_Childbirth in Unmarried Mothers._--When a married woman is about to become a mother, she makes early preparation of all that will be required during childbirth and the lying-in period. A large proportion of unmarried mothers, on the other hand, spend their last penny before the termination of pregnancy, and are altogether destitute when the time of their delivery arrives. A sense of shame prevents many pregnant women from entering a lying-in hospital, although to do this would provide them with free medical aid. Most women also have a dread of the gynecological clinique, because they think they will be made use of there for the instruction of students. To unmarried mothers, many charitable institutions close their doors. (_a_) But notwithstanding this, the majority of unmarried mothers are delivered at public lying-in hospitals, gynecological cliniques, and obstetric wards of general hospitals. (_b_) A small proportion are delivered in private lying-in institutions (and these naturally of a bad class, since such women lack money to pay the fees demanded by the better-class institutions). (_c_) A third moiety are delivered amid conditions the most unfavourable that can possibly be imagined. All these circumstances combine to exercise a most unfavourable influence upon the morbidity and the mortality of illegitimate new-born infants. _Causes of the Great Mortality of Illegitimate Children._--Owing to causes which come into operation immediately or shortly after birth (syphilis, marasmus, congenital debility, &c.), a much larger percentage of illegitimate children succumb than of legitimate children. The mother returns to work almost immediately after the birth of her child; usually her work takes her away from home, but if otherwise, it is almost certain to be work which will prevent her giving proper care to her child. Hence the great majority of unmarried mothers are forced to separate from their children almost immediately after the birth of the latter. In many cases, the mother does not even commit her child to a foundling hospital, or entrust it to a foster mother, but she kills it or exposes it immediately after birth. It is well known that infanticide and the exposing of infants are almost exclusively the work of unmarried mothers; and in a considerable proportion of cases, criminal abortion is the outcome of an attempt on the part of an unmarried woman to conceal the fact that she has been impregnated.