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28 generosity of a great nation, and would be at once an act of justice and munificence. The penalties, by law inflicted on the parents, I mean not to intermeddle with. When no means of maintenance can be obtained from the parents, the children, after five years of age, should be taken and educated at the national expense, the boys placed in the navy and army, to serve for a certain period. The girls to be in like wise educated, and each parish in its turn to be required to furnish proper situations to bind them out as apprentices. Thus would national morals be improved, and the happiness of many human beings be secured. What may be the number of bastards annually born I can only conjecture: it was supposed about thirty years ago the number of illegitimate children was in the proportion of one to twenty-eight of those born in wedlock: this would make the number then about nine thousand. In France, at that period, the number of bastards was considered as one in fourteen. I fear, at present, the number is greatly increased in our own country, and may be as one to fourteen, or eighteen thousand. I have recently seen it stated, that out of somewhat less than twenty-three thousand children born at Paris, eight thousand were bastards. What proportion of bastards are supported by their parents, I have no data to justify any conjecture. The education and maintenance of each child may be calculated at between eight and ten pounds; at a very early age they might be made capable of contributing something towards their own support.

There must be still some means of maintaining those who should be bereft of the means of providing for themselves: the lunatic, the blind, and others having no provision from property, and incapable of administering to their own wants; these must be the annuitants of the public. It might be highly expedient, therefore, to bring