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.
[Illustration]
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.