“If I could not get imprisonment of the male party to a seduction substituted for the paltry fine of half-a-crown a-week, I would at least give to the commonwealth, now liable to a pecuniary damage by bastardy, some interest in its detection and punishment. The union-house is now often enough the home of the deserted mother and the infant bastard; and the guardians of the poor ought, I think, to have the right, in the interest of the commune, to act as bastardy police, and to be recouped their charges. I would not allow the maintenance of an illegitimate child to be at the expense of any but the father. I would make it the incubus on him, not on its mother; and I would not leave his detection, exposure, and money loss at the option of the latter. A young man who has a second and third illegitimate child, by different women, has not lived without adding some low cunning to his nature. It often happens that a fellow of this sort will, for a time, by specious promises and presents to a girl he fully intends ultimately to desert, defer making any payments for or on account of her child. If he can for twelve months, and without entering into any shadow of an agreement (and we may all guess how far the craft of an injured woman will help her to one that would hold water), stave-off any application on her part to the authorities, her claim at law is barred; and she herself, defied at leisure, becomes in due course chargeable to her parish or union. But not thus should a virtuous state connive at the obligations of paternity being shuffled on to its public shoulders, when, by a very trifling modification of the existing machinery, they might be adjusted on the proper back, permanently or temporarily, as might be considered publicly expedient. I would enact, I say, by the help of society, that, in the first place, the seduction of a female, properly proved, should involve the male in a heavy pecuniary fine, according to his position—not at all by way of punishment, but to strengthen, by the very firm abutment of the breeches-pocket, both him and his good resolutions against the temptations and force of designing woman. I would not offer the latter, as I foresee will be instantaneously objected, this bounty upon sinfulness—this incentive to be a seducer; but, on the contrary, the money should be due to the community, and recoverable in the county-court or superior court at the suit of its engine, the union; and should be invested by the treasurer of such court, or by the county, or by some public trustee in bastardy, for the benefit of the mother and child. The child’s portion of this deodand should be retained by such public officer until the risk of its becoming chargeable to the community quasi-bastard should be removed by the mother’s marriage or