealogists have +been so much puzzled. +</p><p> +"This custom was termed <i>hand-fasting</i>, and consisted +in a species of contract between two chiefs, by which +it was agreed that the heir of one should live with the +daughter of the other as her husband for twelve months +and a day. If, in that time, the lady became a mother, +or proved to be with child the marriage became good in +law, even although no priest had performed the marriage +ceremony in due form; but should there not have occurred +any appearance of issue, the contract was considered +at an end, and each party was at liberty to +marry or hand-fast with any other. It is manifest that +the practice of so peculiar a species of marriage must +have been in terms of original law among the Highlanders, +otherwise it would be difficult to conceive how such +a custom could have originated, and it is in fact one +which seems naturally to have arisen from the form of +their society, which rendered it a matter of such vital +importance to secure the lineal succession of their +chiefs. It is perhaps not improbable that it was this +peculiar custom which gave rise to the report handed +down by the Roman and other historians, that the +ancient inhabitants of Great Britain had their wives in +common, or that it was the foundation of that law of +Scotland by which natural children became legitimatized +by subsequent marriage.<a name="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3">[3]</a> And as this custom remained +in the Highlands until a very late period, the sanction +of ancient custom was sufficient to induce them to persist +in regarding the offspring of such marriages as +legitimate."<a name="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4">[4]</a> +</p><p> +It appears, indeed, that as late as the sixteenth century, +the issue of a hand-fast marriage claimed the earldom +of Sutherland. The claimant, according to Sir +Robert Gordon, described himself as one lawfully descended +from his father, John, the third earl, because, +as he alleged, "his mother was <i>hand-fasted</i> and fianced +to his father;" and his claim was bought off (which +shows that it was not considered as altogether incapable +of being maintained) by Sir Adam Gordon, who had +married the heiress of Earl John. Such, then, was the +nature of the peculiar and temporary connection which +gave rise to the apparent anomalies which we have been +considering. It was a custom which had for its object, +not to interrupt but to preserve the lineal succession of +the chiefs, and to obviate the very evil of which it is +conceived to afford a glaring example. But after the introduction +of the feudal law, which, in this respect, was +directly opposed to the ancient Highland law, the lineal +and legitimate heir, according to Highland principles, +came to be regarded as a bastard by the government, +which accordingly considered him as thereby incapacitated +for succeeding to the honors and property of his race; +and hence originated many of those disputes concerning +succession and chiefship, which embroiled families with +one another, as well as with the government, and were +productive of incredible disorder, mischief and bloodshed. +No allowance was made for the ancient usages +of the people, which were probably but ill understood; +and the rights of rival claimants were decided according +to the principles of a foreign system of law, which was +long resisted, and never admitted except from necessity. +It is to be observed, however, that the Highlanders +themselves drew a broad distinction between bastard +sons and the issue of the hand-fast unions above described. +The former were rigorously excluded from +every sort of succession, but the latter were considered +as legitimate as the offspring of the most regularly +solemnized marriage. +</p><p> +This practice obtained not only among chiefs, but +common people. +</p><p> +Walter Scott, in the XXV chapter of the <i>Monastery</i>, in +a note, says: "This custom of hand-fasting actually +prevailed in the upland days. It arose partly from the +want of priests. While the convents subsisted, monks +were detached on regular circuits through the wilder +districts, to marry those who had lived in this species +of connexion. A practice of the same kind existed in +the Isle of Portland."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a> This is a mistake in point of law. The principle of +legitimation by subsequent marriage, was first explicitly +announced in an imperial constitution of Constantine, +and being wisely recognized by the church, it was +adopted by the canonists, through whom it passed into +our law. The attempt to introduce it into England +failed, in consequence of the attachment of the people +to their ancient Saxon constitutions; and hence, although +it was recognized in the statutes of Merton, it was subsequently +discarded, and never afterwards found admission into the municipal +system of the neighboring kingdom. +There can be no doubt whatever that the principle +is one which reason, morality and religion must +equally approve.