A Modest Proposal

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

I shall here, perhaps, be judged by some scrupulous people, as a little too sanguine in my hopes of the success of my proposal; but I doubt not of making my way by arguments just and reasonable.

One of the principal reasons for their numbers, is the excessive early marriages among the poor. The fruitfulness of their marriages, joined to the poverty of their parents, obliges them to dispose of their children to the rich, as they cannot afford to maintain them.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the second day, with a little gravy, for a ragout or fricassee.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work; I do it purely for the public good.

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

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 couple, who are able to maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot be so many,) and from the remaining one hundred and seventy thousand I say, there may be computed two hundred thousand children, of whom I calculate that one hundred and forty thousand may be reserved for breeding, whereof there will be eighty thousand males destined for food, and sixty thousand females kept for breeding, which will produce, at an average, thirty thousand meat children yearly, besides those more tender and delicate, which will be reserved for the table of great men.