CHAPTER III

THE PROTECTION OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN

The Legal Position of the Illegitimate Child--Reasons for these Legal Disabilities--Advantages and Disadvantages of Illegitimate Birth--Abortion, Premature Birth, Still-Birth--Childbirth in Unmarried Mothers--Causes of the Great Mortality of Illegitimate Children--Criminality in the Illegitimate--Illegitimacy and Prostitution--Occupation in Relation to Illegitimacy--The Different Classes of the Illegitimate--Illegitimacy and Child-Protection--The Tendency of Evolution--A Radical Reform 90