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a> Skene's <i>Highlanders of Scotland</i>, vol. I, chap. vii, +166, 167.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5">[5]</a> In <i>Scottish Ballads and Songs</i>, by James Maidment, +Edinburgh, MDCCCLIX, under the title of <i>Luckidad's +Garland</i>, p. 134, is a remarkable picture of the old and +new times in Scotland, eighty or ninety years ago, three +of the twenty-four verses of which the ballad is composed, +being descriptive of something akin to <i>bundling</i>. +In a London edition of <i>Hudibras</i>, also, published in 1811, +is a note to line 913, of Part I, Canto I. As both of +these extracts, however, are somewhat too <i>broad</i> for +our pages, we content ourselves with simply referring +thereto. In the same category, also, is the definition, in +<i>Bailey's Old English Dictionary</i>, of the term <i>free bench</i>, +as prevailing in the manors of East and West Embourn, +Chaddleworth in the county of Berks, Tor in Devonshire, +and other places of the west.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6">[6]</a> <i>History of Wales</i> (by B. B. Woodward, B.A., London, +1853), p. 320; who adds, also, p. 186, the following: +</p><p> +"The laws which treat of the violation of the marriage +bond and those which relate to chastity generally, +recognize a degree of laxity respecting female honor, +and, yet more remarkably, an absence of feminine delicacy, +such as could scarcely be paralleled amongst the +most uncivilized people now. They are of such a nature, +that though most characteristic, they must be +passed by with this general mention. The distinction +between the Celtic and Teutonic races is perhaps in no +case more plainly marked than in this: The Anglo-Saxon +laws on this subject (always excepting those of +the <i>ecclesiastical</i> authorities) are modesty itself, notwithstanding +their plain speaking, compared with those +of the Welsh legislators."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7">[7]</a> <i>Gleanings through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia</i>, +etc. (3d edition, by Mr. Pratt, London, 1797), I, pp. 105-107.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8">[8]</a> <i>North Wales, including its Scenery, Antiquities, +Customs</i>, etc. (by Rev. W. W. Bingley, A.M., 2 vols., +8vo, London, 1804), II, p. 282.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9">[9]</a> <i>A Tour throughout North Wales and Monmouthshire</i>, +etc., etc. (by J. T. Barbor, F.S.A., London, 1803), +pp. 103-9.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a> <i>The Stranger in Ireland</i>, by John Carr.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a> "On his way to Ireland he passed through Wales, +and gives us a slight sketch of the character of that +people and country. <i>It must afford no small gratification +to a New England man to learn that the practice of</i> +BUNDLING <i>is not peculiar to us, but that this pleasing +though dangerous art was probably imported from +abroad</i>."—A review of <i>The Stranger in Ireland</i>, in +<i>Connecticut Courant</i> for November 19th, 1806.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a> In this connection we may give the following extract +from <i>Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales</i>, etc., +etc., printed by command of his late Majesty King +William IV, under the direction of the commissioners +on the Public Records of the Kingdom. MDCCCXLI. +Folio. From page 369.—The Gwentian<a name="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13">[13]</a> Code. +</p><p> +"A woman of full age who goes with a man clandestinely, +and taken by him to bush, or brake, or house, +and after connection deserted; upon complaint made by +her to her kindred, and to the courts, is to receive, for +her chastity, a bull of three winters, having its tail well +shaven and greased and then thrust through the door-clate; +and then let the woman go into the house, the +bull being outside, and let her plant her foot on the +threshold, and let her take his tail in her hand, and let +a man come on each side of the bull; and if she can +hold the bull, let her take it for her <i>wynet-werth</i><a name="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14">[14]</a> and +her chastity; and, if not, let her take what grease may +adhere to her hands."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a> <i>Gwent</i>, the appellation of the district in Wales inhabited +by the Silures, comprised the diocese of Landav.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a> This word means <i>face shame</i> or <i>face worth</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a> A good honest word, which although not exactly +English, is at least first cousin to our <i>quest</i>, and <i>quiz</i>, +etc. +</p><p> +Worcester gives the following: "†Quēse, <i>v. a.