RURAL IMMORALITY.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1846, 2 December 1874, Page 3

RURAL IMMORALITY.

» Is there not something! wrong in the teaching of Scottish clergymen ; or, something more perceptive in tliia eyes of the Registrar-General of Scotyaud than in those of the Recorder of England ? The pleading from the pulpit ora the north side of the Tweed; does uot Iseem to be effectual in checking' unchasftity in the rural districts ; or in towns whUch are the centres of agricultural popiila|ion. Out ot 3721 births, there were 'irw July 340 illegitimate children in the eigh| principal towns of Scotland, for which tko returns are compiled. Three of the sea\porta are wonderfully free from this vilee, Leith shewing only 3.7 per cent Orzoi^ock, >LT, Perth, 5.2; but Glasgow rose^ to 8.7 Dundee to 10.3, and Aberdeen) 16 per cent. It is strange that Aberdeen should be nearly at all times conspicuous. The west country of Scotland has lately dove a little extra divergence from the moral laws, and there, what might bo called " patriarchial system "prevails, that is, that the men are fed under the roof of their masters' kitchen, and sleep above the horses. When the both system is common; there is nctj-so much immorality. It has been suggested that young men should lodge with married ploughmen. It is a good idea—if married ploughmen had sufficient accommodation for themi TheSfhave not, and much of the dissatisfaction of the laborer in England has arisen from the fact that they were housed •uncomfortably at long distances from their work. What the Scottish clergymen should do is to leave out a little ecclesiasticism, as the Archbishop of Canterbury told the English clergy the other day, and dwell more upon everyday things, the same as St. Paul did. It was Palmerston, if we forget not, who told the Edinburgh people who petitioned him for a day of humiliation on account of the cholera, that the best thing they could do was to whitewash the closes and look after sanitary arrangements internally. If the ministers in the rural districts of Scotland would urge upon landlords the necessity of having better houses upon the lands they own, this dark stain upon the Scottish escutcheon would be blotted out. —Farmer.