Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

340 Scotland, Social and Domestic.
abuses. The Kirk-session of St. Andrews decreed, in
1599, that whoso was found golfing during the time of
divine service, should, for the first offence, pay ten
shillings ; twenty shillings for the second ; for the third,
should be placed on the repentance pillar ; and, for the
fourth, should be deprived of office. In 1606, the Kirk-
session of Ayr dealt with nine persons for practising
secular amusements on the Sunday. Seven of the
number had played " at ye nine-hole," and two " at
cappieshell," — the latter having aggravated their offence
by making their sport within " ye walls o' ye kirke." A
defaulting piper was thus warned by the Presbytery
of Glasgow, in a deliverance passed on the 30th April,
1594: — "The Presbyterie of Glasgow statutes and
ordenis that gif Mungo Craig sail playe on his pypes
on the Sondaye fra the sunrising till the sun going to,
in ony place within the bounds of the Presbyterie, that
he incontinent thereafter sail be summarlie excom-
municat."
In their efforts to suppress Sunday trading, the re-
formed clergy encountered a determined resistance. In
1596, the Presbytery of Meigle complained to the Privy
Council that the inhabitants of Strathmore had posi-
tively refused to abandon marketing on the Sabbath.
The Town Council of Aberdeen, in 1598, framed a scale
of penalties against Sunday trading, so formidable in
amount that the practice was subdued. In certain
districts small marketings on Sundays were long con-
tinued. So lately as 1848, fruits and sweetmeats were
sold to Sunday visitors at Cambuskenneth Abbey,
Stirlingshire.
Miracle plays proved serviceable to the promoters of
the Reformation by the ridicule cast by these cele-