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tricts of this country, as in Norfolk, Herefordshire,
Shropshire, Nottinghamshire, Westmoreland, and
Cumberland, it ranges from 92 to 120 per 1,000;
and yet this high proportion is no proof of greater
depravity or even of a larger number of children
born out of wedlock; for in this City the opportunity
of hiding the shame of illegitimacy, and even
of falsifying the registration of birth is far greater
than in the rural districts; besides which, the proportion
of unmarried women to the married is much
larger here than in the country. There are occasions,
however, when the returns of illegitimate births
are the true indications of the depravity of a
district, as, for example, when in adjoining localities,
with all the circumstances and conditions of the
population equal, there is a marked difference in
the number of returns. Such indications are unhappily
too frequent in our large cities. Here in
one of the subdivisions of the Western Union, with
a population of hardly 12,500, there are annually
about 42 illegitimate births, whereas, in the adjoining
district of the same Union, with a population of
16,000, there are only 35 of such births. In the
former case, the proportion is as 95 to 1,000 births,
and in the latter it is only 16. Again, in the St.
Botolph district of the Eastern Union, there is a
proportion of 44 per 1,000, whereas in the adjoining
district of Cripplegate, in the same Union, it is
scarcely 29 per 1,000. These numbers point to