THE LORD PROVOST OF EDINBURGH ON ILLEGITMACY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3708, 4 June 1883, Page 4

THE LORD PROVOST OF EDINBURGH ON ILLEGITMACY.

Speaking, the other day at a meeting hold in connection with tho Edinburgh Maternity Hospital, Lord Provost Harrison is[ivportcd as follows. Alluding to the crying evil of illegitimacy, he said:—"Scotland had as much need to wage warfare with it as with the vice of drunkenness. The scandal and sin of Scotland in this respect ought to make Scotland stink in the nostrils of the nations of the world. Tlie vast mass of the respectable people of the country wen; totally insensible to, because ignorant of it. But he knew too well the frightful amount of human misery which was annually caused in the land by the siii to which he referred. He did not so much blame tho guilty parties as the conditions of society in which they were, and the low standard of public opinion which they had allowed to grow up in the society to which they belonged. There wore many places in Ireland, even in the wildest districts, where the fall, of a young" woman from chastity was practically unknown for generations. 11, was a shameful thing they should have this sin so common in Bible-loving" Scotland, when such an immunity from immorality existed in Catholic Ireland. The courting customs of Scotland must be attacked ; and he would be a benefactor to hi.s country, who would head a crusade against customs which annually broke many hundreds of young and beautiful hearts, which ruiuedbundreds of householders with grief. Meanwhile, in Scotland the rival religious bodies were too much occupied in lighting , one another to attend to such a matter as this."