Jón á Bægisá - 01.11.2008, Page 128

Jonathan Swift — Jóhanna Gunnlaugsdóttir
because rhe 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.
14. I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child (in
which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farm-
ers) 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 excel-
lent 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 neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another
child.
15. Those who are rnore thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may
flea the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admi-
rable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.
16. 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.
17. 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 supply’d 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 can-
not 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 school-boys, 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 publick, because they soon would
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á .ýSceyáá — Tímarit um þýðingar nr. 12 / 2008