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

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 a

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 a 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