_Answer_: "Yes; the parents know no other way of doing it. I have reasoned with the parents often when attending a case of illegitimate birth, pointing out to the parents how it is they have been led on, but they cannot imagine any other way of doing it; their daughters must have husbands, and there is no other way of courting." Mr. Justice O'Hagan asking--"Does it prevail generally in Scotland?" was answered--"Universally among the agricultural laborers." In reply to an inquiry by Mr. Dunlop, whether these young men lived under any kind of supervision and knowledge of their masters, or whether they could go out and in as they pleased, Dr. Strahan stated that "plowmen, for instance, very often live in _bothies_, or in the farm house; they get out after all are in bed, out of the window; or, if they live in a bothie, without any trouble. They go to the neighboring farm-house, they knock at the window, the girl comes to the window, and, if she know the young man--or, after a little parley, if she does not know him--she either comes out and goes with him to an outhouse, or he comes into her bedroom. You must remember that they have no other means of intercourse." "That is the point you press so much?" "Yes; a young woman cannot see either a sweetheart or an acquaintance in any other way. I believe if it was not for fear of being out at night, the girls would visit one another in the same way; they have no other means of visiting; the customs of the country are such that a young man could not be seen going in day-light to visit his sweetheart." Mr. Justice O'Hagan: "If the father knew that the young man was coming into the house, and knew that he was with his daughter, would he not interfere?" "He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing that his daughter was in an out-house or barn with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting his eyes to it in the same way that a person in the higher ranks would shut his eyes to his daughter going out for a walk with a young man." Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to the middle class a young man would not marry a girl that had had a child to another man; and very probably he would not marry a girl that had had a child to himself; but in the lower classes it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a woman that has had a child, or that is with child to himself; but it is very frequent to marry a woman that has had a child to another man; the only objection is the burden of the child; the burden of the child might be an obstacle, but the disgrace would be none." "Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that the woman, by marrying this other man, wipes off her disgrace with the former?" "Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace is not so much as to prevent the young man marrying her."