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 public. by Dr. Jonathan Swift 1729 It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town1, 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 importuning2 every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest 5
livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance3 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 Barbadoes4. I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious5 number of children in the
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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
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this great town: Dublin, the capital of Ireland. importuning: persistently annoying or intrusive. 3 sustenance: nourishment. 4 sell themselves to the Barbadoes: Barbados is an island in the West Indies; the poor often sought better fortunes by going to the New World, often as indentured servants because they had no money for their passage. 5 prodigious: extremely large in number. 2