The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-26 00:00:00

THE SCOTCH REGISTRAR-GENERAL'S

REPORT.

A fortnight ago we published the return of
the English Registrar-General for the summer
quarter of this year—the quarter ending at Michael-
mas ; the Registrar-General for Scotland follows
with his report. The excessive mortality of the first
two quarters of the year in Scotland had abated,
and in this third quarter the births, deaths, and

marriages were all rather below the average. The
births were 24,933; allowing for estimated increase
of population, calculated at 3,152,478 in the middle
of this year, this is at the annual rate of 316 births
among every 10,000 people, or one birth to every
31 persons ; in England in the same period the
rate was 325 in the 10,000. The deaths, 13,846,
were at the rate of 175 a year in every 10,000, or
one death in every 57 persons; in England they
were 171, but that is much below the English aver-
age at this season, which slightly exceeds 200. The
marriages, 4,488, were at the annual rate of 56
marriages in every 10,000 of the people; the Eng-
lish returns have not yet been made up, but the
average is about 80—nearly 50 per cent. higher
than in Scotland. As there was no such difference

in the births, we are prepared to bear of the con-
tinued prevalence of unchastity in Scotland.
Among three millions of people more than 7,000
illegitimate children have been born in the first
three quarters of this year. It is chiefly in the
north-eastern and the southern districts that the
excessive incontinence manifests itself. In the

counties of Aberdeen and Dumfries one in every six
children were illegitimate. There are one or two
parishes in which a fourth of the births during the
quarter were illegitimate, and in one instance the
Registrar notes that there was not much difference
between the numbers of the legitimate and the'
illegitimate children born—eight and six. The im-
morality is not confined to the humbler classes, for
the registrar of a parish in which three of the
seven births were illegitimate remarks that in none of
the cases could the crime be charged against the work-
ing classes, but no doubt it prevails chiefly among
the lower orders. A local registrar in Aberdeen-
shire represents that the evil would be reduced if
stumbling-blocks in the way of marriages were re-
moved by increasing the number of cottages and
crofts in rural districts. There is another remark-
able point to notice—the great difference between
the town districts and the country. In the last
quarter the births in the town districts were in the
annual proportion of 332 to every 10,000, in the
country districts only 299; the marriages 75 in the
towns, only 37 in the country ; the deaths at the
annual rate of 203 in the towns, but only 145 in the
country. In England the deaths were 184 in the
towns, 158 in the country; but the English ave-
rages since 1850 are 237 and 176. Among the
deaths in Scotland specially noted are those of a
little girl from the effect of a wasp's sting, and
another from the bite of an adder, and the suicide of
a woman who had been under the influence of reli-
gious excitement, which has been so rife in Scot-
land of late. Smallpox is ravaging the fair city of
Perth in consequence of one of its unvaccinated in-
habitants catching-the disease in a railway carriage,
in which a person with the smallpox was travelling;
and it has also been introduced into Leith through
the mother of a child that had smallpox being sent
to the child's birthplace on applying for relief. The
Registrar-General asks for some legislative inter-
terence, and urges that if there are stringent enact-
ments regarding infectious diseases among cattle,
the lives of the public should be protected in cases
of this description, is which they cannot protect
themselves. Some interesting meteorological infor-
mation is furnished in these returns. They record
509 hours of sunshine, which, distributed daily
would have been more than five hours every day
but still the weather was cold and the atmosphere
humid, and the mean temperature of the quarter
was as low as 53.9 deg., which is 2 4 deg. below the
average of the four previous years; at Greenwich it
was 56.2 deg., in one of the Shetlands 51.1 deg.
The temperature of the sea on the open coast was
54.3 deg. ; of springs and wells, 48 8 deg.; of the
earth 12 inches underground, 55.3 deg. The regis-
trar of Dores, Inverness, reports that for seven
weeks there was not a whole dry day there ; but
on the average of all the returns, rain fell but on 44
days in the quarter, which is no more than the
usual number, and, notwithstanding great moisture
of the air, the fall was only 7.53 inches, being 1.59
inch less than the fall in the same quarter of the
four previous years. In England it was 9'6 inches,
being 2-1 inches above the average of a more ex-
tended period. But the rainfall in different parts
varied greatly. In Perthshire it reached 14.7 inches
and has amounted in the first three quarters of this
year to 51.8 inches. The English Registrar-General
records 42.6 inches as the nine months' fall at Lam-
peter (Cardigan), and 36 Bin Dorset. At Green-
wich it has been 25.1, which is 6.9 above the aver-
age. We may add, lastly, that the excess of births
over (Laths in Great Britain during the quarter
was 88,726, or 964 a-day ;of Ireland we continue
to have no record.
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