Our forefathers brought many curious old customs and laws from England. The laws of that time were very meddlesome. Men were punished for lying, which nowadays we think is only to be cured by good example and good teaching. A fine was imposed on profane swearing by the laws of nearly all the colonies. In New England, the tongue of the swearer was sometimes pinched in the opening of a split stick. In all the colonies there were laws about keeping the Sabbath. In many of them there were punishments for not going to church. In New England the Sunday laws were rigorously enforced, and the Sabbath was made to begin at sunset on Saturday evening. The people were at first called to church by beating a drum in the streets. For more than a hundred years after the settlement of Massachusetts, people were not allowed to sit in Boston Common on Sunday, or to walk in the streets except to church, or to take a breath of air on a hot Sunday by the sea-shore directly in front of their own doors. Two young people were arrested in Connecticut for sitting together on Sunday under a tree in an orchard.

If men were punished for swearing, women were also forbidden to be too free with their tongues. In Virginia and some other colonies women, for scolding or slander, were put upon a ducking-stool and forced under the water. In New England they were gagged and set by their own doors, "for all comers and goers to gaze at." Drunkards were sometimes obliged to wear a red letter D about their necks, and other offenses were punished by suspending a letter, or a picture, or a halter about the neck.

Standing with the head and hands fast in the pillory, to be pelted with eggs by the crowd, and sitting with the feet fast in the stocks, were forms of punishment. In some places there were cages, in which criminals were confined in sight of the people. Punishments in the pillory and stocks, or in a cage, were inflicted on some occasion of public concourse, a lecture day or a market day, to make the shame greater. More severe than stocks or pillory were the customary punishments of whipping on the bare back, cropping or boring the ears, and branding the hand with a hot iron. There were also sometimes, for great crimes, cruel punishments of burning alive, or hanging alive in chains, but these were very rare.

Our forefathers were more superstitious than people are now, and they were very much afraid of witches. This foolish belief in witchcraft prevailed both in England and America. People sometimes nailed up horseshoes, or hung up laurel-boughs in their houses, to protect themselves from magic charms. When butter would not come for churning, red-hot horseshoes were dropped into the milk to "burn the witch out." When pigs were sick and thought to be bewitched, their ears and tails were cut off and burned. There were people tried in almost every colony for witchcraft. In England and in many other countries, executions for witchcraft were more common than in any of the colonies.

Of the many excitements about witchcraft in the colonies, the one that went to the greatest extreme was that in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. So great was the agitation that the most serious people lost their self-possession, and some poor people even believed themselves to be witches, and confessed it. In the fright and indignation that prevailed, twenty people were executed, and the jails were crowded with the accused. One fourth of the inhabitants of Salem moved away, afraid either of the witches or of being charged with witchcraft. At length reason returned to the people, the prisoners were released, and there was the deepest grief that the fanaticism had gone so far. There has never been an execution for witchcraft in this country from that day to this, though there are still some ignorant people who believe in such things.

In most of the colonies there was, at some time, persecution for religious opinions. In Virginia, only the Church of England form of worship was allowed at first, and Catholics, Puritans, Quakers, Presbyterians, and Baptists were persecuted. In Massachusetts, for a long time, only the Puritan or Congregational worship, as set up by law, was allowed. Those who advocated other doctrines were punished, and many Quakers were whipped, and some of them even put to death for coming back after they had been banished. Lord Baltimore wished to give toleration in Maryland to all who believed in Christ, but the lawmakers of Maryland afterward made laws to annoy those who were of Lord Baltimore's own religion—the Roman Catholic. Roger Williams, who was banished from Massachusetts for his opinions, founded what is now called Rhode Island, on the plan of entire liberty in religious matters. He went further than Lord Baltimore, and gave to Hebrews and to unbelievers the same liberty with Christians. In Pennsylvania, where the Friends or Quakers were in the majority, there was toleration; and persecution ceased in all the colonies before the Revolution.