Secondly, how is this information to be obtained? The bill enacts, by section 9, that the registrar shall inform himself carefully of every birth happening in his district, and learn and register the particulars required as soon after the event as conveniently may be done. By section 11, that the occupier of every house in which a child shall be born shall, within three days after birth, give notice thereof to the registrar of the district; that the person finding any new-born child exposed shall forthwith give notice thereof, and of the place where such child was first found alive, to the registrar of the district; that if any person required to give notice shall refuse or neglect to give such notice within three days after birth he shall forfeit £10.; and by section 12, that the father and mother of every child born in England, or one of them, or in case of the death, illness, absence, or inability of the father and mother, the guardian and next friend of such child, and the occupier of the house in which such child shall be born, shall, within fourteen days after birth, give information upon being requested so to do, to the said registrar, according to the best of his or her knowledge or belief, of the particulars required to be registered touching the birth; imprisonment not exceeding six months is inflicted for giving a false statement. Births are not to be registered after fourteen days, and by section 22, if any registrar shall refuse, or without reasonable cause omit, to register any birth of which he shall have had such notice as aforesaid, he shall forfeit £50.

The first general direction to the registrar, to inform himself of every birth in his district, is a kind of roving commission; vague, inoperative, and out of place. After the occupier of every house in which a birth occurred had been directed to give notice of the event, then the registrar should have been required, on receipt of such notice, to apply to the parents and other parties who are in the following section directed to give him information. If from the very general nature of the instructions in section 9, it be intended that the registrar should exercise some little diligence in searching out for births of which no notice may have been given him, that duty should be exacted and enforced in some explicit and intelligible manner; if that be not intended, then it should ap

pear plainly that he is not obliged to act until he receive notice. Nor is it clear whether the registrar is bound to depend entirely upon, and confine himself to, the information of the parents and other parties enumerated, or whether he may also refer to others for information, either corroborative or contradictory, of that first received. In the conclusion of the 11th section, inflicting a penalty on any person neglecting to give notice within three days after the birth, the case of a person neglecting to give notice forthwith after finding a child, is omitted. Nor is it defined what the registrar is to do after receiving notice of a new-born child being found; if it appear to be less than fourteen days old, we presume that as the age is the only requisite particular that can be known, a name should also be given it, and a special entry made of the circumstances; if it appear to be more than fourteen days of age, we infer that no entry should be made in the register at all. An important omission we consider it in this part of the bill that the registrar is not directed to see the child, which he should always do. In France, where a civil and compulsory registration has long existed, been well managed, and given general satisfaction, the parents are required, within three days, to produce the child to the mayor of the commune, who registers its birth; this is a great check upon fraud, for the registrar cannot, if he see the child, be much deceived respecting its age, and as the bill sends him to the parents for information, the duty of seeing the child would be scarcely any additional trouble.

The rules for furnishing information of deaths are identical with those above explained respecting births, and are included in the same sections, viz. the 9th, 11th, 12th and 22d; the registrar being directed to inform himself of every death within his district, the householder and person finding a dead body being bound to give notice, and the next of kin present with or attending at the time of death, or in case of the illness or inability, or subsequent absence of such relation, the occupier of the house in which such death shallhave happened, being equally bound within fourteen days after death to give information, upon being requested by the registrar, of the particulars required to be registered. By

section 14, the registrar shall deliver gratis to the undertaker or other person having charge of the funeral, a certificate that the death has been registered, which shall be delivered to the minister or person officiating in the religious burial service, and a person performing any funeral or religious service without having received such certificate shall forfeit £50.

t

Much of what we have said respecting births, is equally applicable to the registry of deaths; and as to the latter it may be even more important that the registrar should, as in France, have ocular inspection of the dead body, for which purpose it would be requisite to confine the period for collecting the particulars to a less extent than fourteen days; though this view of the body might not be so necessary, if information respecting deaths were obtained from the medical attendant, who is not referred to in the bill. The causes of death might, we conceive, be readily ascertained and registered, either if the medical attendant of every party deceased were at once required to send to the registrar a certificate of the cause of death, or if the registrar were directed to inquire, amongst other particulars, the name of the medical attendant, and to send him a form of certificate to be filled up and returned immediately, in consideration of which all physicians and surgeons should be yearly presented with the entire result in the shape of an analytical digest prepared at the metropolitan office, according to the most approved methods; showing the relative proportion of the different causes of death in different parts of the country and amongst the different classes of society.

Every person who shall solemnize a MARRIAGE is authorized to ask of the parties the particulars required to be registered concerning it, and a fine of from £5 to £50 is inflicted for neglecting to answer or giving a false statement.

The contemplated alteration as to the legal solemnization of marriage not being yet effected, the present bill only improves the form of entering a marriage on the register, and compels parties to answer the enquiries requisite for that purpose.

To meet the difficulty urged by several witnesses that a child might be registered in the name of John or Mary, be afterwards baptized Thomas or Elizabeth, and be known

during life by the baptismal name, thus destroying the evidence of identity, it is specially provided, that if any child who has been registered shall have any other name subsequently given to it in baptism, the parent, or guardian, or person procuring such unregistered name to be given, shall (under the penalty of £20 for default) forthwith give notice thereof to the person in whose keeping the registrar's book containing the entry of the child's birth shall be, and personally deliver to the register keeper a certificate of the baptism, which the minister shall give whenever demanded, and the register keeper shall, without erasure of the original entry, add thereto that the child was baptized by such name, and certify on the certificate the additional entry he has made in the registrar's book, and then forward the certificate to the superintendent registrar of the district. As the minister is entitled to a fee for the certificate, and the register keeper to another fee for the addition, it will always be more usual, because more economical, to baptize by the registered name.

Errors or omissions in the registry of births and deaths may be corrected within six months, on sufficient proof before a justice of the peace; and similar mistakes in the registry of marriages may be corrected within the same period, on proof before the justices in quarter sessions.

There are no doubt many matters of detail which will require to be supplied in order to make this measure complete ; it occurs to us at present, for example, that there are no provisions for effecting the registry of births, marriages, and deaths in the army and navy, on foreign service, or generally in foreign countries; that some direction should be given for publishing annually in each parish the statistic result of the registers of the place during the past year, and that if any of the registers deposited in the parish chest be lost, stolen, or become so defaced as to be illegible, a fresh certified copy should be procured from the metropolitan office, and paid for at a fixed scale of charge out of the poor-rate, except in cases of wilful damage or gross neglect.

Having now explained the nature of this bill, and pointed out what we deem might be improvements in it, we do not hesitate to affirm that its general features are excellent, and