Human Physiology. 57 



in asylum and foundling hospital; yet England is too virtuous 

 to have foundling hospitals. There are about 14,000 illegiti- 

 mate children in English workhouses, a small proportion of 

 the whole number; for where the father can be made to pay 

 the customary 25. or 2s. 6d. a-week for the support of his 

 child, it does not go to the workhouse ; and three or four 

 such children in the cottage of a labourer, whose wages 

 are but 125. a-week, is a considerable addition to the family 

 income. 



A writer in the Daily Telegraph says " Shame there is none : 

 it is nothing more than a 'misfortune;' and if a misfortune is 

 profitable, can we wonder if it is welcomed? Practically, no 

 punishment whatever falls on the mother of an illegitimate 

 child, and no disgrace. Her parents will be much obliged 

 to her, and the public opinion of her own class will not 

 condemn her. Among the poor, a girl loses nothing in 

 the good opinion of her friends by having a child, and gains 

 an income which is probably not much less than her annual 

 wages." 



Of the legitimate children in workhouses, according to a 

 recent return, 6344 had been deserted by their fathers, 2102 

 by their mothers, and 1880 by both parents ; while the fathers 

 of 1031 were transported or in prison for crime. In the same 

 workhouses those of England and Wales there were 560 

 single women pregnant with their first child; 2847 single 

 women who had had one child; single women who had had 

 two children, 1711; wko had had three, 877; who had had 

 four or more, 782. 



I give these figures as indications of the state of feeling, 

 opinion, and action, with respect to the relations of the sexes 

 in the lower strata of English life. Excepting Scotland, I 

 know of but one country so immoral. Sweden, I believe, is 

 more irregular in its manners than any portion of the United 

 Kingdom; while Ireland, and especially the west and south of 



