"And here a few words on the unhappy reason why London and other large towns of Great Britain and also Holland are comparatively moral in this respect, and that in their cases the average of this species of immorality is far below that of the great cities of the continent; the fact that in this respect the urban population of Great Britain appears to be what it most certainly is not, comparatively pure, the rural the most corrupt; whilst on the continent the reverse is evident. There can be no doubt, as Mr. Lumley, in his able _Poor-Law Reports_, has often hinted, that this difference is owing to the prevalence of what has been justly called the 'social evil;' to the license, it may, in truth, be called encouragement, which, in the populous districts of this country, and notoriously in Holland, is given to public prostitution. Of course there will be no illegitimacy among Mohammedans and Hindoos, in Japan and China, or the African tribes, nor also among those who live much in the same manner." And, we might add, who practise infanticide and foeticide as they do. He goes on, "In London, the fallen women may be taken, at the mean of the estimates, at 40,000. ... In Birmingham, in 1864, there were 966 disreputable houses where they resorted; in Manchester, 1111; in Liverpool, 1578; in Leeds, 313; in Sheffield, 433. [Footnote 28] And here we have revealed a plague-spot in English society which runs through every grade, especially the artisan, manufacturing, and lower commercial classes, who, as we have seen, in general never enter a church. ... There is no need, in addition, to dwell on the revelations of the divorce court, which prove that Englishmen are nearly as bad in this respect as the northern Germans. There is no one who is acquainted with the condition of the families of artisans who does not know the sad frequency with which they abandon their wives, and how frequently they live in a state of concubinage." Alison corroborates this: "In London the proportion (of illegitimacy) is one to thirty-six, the effect, it is to be feared, of the immense mass of concubinage which there prevails, under circumstances where a law of nature renders an increase of the population from that source impossible." [Footnote 29] [Footnote 28: _Statistical Journal_, 1864.] [Footnote 29: Vol. ii. chap. xvii. 122.] {57} "In London, however, and the English cities, there are more illegitimate births than appear on the registers, because children of people who live together without being married are registered 'legitimate.'" [Footnote 30] So much for London, Liverpool, etc. [Footnote 30: _Statistical Journal_, 1862.] In Paris, a great proportion of the children reckoned illegitimate are born in the lying-in hospitals, or brought to the foundling hospitals, and the greater proportion of the mothers are from the provinces, as will be seen from the following table for 1856: