A Modest Proposal: For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick

								


A Modest Proposal
For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland,
from being a burden on their parents or country,
and for making them beneficial to the publick.
by Dr. Jonathan Swift
1729

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 stroling 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 and useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so
well of the publick, 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 our
projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their
computation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam, may be
supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment:
at most not above the value of two shillings, 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 expence
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