“It is difficult to explain the variations in the rates of illegitimacy in the several counties. It may be stated generally that the proportion of illegitimate children cannot alone serve as a standard of morality. Broadly speaking, however, the single and widowed women in London, in the counties south of the Thames, and in the south-western counties have comparatively few illegitimate children; on the other hand, the number of illegitimate children is comparatively high in Shropshire, in Herefordshire, in Staffordshire, in Nottinghamshire, in Cumberland, in North Wales, and also in nearly all the counties on the eastern seaboard, viz. Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire, and Durham. In the Registrar-General’s Report for the year 1851 it was assumed that there was an indirect connexion between female illiteracy and illegitimacy. This may have been the case in the middle of the last century, but there is no conclusive evidence that such is the case at the present day. The proportions of illegitimacy and the proportions of married women who signed the marriage register by mark are relatively high in Staffordshire, in North Wales, in Durham and in the North Riding of Yorkshire; on the other hand, in Norfolk, in Suffolk and in Lincolnshire there is a comparatively high proportion of illegitimacy and a low proportion of illiteracy.”