



Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





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 common-wealth, 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 cloathing 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 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, 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 remain an 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; they 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 saleable 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