Note Y — THE NEW TIMON. (continued 2)

If a man wishes to leave a portion to his natural child, his lawyer will tell him to name the child as if it were a stranger to his blood. If he says, "I leave to John Tompson, of Baker-street, £10,000," John Tompson may probably get the legacy; if he says, "I leave to my son, John Tompson, of Baker-street, £10,000," and the said John Tompson is his son (a natural one), it is a hundred to one if John Tompson ever touches a penny! Up springs the Inhuman Law, with its multiform obstacles, quibbles, and objections—proof of identity—evidence of birth!—Many and many a natural child has thus been robbed and swindled out of his sole claim upon redress—his sole chance of subsistence. In most civilised countries a father is permitted to own the offspring, whom, unless he do so, he has wronged at its very birth—whom, if he do not so, he wrongs irremedially; with us the error is denied reparation, and the innocence is sentenced to outlawry. Our laws, with relation to illegitimate children, are more than unjust—they are inhuman.