to the other great crime which, it is charged,
prevails to a much more alarming extent in countries under Catholic
influence, viz., illegitimacy. Here again we shall meet statistics with
counter-statistics to refute unjust declarations. We do not wish to be
understood as advocating the immaculateness of Catholic communities. We
frankly admit and heartily deplore the disorders which Catholics commit,
but we deny that they are worse than their Protestant neighbors; and still
more emphatically do we deny that the Church is responsible for their
disorders.

The Journal of the Statistical Society of London, of the years 1860, '62,
'65, '67, gives the number of illegitimate births in England and Wales as
6-1/2 in every hundred, whilst in the Catholic kingdom of Sardinia the
number is slightly over two in the hundred, and in Ireland three in every
hundred. If the test of illegitimacy is a correct index of the morality of
a country, how refreshing to pass from Protestant England across to
Catholic Ireland or to the Continent and visit Sardinia! The moral
atmosphere of these countries, compared with England, must be as a
healthful breeze to a pestilential marsh.

That we may see at a glance the real condition of European countries in
reference to this species of crime, I will here insert as correct a table
as can be made from the latest reports. (Vid. _Catholic World_, Vol. XI.,
p. 112.)

Percentage Of Illegitimacy In Protestant And Catholic Countries Of Europe.

Protestant. Per cent.
Holland 4.0
Switzerland 5.5
Prussia (Protestant) 10.0
England and Wales 6.5
Sweden and Norway 9.6
Scotland 10.1
Denmark 11.0
German States 14.8
Wurtemburg 16.4

Catholic.
Italy 5.1
Spain 5.5
France 7.2
Prussia (Catholic) 6.5
Belgium 7.2
Austria 11.1
Ireland 3.0

We have divided Prussia into Protestant and Catholic because statistics
are kept according to the religious creed of the people; and we discover
that, whilst among the Catholic portion of the empire there is but a
percentage of six and a half of illegitimate births, among the Protestants
it runs up to ten per cent. And the same remark is applicable to Ireland.

The _Scotman_, whose statements