1888.] Mr G. Seton on Illegitimacy in Parish of Marnoch. 233 
kindly favoured me with the perusal of a thoughtful essay, by a 
clergyman in the locality, on “ The Immorality prevalent in Banff- 
shire and the north-eastern counties of Scotland,” in which the 
writer arrives at the painful conclusion that both religion and 
education have failed to check the evil in question. Among its 
causes, he specifies the following : — 
1. Drink. 
2. Seduction under promise of marriage, rarely fulfilled, 
3. Insufficient supervision of servants. 
4. Inadequate house accommodation. 
5. Concubinage. 
6. Tolerance of public opinion. 
7. Protection of the male offender, to some extent, by the 
existing law. 
In the village of Aberchirder there are, at present, seven un- 
married couples cohabiting, some of whom have large families ; 
while between thirty and forty single women live in houses by 
themselves, some of whom have had as many as five or six illegi- 
timate children. It need scarcely be added that the circumstances 
of the latter give every encouragement to what are euphemistically 
termed “ midnight courtships,” 
The author of the essay considers that the comparative immunity 
of the fishing population from the stain of illegitimacy partly 
arises from the fact of their children being kept longer at home, 
and consequently being better looked after than those of the 
agricultural class. 
As the most serious results of the evil he enumerates — 
1. Pauperism. 
2. Lunacy. 
3. Abnormal infantile mortality. 
4. Child murder. 
5. Low tone and coarse language, even among females. (This 
last is, of course, a cause as well as a result.) 
Religion and education having both failed to diminish the social 
blemish, he falls back upon legislation as the sole remedy, making 
the following specific suggestions : — 
1st. All cases of seduction should be placed in the hands of the 
