Colonial Dames and Good Wives by Alice Morse Earle

I am much impressed in reading the court records of those early days, to note the vast care taken in all the colonies to prevent lying, slandering, gossiping, backbiting, and idle babbling, or, as they termed it, "brabling; " to punish "common sowers and movers" -- of dissensions, I suppose.

The loving neighborliness which proved as strong and as indispensable a foundation for a successful colony as did godliness, made the settlers resent deeply any violations, though petty, of the laws of social kindness. They felt that what they termed "opprobrious schandalls tending to defamacon and disparagment" could not be endured.