</i>, to +search after. <i>Milton</i>." [obsolete ē long, s like z.] Quĕst, +<i>v. n.</i>, to join search. <i>B. Jonson</i>. †Quĕster, <i>n.</i>, a +seeker. <i>Rowe</i>. +</p><p> +Is it not allowable to derive from one of these words +Quēsing, or Quĕsting, pronounced Qweesting, and from +the other Quĕsting [è short]? So that he who went +<i>queesting</i> was simply <i>searching after</i> a wife, understood.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a> These are two very small islands at the opening of +the Zuider zee.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a> From <i>The Student and Intellectual Observer</i>, London, +November number, 1868, p. 310, in article by +Thomas Wright, F.S.A. Chapter vii—<i>Womankind in all +Ages of Western Europe</i>, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a> <i>Cottages of the Alps</i> (London, 1860), pages 77, 91, +132.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a> <i>New Voyage to North America, giving a full Account +of the Customs, Commerce, Religion and Strange +Opinions of the Savages of that Country</i>, etc., etc. +Written by Baron Lahontan, Lord Lieutenant of the +French Colony at <i>Placentia</i>, in Newfoundland, now in +England. London, 1703. +</p><p> +In describing the amatory customs of the Indians of +this country, the author says (Vol. II, p. 37): +</p><p> +"You must know further, that Two Hours after Sunset +the Old Supperannuated Persons, or Slaves (who +never lie in their Masters' Huts) take care to cover up +the Fire before they go. 'Tis then that the Young +Savage comes well wrapt up to his Mistress's Hut, and +lights a sort of a Match at the Fire; after which he +opens the Door of his Mistress's Apartment and makes +up to her bed: If she blows out the light, he lies down +by her; but if she pulls her Covering over her Face, +he retires; that being a Sign that she will not receive +him."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a> Verily, Peters's sarcasm savors as much of truth as +humor when, speaking of bundling, he says: "The Indians +who had this method of courtship among them in +1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world. +Concubinage and fornication are vices none of them are +addicted to, except such as forsake the laws of Hobbamockon +and turn Christians. The savages have taken +many female prisoners, carried them back three hundred +miles into their country, and kept them several years, +and yet not a single instance of their violating the +laws of chastity has ever been known. This cannot be +said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian +or other women have fallen into their hands."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a> "Great jealousy did they likewise stir up by their +intermeddling and successes among the divine sex; for +being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant tongued varlets, +they soon seduced the light affections of the simple +lasses from their ponderous Dutch gallants. Among +other hideous customs, they attempted to introduce +among them that of <i>bundling</i>, which the Dutch lasses +of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty +and foreign fashions natural to their sex, seemed very +well inclined to follow, but that their mothers, being +more experienced in the world, and better acquainted +with men and things, strenuously discountenanced all +such outlandish innovations."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a> By Washington Irving, p. 211. 4th Am. edition.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a> Dr. Andrew Burnaby. <i>Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America, in the years 1759 and '60</i>. London, 1775.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a> <i>The Portfolio</i> (Philadelphia, May 1816), p. 397.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a> <i>Terences Plays</i> were preferred to those of Plautus, +for this purpose, inasmuch as the latter were more +obscure, and abounded in obsoletisms, and therefore +Terence was preferred in England as the text-book for +schools.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a> Ireland.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a> <i>The Reviewers Reviewed, or British Falsehoods +detected by American Truths</i> (New York, published by +R. McDermot and D. D. Arden, No. 1, City Hotel, +Broadway, 1815, 12mo, 72), pp. 34, 35.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a> The Right Honorable Sir George Canning, the editor +of the <i>London Quarterly Review</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a> <i>Travels through the Interior Parts of America; in +a Series of Letters</i> (by an officer; a new edition, London, +1781, 8vo), vol. II, pp. 37-40.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a> <i>Anbury's Travels</i>, pp. 87, 88. </p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a> <i>History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Conn.,</i> p. 495.