SCOTI^ND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 21 



the General Assembly found it needful to require 

 the ministers to read from the pulpit the law against 

 child-murder.* So widespread was the crime in 

 the earlier part of the eighteenth century that the 

 Reverend James Hall declared it to be generally re- 

 puted that the "Scottish women are the greatest in- 

 fanticides in the world."t 



It is a significant fact that the severity of the pun- 

 ishment for immorality was less for the lower orders 

 than for the more enlightened classes. An amus- 

 ing story is related of a certain John Pardie who 

 took appeal in a case in which he was fined as a 

 gentleman f loo Scots for being guilty of immoral- 

 ity. The lords in session tried the appeal and sus- 

 tained his objection, reducing the fine to £i6 Scots. 

 They gave as their very good reason that "he had 

 not the air or face of a gentleman.''^ So prevalent 

 was immorality among the poorer classes that its 

 opposite seems to have been scarcely expected; and 

 Captain Birt says that when a maid strayed from 

 the path of rectitude she was received back in the 

 family by which she was employed just as though 

 she had shown no signs of frailty. Under such con- 

 ditions it is no cause for surprise that immorality 

 steadily increased until near the end of the century. 



In 1763 the fines collected by the kirk-treasurers 

 for illegitimate children in Edinburgh amounted to 

 £154; for the ten succeeding years they averaged 

 about £190, while by 1783 the amazing figures show 



* Ibid., and "Travels of Rev. James Hall," II. 

 t "Travels of Rev. James Hall," II, p. 351. 



t Graham's "Social lyife in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century," II, 

 p. 219. 



