FREE ESSAY ON A MODEST PROPOSAL

A MODEST PROPOSAL

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
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 may be reserved for breed, whereof
only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or
swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a
circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to
serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in
the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the
mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat
for a good table. 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 fourth day,
especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar
year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.
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.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a
little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician,
that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries
about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after
Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants
is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral
advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon
all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per
annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for
the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of
excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to
dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among
his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till
she produces another child.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass;
the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer
boots for fine gentlemen.
As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most
convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I
rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we
do roasting pigs.
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was
lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He
said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he
conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and
maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number of both
sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service; and these
to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations.
But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be
altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me,
from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our
schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would
not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission
be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves; and besides,
it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice
(although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess,
hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well
intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head
by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London
above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any
young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of
quality as a prime dainty; and that in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who
was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's
prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from the
gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made
of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes
cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at playhouse and assemblies in foreign
fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor
people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts
what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not
in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day
dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably
expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they
cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if
at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to
perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to
come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the
advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the
highest importance.
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists,
with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as
our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the
kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good
protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay
tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may
be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle
being already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and
upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's
stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a
new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any
refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being
entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by
the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first
year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will
certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection,
and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value
themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how
to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either
encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and
tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life
to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of
expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could
bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the
time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their
sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a
practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand
carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and
improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great
destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or
magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a
considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this
and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.
***
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed
by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But
before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and
offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider
two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment
for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round
million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put
into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding
those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with
their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those politicians who
dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will
first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a
great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and
thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone
through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or
trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from
the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like
or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in
endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good
of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and
giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a
single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
The End