Though it might seem very strange and unaccountable in this wise nation, that any thing which had the least semblance of baseness or dishonesty should be universally approved, commended, and encouraged by their laws, yet so it was in the case of theft, whereby their young children were allowed to steal certain things, as particularly the fruit of their orchards or their messes at their feasts. But then this was not done to encourage them to the desires of avarice and injustice, but to sharpen their wits, and to make them crafty and subtle, and to train them up in all sorts of wiles and cunning, watchfulness and circumspection, whereby they were rendered more apt to serve them in their wars, which was upon the matter the whole profession of this commonwealth. And if at any time they were taken in the act of stealing, they were most certainly punished with rods and the penance of fasting ; not because they esteemed the stealth criminal, but because they wanted skill and cunning in the management and concealing of it.*