her, as it put a stop to the practice of hunting 
an unfortunate woman from parish to parish 
when in the last stage of helpless pregnancy. To 
use the language of the minute of the Poor-law 
commissioners of the 5th of March, 1839, the 
amended law removed the punishment which 
placed such conduct in the class of erimes, and 
simply left the mother to bear the natural con- 
sequences of vice: these consequences are the 
burthen of supporting the child. The woman 
who has neglected to take the precaution of se- 
curing by the legal and religious sanction of 
marriage a protector for herself and her off- 
spring, is most properly supposed to assume the 
duties of a mother without the rights of a wife. 
But it is objected immediately, that you call on 
her to do what she cannot do, viz. to maintain 
her child. If this be so, the law does not deny 
her relief. The condition of entering the work- 
house is usually imposed as a security against 
wilful chargeability in this as in many other 
cases, but the same relief which is extended to 
destitution of other classes is not denied to the 
mother of an illegitimate child. It is true, that 
by the 71st sec. of 4 and 5 Will. IV. cap. 76, all 
relief granted to the child is declared to be 
granted to the mother, and the child made a 
part of her family. The result of this clause is 
merely that the mother of a bastard is put on 
one and the same footing with destitute widows. 
Previously she was far more advantageously 
situated. She might separate her fate from that 
of her offspring; if relief in the workhouse was 
offered to the child she could refuse to goin. If 
she ran: away and left her illegitimate child 
chargeable, the Vagrant act was not applicable 
to her case, for a bastard was not legally part of 
her ‘ family,’ while a widow for a similar act 
might have been treated as a criminal. 
“ However, it is not perhaps the law as it ex- 
isted before 1834 which is regretted, so much as 
the spirit in which it was administered. The prin- 
cipal ground of complaint against the Poor-law 
amendment act, on the part at least of those who 
know what the law was before and after that sta- 
tute, is the change which is effected in the facility 
for affiliating bastard children. The fictitious 
chargeability, the ex parte proceeding against 
the putative father, and the power to two jus- 
tices to make an order, were abolished. In their 
place was substituted a mode of affiliating at the 
next practicable quarter-sessions after charge- 
ability, but without any power to recover the 
expenses; corroborative evidence was required ; 
the order could only be made after fourteen days’ 
notice to the putative father, and it remained in 
force only until the child was seven years of age, 
if it was so long chargeable. No part of the 
money thus levied from the putative father could 
be paid to the mother. It is difficult to conceive 
anything less consonant to the principles of Eng- 
lish jurisprudence than the proceedings under 
the 6 Geo, II, cap. 31, and 49 Geo. III. cap. 68: 
BASTARD. 
imprisonment was summarily inflicted on the 
unsupported oath of an interested person; the 
whole proceedings were ev parte; no summons 
was required, and no opportunity for confront- 
ing the accuser was deemed necessary before 
commitment. I do not wish my meaning to. be 
mistaken,” continues Sir Edmund. “ The im- 
punity of a father of a bastard (assuming that 
we can ascertain who he be) is an evil, and a 
considerable evil; but, whatever our sympathy 
with the woman may lead us to wish, I much 
fear that it is one from which we cannot escape, 
except at the sacrifice of something still more 
valuable. Like most things in human affairs, 
there is not unmixed good on either side; the 
question is, on which there is the greater danger. 
The risk is undoubtedly very much diminished 
by enforcing strictly the relief to the mother by 
admission into the workhouse, with her child, 
and by no other means. She can then, if driven 
to extremities by the refusal of the putative ~ 
father to provide for or marry her, bring the 
penalties of the law on his head, only by making 
a considerable sacrifice herself. This considera- 
tion brings me to the subject of which much is 
heard at boards of guardians—the hardship on 
the rate-payers of causing them to support two 
persons instead of one. The woman may be able 
to earn her own living, if relieved of her child. 
The child was, under the old system, put out to 
nurse by the overseers, at ls. 6d. or 2s. a-week, 
and the burthen on the parish apparently light- 
ened. The mother, thus placed in a much better 
situation than a widow, free from all trouble and 
all maternal obligations, generally went out to 
service, perhaps as a nurse, and, within a certain 
time, contrived to convince the rate-payers that 
she was not insensible of the advantages which 
they had provided for her. This is the system 
which, on the score of economy, is often regretted. 
The good sense of the public in this country has 
rejected the institution of those foundling hos- 
pitals common on the continent ; but, at the 
same time, it thus tacitly submitted to an ar- | 
rangement which turned the whole country into 
one large foundling hospital. 
“ Mr. Laing, in his recent tour in Sweden, 
gives most instructive evidence as to the number 
and causes of illegitimate births in that country. 
It appears that the proportion of illegitimate to 
legitimate births in all Sweden, from 1820 to 
1830, is as 1 in 144%, and in Stockholm as high 
as 1 to 2y. Mr. Laing goes on to remark :— 
‘There are two minor causes, both, however, 
showing a degraded moral feeling, which were 
stated to me as contributing much to this lax 
state of female morals. One is, that no woman 
in the middle or higher ranks, or who can afford 
to do otherwise, ever nurses her own child. A 
girl who has got a child is not therefore in a 
worse, but in a better situation, as she is pretty 
sure of getting a place for two years, which is 
the ordinary time of nursing. The illegitimacy 
