Jón á Bægisá - 01.11.2008, Page 122

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
1. 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 cab-
bin-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 hon-
est 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.
2. I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of chil-
dren 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 king-
dom, 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 sup-
ported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment: at
most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may cer-
tainly 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
120
á - Tímarit um þvðingar nr. 12 / 2008