A Modest Proposal | Page 3

original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small

Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

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 common-wealth, 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
cloathing 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 an 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 an 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