  The tithingmen are elected as town officers, and each has ten families to visit during the week, when they hear the children recite their lessons for the next Sabbath Day. It is their duty to see that every person goes to the meeting-house on Sabbath Day, with no loitering on the way, and even after the preaching is over, and we have returned to our homes, do they march up and down the street to prevent us from straying out of doors until the Sabbath is at a close. My mother believes, and so do I, that it would be better if the tithingmen refrained from walking to and fro in the church while the elder is preaching; but so they do, each carrying a stick which has a knob on one end and a fox or wolf tail on the other, striking the unruly children on the head with the knob end of the stick, and tickling with the fox tail the faces of those who are so ungodly as to sleep during the preaching. |
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