THERE has been much mischievous and unwarrantable talk about an
imaginary prospective increase of illegitimacy as a consequence of
the war. In all parts of the country where the troops are quartered
in camps and billets it has been alleged that innumerable unmarried
women are expecting to become mothers. With such assurance were
these statements made that the phrase "War-babies" was understood
to represent an alarming fact. Some people, however, kept their
heads and asked for evidence. When it was not produced, they went
in search of it for themselves. The Charity Organisation Society,
the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and
the Committee on Illegitimate Births during the War, of which the
Archbishop of York is chairman, have severally conducted a
searching inquiry, all three arriving at the same
conclusion-namely, that the reports concerning the supposed large
number, of "War-babies" are entirely without foundation. . . It is
probable, we think, that many of these false rumours were started
by well-intentioned people who mistook for immoral behaviour the
boisterous manners of a different class from their own. We are,
however, able confidently to believe that the character of our
soldiers has been maligned; that, in fact, they have on the whole
maintained a high ideal in their conduct. Men who are giving their
lives for us ought to be immune from such base charges, and we hope
that, the lie having now been given to these, people will in future
be slow to believe that the British soldier is unworthy to wear the
King's uniform.
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