"If we had been in search of truth, how much easier and better to go to the census returns, and get facts that can be trusted. But when the object is, as with The Catholic World, to find figures which shall tally with a conclusion already determined by theological considerations, doubtless it is well to keep clear of authoritative documents, and take only such figures as have been manipulated in a succession of magazine articles, constructed to serve a purpose."
What better authority can we have in this country, on statistics, than the Statistical Journals of London? It is all an idle pretence to speak of getting the governmental returns in any great public library. We hunted for them in the Astor Library, and could not find one of them. The Society of London is composed of Protestants. Mr. Lumley, the author of the principal article on statistics, is probably one too. He has taken his information, he tells us, in regard to Great Britain, from the Registrar's Reports; the others, from reports made to parliament, and from the Annuaire de l'Economie et de la Statistique, of Paris. We have not a shadow of reason to doubt either the accuracy or fairness of the returns, or that they have been taken from the best governmental census returns. It would have been more creditable if Mr. Bacon had favored us with a table taken from these same returns, which he says are so easy to be obtained, to show the "outrageous falsity" of our statements, rather than to attempt to refute us by the method of pure insinuation.
We challenge Mr. Bacon or any one else to produce a table of illegitimacy embracing all or nearly all the Protestant and Catholic countries of Europe, from the latest governmental returns, which shall differ essentially from ours, or from which any one may not draw precisely the conclusions we have drawn in respect to the moral results of Protestantism and Catholicity.
This is all we need say on the main issue in question.
We will now explain what was stated about the rate of illegitimacy in Ireland. Had we been inclined to proceed in the unscrupulous manner which Mr. Bacon insinuates in regard to us, we could have given this rate of three per cent from The Church and the World without remark, as it is simply given there among the other figures; but as we could not verify it in the Statistical Journals, we said so, in order to warn the public, and we stated that probably Mr. Chambers had access to the Registrar's Report, which we had not. For this, Mr. Bacon pitches into us in this style:
"What will be the amazement of the reader to be informed that there are no 'Registrar's Reports' for Ireland; that the Romish priests and the Romish party have constantly succeeded in preventing, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, any act of parliament for securing such returns from Ireland; and that the supposed 'Registrar's Report' of three per cent of illegitimate births is a mere fiction!"
Hold on, Mr. Bacon! do not go ahead quite so fast. There are Registrar's Reports for Ireland, plenty of them, to be seen in the Statistical Journals in the Astor Library. In Thom's Official Almanac and Directory, Dublin, 1869, we read, "The act for the registration of births and deaths in Ireland came into operation on the 1st of January, 1864." Then follows registrar's returns of these for 1864, 1865, 1866, and 1867.
The first return of illegitimate births has just been published. Our supposition was, that these returns were in existence, though not perhaps complete enough to warrant publication, and that they were known in England to Mr. Chambers and others, and this seems to be the truth. The rate for Ireland is 3.8 per cent, not so different from the figure of The Church and the World. We take the following from the Catholic Opinion, London, June 19:
"Statistics Of Illegitimate Births.
"The Scotsman, one of the leading organs of Presbyterian Scotland, gives the following: