Editorial note — Chapter II

The number of illegitimate births stood to the aggregate number of births in 1800, as 1:16; in 1851, as 1:4.5; in 1850-55, as 1:4.8; in 1856-59, as 1:5.04; in 1865, as 1:4.0; in 1866, as 1:4.8; in 1867, as 1:5.33; in 1868, as 1:6.0; in 1869, as 1:7.2; in 1870, as 1:7.08, In 260 localities, in 1851, 1/3 and more of the aggregate number of births were illegitimate; in 209, ½ and more, and in 79 the entire number! The small improvement afterwards made was probably due in great part to emigration, which from 1850 to 1859 must have amounted to 45,000. How relative the idea of over-population even in this respect is, is shown by the small number of illegitimate births in very densely populated parts of England—Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwick, Stafford, West York—while districts as thinly populated as North York, Salop, Cumberland, Westmoreland, have very many illegitimate births. The number increases in the best educated districts, where their "education" begins to cause them to make "prudent" and long delays in marrying. (Lumley, Statistics of Illegitimacy: Statist. Journal, 1862.)