In Sandwich and in Boston
the fine for "drinking tobacco in the meeting-house" was five shillings for
each drink, which I take to mean chewing tobacco rather than smoking it;
many men were fined for thus drinking, and solacing the weary hours, though
doubtless they were as sly and kept themselves as unobserved as possible.
Four Yarmouth men--old sea-dogs, perhaps, who loved their pipe--were, in
1687, fined four shillings each for smoking tobacco around the end of the
meeting-house. Silly, ostrich-brained Yarmouth men! to fancy to escape
detection by hiding around the corner of the church; and to think that the
tithingman had no nose when he was so Argus-eyed. Some few of the ministers
used the "tobacco weed." Mr. Baily wrote with distress of mind and
abasement of soul in his diary of his "exceeding in tobacco." The hatred of
the public use of tobacco lingered long in New England, even in large towns
such as Providence, though chiefly on account of universal dread lest
sparks from the burning weed should start conflagrations in the towns.
Until within a few years, in small towns in western Massachusetts,
Easthampton and neighboring villages, tobacco-smoking on the street was not
permitted either on weekdays or Sundays.
Not content with strict observance of the Sabbathday alone, the Puritans
included Saturday evening in their holy day, and in the first colonial
years these instructions were given to Governor Endicott by the New England
Plantation Company: "And to the end that the Sabeth may be celebrated in
a religious man ner wee appoint that all may surcease their labor every
Satterday throughout the yeare at three of the clock in the afternoone, and
that they spend the rest of the day in chatechizing and preparacoon for
the Sabeth as the ministers shall direct.
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