into the house, and knew that he was with his daughter, would he not
interfere?"

"He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing that his daughter was in
an out-house or barn with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting
his eyes to it in the same way that a person in the higher ranks would
shut his eyes to his daughter going out for a walk with a young man."

Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to the middle class a young man
would not marry a girl that had had a child to another man; and very
probably he would not marry a girl that had had a child to himself; but
in the lower classes it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a
woman that has had a child, or that is with child to himself; but it is
very frequent to marry a woman that has had a child to another man; the
only objection is the burden of the child; the burden of the child might
be an obstacle, but the disgrace would be none."

"Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that the woman, by marrying
this other man, wipes off her disgrace with the former?"

"Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace is not so much as to prevent
the young man marrying her."

The attorney-general: "It is hardly within our inquiry, but still it is
interesting to know; can you tell me whether, in these cases, where the
woman marries a man who is not the father of her child, any confusion,
as to the parent of the previously born child, arises? Are they apt in
law, to pass as the children of the subsequent husband?"

"No, I do not think so."