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a> The Rev. Alonzo B. Chapin, in his <i>History of +Ancient Glastenbury, Conn.</i> (p. 80), says that the church +records, during the pastorate of the Rev. John Eels +[1759-1791], "compel us to believe that the influence of +the French war had been as unfavorable to morals as +destructive to life; and that the absurd practice of +<i>bundling</i> prevalent in those days, was not infrequently +attended with the consequences that might have been +expected, and that both together, aided by a previous +growing laxity of morals, and accelerated by many concurrent +causes, had rolled a tide of immorality over +the land, which not even the bulwark of the church had +been able to withstand. The church records of the first +society, from 1760 to 1790, raise presumptions of the +strongest kind, that then, as since, <i>incontinence</i> and +<i>intemperance</i> were among the sins of the people. What +the condition of things in Eastbury [an ecclesiastical +society in the east part of Glastenbury] was, we have +no means of knowing, <i>as that portion of the church +records which treats of this point, was long ago</i> carefully +<i>removed</i>. [N.B. Italics are our own.] There is +no reason, however, to suppose that this state of thing's +was peculiar to Glastenbury, for there is too much evidence +that it prevailed throughout the country." +</p><p> +Mr. Chapin's deductions from the revelations of the +Glastenbury records, will be fully justified by the experience +and observation of every antiquarian who has had +occasion to <i>dig deep</i> among the civil and ecclesiastical +records of almost any one of the older towns of New +England. We have before us, while writing, a copy, +made some years since, by ourselves, of the records of +the first church of Woodstock, Conn., covering the +period from 1727 to 1777, in which are a large number +of entries, mostly the names of parties who made <i>confessions</i> +of this sort before that church. These cases +occur most frequently between the years 1737 and 1770. +Our own observation among the records of the old +churches in Windsor and East Windsor, is, in effect, +the same, and we have occasionally happened upon the +original manuscript confessions of individuals read to +the church before they were formally admitted to its +communion.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">[33]</a> <i>History of Dedham, Mass</i>, (by Erastus Worthington, +1827), page 108. Under ministry of Rev. Jason +Haven, ordained February 6, 1756. +</p><p> +"Revolutionary times having produced a disposition +to investigate all the former principles and opinions of +men, in politics and church government, Mr. Haven +caused the mode of admission into the church to be +altered. This was done in 1793. The new method +required the candidate to be propounded to the congregation +by the minister. If no objections within fourteen +days were made, he was then of course admitted. +At the same time the church covenant and creed was +altered, and made very general in its expressions. This +creed had so few articles, that all persons professing and +calling themselves Christians, would assent to it without +any objections. The church had ever in this place +required of its members guilty of unlawful cohabitation +before marriage, a public confession of that crime before +the whole congregation. The offending female +stood in the broad aisle beside the partner of her +guilt. If they had been married, the declaration of the +man was silently assented to by the woman. This had +always been a delicate and difficult subject for church +discipline. The public confession, if it operated as a +corrective, likewise produced merriment with the profane. +I have seen no instance of a public confession +for this fault, until the ministry of Mr. Dexter [1724-1755], +and then they were extremely rare. In 1781 the +church gave the confessing parties the privilege of +making a private confession to the church, in the room +of a public confession. In Mr. Havens ministry, the +number of cases of unlawful cohabitation increased to +an alarming degree. For twenty-five years before 1781, +twenty-five cases had been publicly acknowledged before +the congregation, and fourteen cases within the last +ten years. This brought out the minister to preach on +the subject from the pulpit. Mr. Haven, in a long +and memorable discourse, sought out the cause of the +growing sin, and suggested the proper remedy. He +attributed the frequent recurrence of the fault to the +custom then prevalent, of females admitting young men +to their beds, who sought their company with intentions +of marriage. And he exhorted all to abandon that +custom, and no longer expose themselves to temptations +which so many were found unable to resist. +</p><p> +"The immediate effect of this discourse