A Modest Proposal 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 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.