} 
| 
{ 
O12 BASTARD. 
of the child is in this community rather a re- 
commendation of the mother, as the family is 
not troubled with the father or friends. As to 
| the girl’s own child, there is a foundling hospital, 
the second minor cause; in that it can be placed 
out, at a trifling expense, for the time the mother 
is out nursing. The unchaste are therefore, in 
point of fact, better off than the chaste of the 
female sex in this town.’ It is well known that 
the results of the unrestricted reception of bas- 
tard children into the foundling hospitals in 
Belgium made it necessary for the government 
to take steps, in 1834, for discouraging the ope- 
ration of, if not for repealing, the law under 
which it took place. The legislation of the 
French republic, by the laws of 27 Frimaire an. 
V. and 30 Ventose an V., explained by an edict 
of 19 January, 1811, was most favourable to the 
mothers of bastards, and relieved them from all 
care of their own offspring. M. de Beaumont 
says,—“ On sait qu’une loi de la révolution ré- 
compensait les filles méres d’enfants naturels.” 
Under the influence of these laws, which only 
carried out the principle involved in our former 
practice, the illegitimate children increased from 
#7 (which they were, on an average of seven 
years, in 1780) to 7y, in 1825. Malthus (vol. i. 
p. 375) reckons the illegitimate births in France, 
at the time he was writing, as 71 of the whole. 
“Tt appears that in 1838 the number of births 
in Paris was 
20,454 legitimate, 
29,743 i 9,289 illegitimate. 
The illegitimate were therefore 312 per cents 
| or, to the legitimate, as 1 to 2-2, a proportion larger 
than that existing at Stockholm. 
In the whole of France, in 1837, 
The total number of births eo legitimate, 
was 943,349 69,829 illegitimate. 
That is 7-4 per cent., or as 1 to 12°5. 
The ‘mouvement moyen’ of the population, 
calculated on the twenty-one years from 1817 to 
1837, gives as the annual number of births 
899,451 legitimate, 
968,752 } 69,301 illegitimate. 
That is the illegitimate to the legitimate as 1 to 
12:979. 
“It thus appears that the proportion of illegiti- 
mate births is greater in France than in Sweden, 
the former being as 1 to 12'979, and the latter as 
1 in 14y¥%, according to Mr. Laing, while the 
morality of France would seem to have deteri- 
orated since the calculation of Peuchet. I fear 
that there are rural districts in this country in 
which the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate. 
births is far more unfavourable than that exist- 
ing in the French empire. The population of 
the county of Radnor, in 1831, was 24,661. Ac- 
cording to Mr Rickman, the number of baptisms 
registered in 1830 was 
649 
26 add for unentered births and baptisms. 
675 total. 
BASTARD CEDAR. 
“The number of illegitimate children born in 
1830 is stated, on the same authority, to be 100; 
that is to say, 1 in 6°75! or more than twice as 
many in proportion as in France. This will not 
seem incredible when we find from the table 
published in the appendix to the second annual 
report of the Poor-law commissioners, that the 
average annual number of bastards chargeable 
to the parishes of the county of Radnor, in 1835 
and 1836, was 417, or ss of the whole population 
of the county, according to the census of 1831; 
and it is not to be wondered at that there are at 
present 15 women with bastard ‘children inmates 
of the workhouse of the Knighton union, of which 
the population is only 8,719 (census 1831).” 
The chief distinction between the English and 
Scotch bastardy laws consists in this,—that in 
England the putative father of an illegitimate 
child can only be required to contribute towards 
its maintenance in case it becomes chargeable to 
a parish, so that the bastardy laws are insepar- 
ably connected with the poor laws; whereas in 
Scotland the putative father is liable without 
any such previous chargeability, and it is only 
indirectly and occasionally that the poor laws 
are brought under consideration at all, as con- 
nected with the bastardy laws. The mother of 
an illegitimate child in Scotland may at once 
bring an action for aliment in the sheriff’s-court 
against the putative father; and if she proves 
her case, the sheriff decrees that the father shall 
pay a certain sum yearly for the maintenance of 
the child,—until seven years of age if it is a boy, 
and until ten years of age if it is a girl. The 
sum thus decreed by the sheriff is a debt to the 
mother, and can be recovered in the same way 
as any other debt under the Scotch laws. The 
parish interferes very rarely in behalf of the 
mother. The oath of the woman may be re- 
ceived against the putative father, provided that 
some other evidence tending to inculpate him is 
previously adduced. This evidence is technically 
called semiplena probatio, and may be regarded 
as substantially the same as the “ corroborative 
evidence” in the English law. 
BASTARD ACACIA. See Acacta-Trez. 
BASTARD ALKANET. The annual weed 
Corn Gromwell, or Lithospermum Arvense. See 
GROMWELL. 
BASTARD BALM. See Baum (Bastarp). 
BASTARD BOX. A low, evergreen, hardy 
trailing plant, of the milkwort genus,—Polygala 
chamebuxus. It is a native of Austria. 
BASTARD CEDAR,—botanically Cedrela. A 
small genus of tender evergreen trees, of the 
melia order, and forming the type of a tribe 
which comprises six genera. Three species, the 
sweet-scented, the velvety, and the Toona tree, 
have been introduced to Great Britain; all grow 
to the height of about 50 feet; and the sweet- 
scented and the Toona tree are held in esteem 
as timber-trees, the former in the West Indies, 
and the latter in Hindostan. The timber of the 
