perience that a great quantity of wine is
spent, and much thereof abused to excess of drinking and unto
drunkenness itself, notwithstanding all the wholesome laws provided and
published for the preventing thereof." It therefore orders, that those
who are authorized to sell wine and beer shall not harbor a drunkard in
their houses, but shall forthwith give him up to be dealt with by the
proper officer, under penalty of five pounds for disobedience.

In 1636 one "Peter Bussaker was censured for drunkenness to be whipped
and to have twenty stripes sharply inflicted, and fined L5 for slighting
the magistrates," etc. In March, 1634, it was ordered, "that Robert
Coles, for drunkenness by him committed at Roxbury, shall be
disfranchised, wear about his neck and so to hangg upon his outward
garment a D made of red cloth and set upon white; to continue this for a
year, and not to leave it off at any time when he comes amongst company,
under penalty of 40s. for the first offence and L5 for the second." What
was the efficacy of the whipping or the "scarlet letter," we are not
informed.

Of course, people capable of such legislation must frame fantastic
definitions of Liberty. Here is an old one whose sentiments have been
often parroted by unthinking humans of modern times. It reads: "True
Liberty consists in a freedom of doing and receiving good under the
protection of a government solicitous for the people's good." Such has
always been the tyrant's conception of freedom, and, strange to say,
finds many endorsements even to this day.

It has recently been solemnly announced from the judicial bench that the
only liberty an American has is the liberty to do the right thing, of
course according to other people's conception of right. That is
precisely the kind of tyranny or liberty that was enjoyed by the victims
of the paternalistic laws above described.

Persons afflicted with newspaper intelligence express their conception
that the individual has no rights that government may not invade, by
that hollow phrase, "Liberty under the Law." Liberty under the law is
what the government-ridden peasants of Russia enjoy. Liberty under the
law was the pleasure of those who expired with indescribable agony on
the rack and amid the flames. Liberty under the law was meted out to the
millions of victims of the witchcraft delusion. Liberty under the law
was also the liberty of our Southern chattel slaves before as well as
after the war. Libert