1729

                               A MODEST PROPOSAL

             FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND

              FROM BEING ABURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND

                    FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC

                               by Jonathan Swift

  It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great
town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads,
and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by
three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every
passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work
for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in
strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they
grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear
native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves
to the Barbadoes.

  I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of
children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their
mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable
state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and,
therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of
making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would
deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a
preserver of the nation.

  But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for
the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and
shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are
born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those
who demand our charity in the streets.

  As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon
this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of
other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the
computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be
supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment;
at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly
get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging;
and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them
in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or
the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives,
they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to
the clothing, of many thousands.

  There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will
prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women
murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us!
sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the
expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most
savage and inhuman breast.

  The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one
million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two
hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number
I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their
own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under
the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there
will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract
fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die
by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred
and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The
question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided
for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of
affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed.
For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we
neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land:
they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they
arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts,
although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which
time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers,
as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of
Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two
instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so
renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

  I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve
years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age
they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and
half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account
either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags
having been at least four times that value.

  I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope
will not be liable to the least objection.

  I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in
London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most
delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted,
baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in
a fricassee or a ragout.

  I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the
hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand