It appears by a return which Earl Fortescue has obtained
that, speaking roughly, between one-fifth and one-sixth of the persons married did in 1875 still sign the marriage-register with a mark. In 1875, there were 201,212 marriages, or 402,424 persons married, of whom 71,326 affixed a mark to the register. In 1873, the propor- tion had been between one-quarter and one-fifth, so that even in two years the operation of the Education Act had made a sensible difference ; and it seems that the number of illiterates has di- minished in much the same proportion for women as for men. Ac- cording to this return, the " illiterate householders " liable to have been disfranchised in 1875 by their inability to read and mark their -own ballot-papers, had that been a disqualification, would have been considerably less than 17 per cent., for many men can read -and mark a vote who cannot write.
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