This as a
rule, however, is confided to the mistress. The average wage they
receive is about L18 a year. As it costs them L13, or 5_s_. a week, to
support an infant (not allowing for its clothes), the struggle is very
hard unless the Army can discover the father, and make him contribute
towards the support of his child, either voluntarily or through a
bastardy order.
I was informed that many of these fathers are supposed to be
gentlemen, but when it comes to this matter of payment, they show that
they have little title to that description. Of course, in the case of
men of humbler degree, money is even harder to recover. I may add,
that my own long experience as a magistrate goes to confirm this
statement. It is extraordinary to what meanness, subterfuge, and even
perjury, a man will sometimes resort, in order to avoid paying so
little as 1_s_. 6_d_. a week towards the keep of his own child. Often
the line of defence is a cruel attempt to blacken the character of the
mother, even when the accuser well knows that there is not the
slightest ground for the charge, and that he alone is responsible for
the woman's fall.
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