Colonial days in old New York

								

in maturer years which was seen in New England was also found in New
York.


“If any Child or Children, above sixteen years of age, and of
Sufficient understanding, shall smite their Natural Father or Mother,
unless provoked and forct for their selfe preservation from Death
or Mayming, at the Complaint of the said Father or Mother, and not
otherwise, they being Sufficient witness thereof, that Child, or those
Children so offending shall be put to Death.”
A few prim little letters of English children have survived the wear
and tear of years, and still show us in their pretty wording the formal
and respectful language of the times. Martha Bockée Flint, in that
interesting and valuable book, “Early Long Island,” gives this letter
written to Major Ephenetus Platt “at Huntting-town” by a little girl
eleven years old:--


EVER HONORED GRANDFATHER;


SIR: My long absence from you and my dear Grandmother has been not a
little tedious to me. But what renders me a Vast Deal of pleasure
is Being intensely happy with a Dear and Tender Mother-in-Law and
frequent oppertunities of hearing of your Health and Welfair which I
pray God may long Continue. What I have more to add is to acquaint you
that I have already made a Considerable Progress in Learning. I have
already gone through some Rules of Arithmetic, and in a little Time
shall be able of giving you a Better acct of my Learning, and in mean
time I am Duty Bound to subscribe myself



                                                 Your most obedient and

                                                 Duty full Granddaughter

                                                 PEGGA TREADWELL.
In the Lloyd Collections is a charming little letter from another Long
Island miss, ten years of age. The penmanship is elegant and finished,
as was that of her elders at that date.
We have, however, scant sources from which to learn of the life of
children in colonial New York. No diarist of Pepysian minuteness tells
of the children of New Netherland as does the faithful Samuel Sewall of
those of New England; no collections of letters such as the Winthrop
Papers and others recount the various items of domestic life. There
are none of the pious and garrulous writings of ministers such as
Cotton Mather, who in diary and various literary compositions give
another side of their life. We have no such messages from the colonial
Dutch. In whatever depended on the use of “a flourit pen,” posterity is
neither richer nor wiser for the Dutch settlers having lived. Nor were
their English successors much fonder of literary composition. Nothing
but formal records of churches, of courts, of business life, offer to
us any pages for study and drawing of inference. And from these records
the next hint of the life of these colonial children, sad to relate, is
to their discredit. The pragmatic magistrates kept up a steady prying