The Sun. — 1860-11-26 (London, England)

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 Michaelmas ; 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 average 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 English 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 continued 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 immorality 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 working classes, but no doubt it prevails chiefly among the lower orders. A local registrar in Aberdeenshire represents that the evil would be reduced if stumbling-blocks in the way of marriages were removed by increasing the number of cottages and crofts in rural districts. There is another remarkable 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 averages 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 religious excitement, which has been so rife in Scotland of late. Smallpox is ravaging the fair city of Perth in consequence of one of its unvaccinated inhabitants 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 interterence, and urges that if there are stringent enactments 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 information 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 registrar 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 extended 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 Lampeter (Cardigan), and 36 Bin Dorset. At Greenwich it has been 25.1, which is 6.9 above the average. 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. g I