When seats in the galleries grew to be
regarded as inferior to seats and pews on the ground floor, the boys, who
of course must have the worst place in the house, were relegated from the
pulpit stairs to pews in the gallery, and these square, shut-off pews grew
to be what Dr. Porter called "the Devil's play-houses," and turbulent
outbursts were frequent enough.
The little boys still sat downstairs under their parents' watchful eyes.
"No child under 10 alowed to go up Gailary." In the Sutherland church, if
the big boys (who ought to have known better) "behaved unseemly," one of
the tithing-men who "took turns to set in the Galary" was ordered "to bring
Such Bois out of the Galary & set them before the Deacon's Seat" with the
small boys. In Plainfield, Connecticut, the "pestigeous" boys managed to
invent a new form of annoyance,--they "damnified the glass;" and a church
regulation had to be passed to prevent, or rather to try to prevent them
from "opening the windows or in any way damnifying the glass." It was
doubtless hot work scuffling and wrestling in the close, shut-in pews high
up under the roof, and they naturally wished to cool down by opening or
breaking the windows. Grown persons could not inconsiderately open the
church windows either. "The Constables are desired to _take notic_
of the persons that open the windows in the tyme of publick worship.
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