And to this vast host of helpless children we, in this land, give almost no protection. In the English law they have no father. They are _filii nullius_—nobody’s children; without kin; they have no rights of inheritance. All through life they are branded. The child in England is not legitimised even on the subsequent marriage of its parents. In Scotland this injustice is not found. The illegitimate child becomes legitimate by the simple and natural process of its father marrying its mother. Can the cruelty of our English law have any positive value? It is difficult to think so. Aside from sentimentality, aside even from the value or worthlessness of punitive measures, here is a law that stands as a direct obstacle against right and responsible conduct.
And what is the result? The infant mortality rate, high as it is for the children of married parents, is doubled and more than doubled in the case of illegitimate children. Three times as many children born out of wedlock die before reaching adolescence, as compared with those children born under the protection of the law. Think just a little of the real significance of this alarmingly high infant death-rate; these tell-tale figures are the proof of our failure. Do they not speak of a waste of infant life which, if for practical reasons only, we cannot suffer to go on? This fact of England’s need for children should drive us on to action. Here, as in many other cases of indifference, we have failed to recognise that life—the one thing without which all else must perish—has been slipping from us by our carelessness, in a way that threatens the whole future and well-being of our race.
In many towns in England the illegitimate death-rate of infants under one year has increased, and still is increasing to an extent that ought to give alarm. In London the illegitimate infant death-rate is more than twice as high as the legitimate. The exact figures vary in different boroughs: thus in Poplar the number of legitimate infant deaths per thousand is 121.5 as against 281.24 illegitimate, whereas Wandsworth has 97 as the death-rate of legitimate children and 276 for illegitimate. In the city of Manchester, where the death-rate of legitimates is 169, that of illegitimates is 362. In one division (Clayton) it is 583, in another (Blackley) it is as high as 667. Bristol, again, has a legitimate death-rate of 124 per thousand and an illegitimate of 349; Leicester, 130 against 377; Cardiff, 124 against 349; while Cambridge, with a legitimate death-rate as low as 81 per thousand, has an illegitimate rate of 276.