Social Tyranny in the United States.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 65, 30 August 1884, Page 4

Social Tyranny in the United States.

The sight of people coming out of church is a melancholy [spectacle in the United States. Instead of a crowd of smiling laces, none but grave and rigid countenances are visible. Ono would say that instead of celebrating the Creator's praise they had beon weeping at a funeral. Nevertheless, religious services are the j ladies' amusement — their only amusement — on Sundays, when the milliners' shops are shut. Their sole conversation that day is to ask the lady frionds whom they meet, "What church have you been to to-day?" Thoy never ask, " Have you been to church ?" It would bo an insult to suppose the contrary. It would never do for anyone to admit that no form of worship or sect had been followed, no service attended upon that day. This social tyranny is only a remnant of the Calvinistic spirit whose intolerant influence continued to be left long after the establishment of the Republican government. A few extracts from the Puritan Code will furnish examples of the strange restrictions imposed by the lawgivers on personal freedom. No one, says the law, shall make use of tobacco, without first having produced before a magistrate a certificate signed by a doctor of medicine attesting that tobacco is necessary for that person's health. Ho will thon receive his license, and may smoke. Wine and spiritous drinks wore subject to like restrictions. A domestic who got tipsy was fined five pounds sterling. The sect of Quakers, or Friends, who refused to kill wild Indians, were put under the ban. "No Quaker," said the code, "shall receive board or lodging. Whoever turns Quaker shall be banished, and if heieturns be hanged." Article 17. On the Lord's Day no one shall run, nor stroll in his garden, nor elsewhere. He may only walk with gravity to church and back again. Article IS. On the Lord's Day no one shall travel, or cook, or make beds, or sweep the house, or have his hair cut, or shave. Article 31. Everyone is forbidden to read the English Liturgy, to keep Christmas, to make mince pies, to dance, and to play on any musical instrument, except the drum, the trumpet, and the Jew's harp. Although this code is nearly two hundred years old, some of its rules were still in vigour in 17S0, and even yet exist— so profound an impression have they left on the manners of the people. Thus, not long ago, the circulation of carriages on Sundays was legally suppressed in the streets of Boston, across which chains were stretched during the hours of divine service ; and smoking in tho streets of that city is still punished by a fine of twenty shillings. In America you enjoy perfect freedom, only you may not in most things do as you please. The so-called temperance societies arc not less oppressive than the religious sects. In some Northern States they have obtained the prohibition of all retail sale of wine and spirits, to the great annoyance of Europeans, who are obliged to elude the law by all sorts of artifices. Nor do Americans hesitate to follow their example. Pretended invalids manage to obtain from druggists alcoholic beverages under the alias of medicine. If, in this land of discussion, political liberty is unlimited, social liberty suffers numerous restrictions. But it is the most precious liberty which is sacrificed. The right of founding a journal at will, and of voting on every possible question, are no doubt excellent privileges ; but the right of going to or staying away from church or the play at pleasure, and of drinking what your health requires and your stomach craves for, are better still. In fact, there was more freedom in many matters at Paris and Vienna, even under their most despotic governments, than there is at Boston and New York. M. Caillardet significantly remarks that between the present Fiench Republic and the Republic of tho United States there exists this similitudo, that both wero founded by men who were very moderate and indifferent Republicans. No legislative body ever enjoyed greater privileges than the United States Republican Senate, which is as far removed from all Democratic principle as is the English House ot Lords, except that it is not hereditary. In fact, the two senators of Delaware are representatives of the people with no greater reality than the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a peer because he is the head of the English Church.— From " All the Year Round."