of Edinbiirgh, Session 1882-83. 
23 
In Ms report relative to the year 1880, Mr Daniel Stewart, the 
intelligent examiner of registers in the southern district of Scotland, 
gives some very startling information regarding the illegitimacy 
of the counties of Eoxhurgh, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wig- 
town. In no fewer than 33 parishes in these four counties, the ille- 
gitimate births amounted to 20 per cent, and upwards — a certain 
small parish in Eoxburghshire exhibiting the enormous ratio of 36 ’3 
per cent. ! He refers to the large number of cases in which sisters 
give birth to illegitimate children, and to the numerous instances of 
the same woman being the mother of several children. Thus, in 
each of twelve specified parishes, two sisters registered illegitimate 
births during 1880. These 24 women had given birth to 41 chil- 
dren. In the case of twelve of them it was the first child, while the 
remaining twelve had collectively produced 29 children. In each 
of three parishes in three of the counties in question, three sisters 
have had nine children among them, while a trio in a certain 
Berwickshire parish have had at least ten. In nine parishes, mothers 
recorded their fifth, and in five parishes, their sixth child ; most of 
them being either domestic servants or engaged in some kind of 
agricultural labour. In two cases, in the counties of Kirkcudbright 
and Selkirk respectively, a charwoman and a dressmaker each recorded 
their seventh child. To only a small extent is the illegitimacy of 
the counties in question to be accounted for by the prevalence of 
concubinage. 
The result of Mr Stewart’s inquiries seems to point irresistibly to 
a wide-spread low moral tone among domestic and farm servants in 
rural parishes,” and mainty to that cause he is disposed to attribute 
the large proportion of illegitimate births constantly occurring in the 
southern counties. Many registrars have told him that “ language 
of the most immoral kind is quite common among out-workers and 
other women engaged in farm work; and when they have once 
fallen they appear to lose all sense of shame and self-respect,” 
Note . — Mr Stewart’s report for 1881 (which has been received 
since this paper was written) furnishes further evidence of the pre- 
majority may yet be judicially established, and other cases of legitimation by 
the subsequent marriage of the parents may also take place ; but no very 
material addition is likely to he made to the figures specified. 
