In Stratford, in 1668, a tithingman was "appointed to watch over the youths
of disorderly carriage, and see that they behave themselves comelie, and
use such raps and blows as in his discretion meet."

I like to think of those rows of sober-faced Puritan boys seated on the
narrow, steep pulpit stairs, clad in knee-breeches and homespun flapped
coats, and with round, cropped heads, miniature likenesses in dress and
countenance (if not in deportment) of their grave, stern, God-fearing
fathers. Though they were of the sedate Puritan blood, they were boys, and
they wriggled and twisted, and scraped their feet noisily on the sanded
floor; and I know full well that the square-toed shoes of one in whom
"original sin" waxed powerful, thrust many a sly dig in the ribs and back
of the luckless wight who chanced to sit in front of and below him on the
pulpit stairs. Many a dried kernel of Indian corn was surreptitiously
snapped at the head of an unwary neighbor, and many a sly word was
whispered and many a furtive but audible "snicker" elicited when the dread
tithingman was "having an eye-out" and administering "discreet raps and
blows" elsewhere.

One of these wicked youths in Andover was brought before the magistrate,
and it was charged that he "Sported and played and by Indecent Gestures and
Wry Faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the Beholders." The girls were
not one whit better behaved. One of "ye tything men chosen of ye town of
Norwich" reported that "Tabatha Morgus of s'd Norwich Did on ye 24th day
February it being Sabbath on ye Lordes Day, prophane ye Lordes Day in ye
meeting house of ye west society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'd
Day by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye time
of ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace of
our Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity." Wanton Tabatha had to
pay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhaps