Show IT is an awful state of affairs morally which exits in the District of Columbia according to the report of Dr SMITH Tows siuNn health officer The showing which he made in his report just published would i indicate that the colored race is descending rather than ascending in the scale of morals mor-als On the subject of illegitimate children born of colored mothers in the District he says saysrae The birth of liii illegitimate colored children in one year of whom 121 were born dead by mothers mostly of schoolgirl age unmar ned and very often homeless calls for morn than passing notice Thestatusof the colond nice in the United States and especlillv in the southern portion thereof assumes growing im portanc as a social problem as the years go by The normal proportions between the legitimates legiti-mates and the illegitimates among the whites is maintain there being six of the former to one of the latter The return of Iho nnlirod i race show a continued growth of ille < jitimntc relations between the sexes there being only lJh legitimate to I illegitimate That is I the latter class equals three fourths of the lormer and oer Jb per cent of tillhirths of every kind I Examinations made by the oRIce as opportunity occurred have developed the fact that a large proportion of the mothers of these colored still born are unmarried girls ranging from fourteen to eighteen twenty years of age In most cases they either can not or will not disclose the name of the father of the child or give any clew by which he can be located lo-cated The colored population of the District of Columba now numbers about seicLt7iive f thousand thou-sand Ir philanthropy has any practical method with which to deal with a social evil such as this a wide Held < for its application is here presented especially if the social condition of the colored race in this district is an index ol that of the country at large |