One of those ill bred and riotous fellows, who have become notorious for their bad conduct of late, at the corners of our streets, was arrested by one of our most vigilant constables, at the corner of North and Essex streets, on Sunday evening last, carried before a magistrate, committed to prison, and bound over for his future good conduct.  Our municipal authorities, and all others concerned in bringing this person to punishment, deserve the thanks of their fellow-citizens.  The town of Salem, once so distinguished for the purity of its manners and the good order of its society, has been disgraced of late, by outrages upon the peace and quiet of the community, committed by noisy assemblages of young men at the public corners—­and even females have been seen to exhibit a demeanor in the streets disreputable to the town, and disgraceful in the highest degree to themselves.  This conduct should receive not only the discountenance, but the decided reprehension of the respectable part of the community.  Every citizen is interested, and is moreover bound to manifest his interest by his acts, in bringing every offender to prompt and condign punishment.  The stake which every one has in the good order of the community, is great—­it behoves, then, every one to exert himself to re-establish and preserve it.

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In 1819 in New York there were loud complaints of the violation of the Sabbath, as we see by an account taken from the “Salem Gazette.”

NEW-YORK, JULY 14.

VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH.

A few weeks since, a meeting of the citizens was called, to devise some efficient means to suppress the violation of the Sabbath.  A committee was appointed to report a plan for that purpose.  I wish to inquire what that committee have done, and when another meeting is to be called to receive their report.—­The evil still remains, and is certainly accumulating under the most aggravated forms.—­Our churches are nearly deserted on the Sabbath, while every place of amusement and pleasurable retreat is thronged.  Good authority states the numbers that frequent Brooklyn every Sabbath, at from ten to twenty thousand, and a proportionable number may be computed to visit every other island and place of resort in the vicinity.  We have forty-five churches, and a population of one hundred and twenty thousand; admitting one thousand to attend each church, it follows that seventy-five thousand violate that command of the Apostle which requires Christians “not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.”  Let the citizens organize societies to suppress the violation of the Sabbath and all other vice and immorality.

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“Sabbath-breakers” had multiplied to such an extent in 1815 that conventions were held in many of the counties in Massachusetts to see what could be done in reference to the evil.  We have a report of the Essex convention at Topsfield, Oct. 4, 1815.  The Committee say, among other things,—­