ILLEGITIMACY Sim,.----In view of Lord Attlee's recent reference to the
illegitimacy of J. H. Thomas. and to the corre- spondence which ensued, and in particular, in view of A. S. B. Glover's suggestion that the only persons besmirched by illegitimacy are the parents of the illegitimate, your readers might be interested in a recent decision of the Illinois Court of Appeals, which. differed from Mr. Glover.
The plaintiff was the illegitimate son of the de- fendant, and claimed that the latter's conduct in having sexual relations with his mother amounted to a legal wrong, since they were done in wilful disregard of possible injury to the sun. He claimed that as a result of the defendant's conduct, he had been deprived of a normal home, and stigmatised as illegitimate. The court held that defendant's conduct amounted to a moral and a legal wrong, but denied recovery on the ground that to permit it would have unforeseeable social consequences (surely poor comfort for the plaintiff?). But, Mr. Glover notwithstanding, the court declared that 'children born illegitimate have suffered an injury' and that 'laws cannot temper the cruelty of those
who hurl the epithet "bastard" nor ease the bitter- ness in him who hears it, knowing it to be true.'
GETZ
Assistant Professor of Law The University of British Columbia, Canada
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