on the congregation +has been described to me, and was such as +we must naturally suppose it would be. A grave man, +the beloved and revered pastor of the congregation, +comes out suddenly on his audience, and discusses a +subject on which mirth and merriment only had been +heard, and denounces a favorite custom. The females +blushed and hung down their heads. The men, too, +hung down their heads, and now and then looked out +from under their fallen eyebrows, to observe how others +supported the attack. If the outward appearance of the +assembly was somewhat composed, there was a violent +internal agitation in many minds. And now, when +forty-five years have expired, the persons who were +present at the delivery of that sermon, express its +effects by saying: 'How queerly I felt!' 'What a +time it was!' 'This was close preaching indeed!' The +custom was abandoned. The sexes learned to cultivate +the proper degree of delicacy in their intercourse, and +instances of unlawful cohabitation in this town since +that time have been extremely rare."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">[34]</a> <i>Butler's History of Groton</i> (Pepperell & Shirley), +page 174. At a church meeting, Feb. 29, 1739-40, the +subject of compelling persons to confess themselves +guilty of an offense, of which they said, "if not absolutely, +yet next to impossible to convict them," was +acted upon, and some relaxation made in the rule before +adopted; but a part of the record is so worn as to be +illegible. +</p><p> +Page 177. June 1, 1761. "The church also at this +meeting, voted in relation to the confession necessary +to be made by parents, to entitle their children to the +rite of baptism, who might be supposed to have committed +the offence of which, in Mr. Trowbridge's time, +they supposed that, 'if not absolutely, yet next to impossible +to convict them,' not materially varying from a +<i>seven-months</i> rule heretofore adopted. These regulations +were signed by the moderator, and assented to by +the pastor elect." +</p><p> +Page 181. "During Mr. Dana's ministry [1761-1775] +124 persons (38 males, 86 females) were admitted to +the church in full communion; 200 (77 males, 123 females) +owned the baptismal covenant. Of the first +class, 14 confessed having committed the offence aforementioned, +and of the last class, 66, a proportion not +indicative of good customs and morals."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">[35]</a> A typographical mistake for <i>unruly</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">[36]</a> But this was as late as 1785 to 1790, when the custom +was very near its end.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">[37]</a> Another, when in his 96th year, in speaking of his +knowledge of the custom, after answering all inquiries, +voluntarily mentioned his own personal experience. +"In my younger days," said he, and his voice trembled, +more from emotion then age, "I was on the bed with as +many as five or six young women, but I thank God, +that in all my long life I have never had carnal knowledge +of any but my lawfully wedded wives."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">[38]</a> A physician who kept school <i>on the Cape</i> many years +ago, says (June, 1869): "It is forty years since I was +engaged on the Cape in teaching school, and a friend of +mine then related to me some of his experience in a +long career of courtship which included <i>bundling</i>. The +family left the happy couple alone. After sitting up +till nine or ten o'clock, the lady secures the fire, takes +a light and retires, saying, you know the way up +stairs, turn to the right, etc. At a proper time he follows, +finding her nicely snuggled under the bed clothes, +having previously put on a very appropriate and secure +night dress, made neither like a bloomer or mantilla, +but something like a common dress, excepting the lower +part, which is furnished with legs, like drawers, properly +attached. The dress is drawn at the neck and +waist with strings tied with a very strong knot, and +over this is put the ordinary apparel."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">[39]</a> <i>Caines' Cases</i>, II, 219; Seger <i>vs</i>. Slingerland.</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">[40]</a> In reply to a query addressed to Mr. Neal, who +is still living at Portland, Maine, as to whether this +letter was a <i>bona fide</i> communication, that gentleman +says: "It was an actual communication from a correspondent. +Who that correspondent was, I never knew, +but I never entertained a doubt, and, in fact, find such +internal evidence of good faith, that I should never +question the facts set forth."</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">[41]</a> Sandy River is near Farmington, Franklin county, +Maine.</p></div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12885 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + |