A Modest Proposal Revisited
For preventing the children of the poor from being a burden upon their parents and latterly their parents themselves upon the publick and thus for encouraging them to make a contribution to our society.
In the manner of Jonathan Swift whose proposal of 1729 was, unfortunately, laughed at and ignored.
It is often now often a great sadness for us to walk the streets of the poorer districts in the great cities of the western nations as it was for Dr. Swift three hundred years ago. Indeed it is a source of woe to witness the street corners and doorways roiling with the hopeless and desperate, living their quite pointless existences. Jesus himself assured us that the poor will always be with us, it is true and many of the wretched do deserve our care and pity. And we can measure the worth of a government by how well it treats and cares for the poor, sick and aged. But the problem has shifted in cause in the last centuries although many of the effects are similar. So I will maintain Dr Swift’s approach to a solution, no matter how challenging it may be, or offensive to some of the sentimental or less thoughtful.
In these now better times in the cities of the West, the few remaining truly poor and penurious are now joined by a host of the lost, the hopeless, the unemployed and unemployable in ever growing numbers. I define poor as those who have no discernable regular income and who are at danger of death from starvation or cold. No more than a hundred and fifty years ago and certainly in Dr Swift’s time, the poorest in cities like London would have starved to death in the streets or of disease in the workhouses but now they are provided with state pensions of various colours on which to survive, though not to thrive. As an unearned right. Some may slip through the cracks and still meet such a desperate fate but that is seen as a failing of the system and to be much deplored.
Now and despite the availability of quite reliable contraception for half a century and more, we are still much burdened by the incompetent poor and foolish, raised carelessly in poverty; the prodigious masses of the underpensioned and underemployed and their grubby offspring and outspring. They expect benefits and advantages to which their frequently low intellect and contribution surely does not entitle them and yet strangely we accept their demands for generalised equalities. Understandably the juveniles of this underclass develop a querulous sense of entitlement and so entertain themselves spitefully and desperately in their low-income misery with drugs, fast food, general mischief and underage breeding, thus compounding the problem and the strain on the public health and welfare systems. The unwashed offspring, grubby snot-nosed brats and garish youths of those too ignorant to avoid pregnancy clutter the landscape almost as much as their forebears did three hundred years ago although now we work hard to keep them alive and fit enough to perpetuate themselves. Once the mothers would have had to beg or prostitute themselves to support their careless brood but now, the state supports them. Grudgingly and parsimoniously it is true. The question then arises, what are we going to do with this stratum, parent and child? Most of the onetime employments of manual labour required little more than a strong arm or back, a willingness to obey for pay or even oftimes just a mere presence (night watchman, a job for the retired and infirm) but these have now been automated out of existence. There are now few occupations remaining for the dim and other permanently unemployables.
As the estimable authors of the book ‘Freakonomics’* noted, the violent crime rate in the various states of America rises significantly around twenty years after specific governments foolishly decide to ban abortion. As many of them are so now doing in a society which has far less interest in the post natal right to life. It is possible to compare the effect directly between neighboring states with widely different policies. Recent reductions in crime and social unrest are, they suggest, a direct result of the widespread and enlightened accessibility of safe abortion in the latter half of the twentieth century. So the 2040’s may be an unpleasant time ahead of them unless their Supreme Court changes direction. Many of those unwanted and unaborted children are neglected by their careless parents and eventually reach a useless maturity, bored, unemployed and convinced of their entitlements. For want of the ability to work or of the opportunity and yet still surrounded by the inducements of success, how many of these unwanted and often unloved are tempted into a life of crime, thieving from the more able that which they have honestly earned? They are a continuing burden on their hapless parents and on the state itself. Now mostly no longer huddled en masse in the streets but roaring aimlessly around them seeking excitements while sequestered in modern tenements and fed from the iron rice bowl of the public purse. An exercise in inverse eugenics where the halt, the lame and the mentally deficient are allowed if not encouraged to pass their inadequate genes on to yet another generation.
Few of these children resort to traditional begging once adulthood is reached as the state offers the opportunity to avoid this indignity but still, a few do so in their copious free time to augment a measly pension and I have spent time in countries where begging is rife and expected. But only recently I was importuned here in a middling suburb of Australia by a middle aged woman to borrow (!) three or four dollars to make a phone call. This despite the fact that the surviving public phones are now made free here as a public service. She was rather over-nourished I noted and I had to comment that as a pensioner, I couldn’t afford to smoke, which she was doing as she lied to me. The cost of cigarettes seems to be approaching the value of less licit drugs. I felt myself unable to help someone so incompetent even at soliciting a few dollars. I do give my change to another homeless street denizen as he is friendly, he never begs beyond a casual hat on the footpath, he doesn’t smoke and I like his dog.
In 1729, noted author, essayist and poet Jonathan Swift proposed a quite revolutionary and notorious solution to the similar though perhaps more visible problem in 18th Century Ireland. He noted that a child until a year of age is nourished by its mother at no cost beyond loving care and her own welfare and so is in effect, a cost free asset to her at that point. (Perhaps only a rather self-satisfied man who had never witnessed childbirth could make that crass observation). She could then as she could now, work at many tasks with a child at breast and in those days also find work as a wet nurse, feeding the children of the rich and squeamishly selfish. Some were so desperate that they would even murder their own child and pretend that it had died of disease in order to qualify for this occupation more easily. He then observed that between the ages of one and six, the excess surviving children were of little social utility, unable to work usefully or even to make their way by thieving. And then later of some value but limited use, perchance with a Fagin to guide and exploit them until at least the age of twelve. He did the sums and concluded that there were around one hundred and twenty thousand penurious infants in Ireland in the early 1700’s and that was more than the state could afford to reasonably support. How many more than that are there now in any fair sized developed western nation?
The Proposal itself
He proposed to the surprise, amusement and disgust of many of his time that the numerous unwanted children of the poverty stricken be butchered and made available to the wealthy as food, at one year of age, thus solving two problems. The gross burden on the state of the poor and the shortage of decent quality fresh meats for the rich. But remember that, of course he was writing a satire about political problems in Ireland and he also lived in harsher times when the poor often literally died in the street (such a waste of protein). At one year of age, he claimed, they represented no real cost or loss to the parents as they were then a small zero cost asset and a problematic future liability. Indeed the infants probably faced a lifetime of grinding misery. The returns for each subsequent year of life were not economically viable, not worth the investment in food and car so he considered yearlings close to 12 months to be the ideal age for harvesting and the newborn to be a delicacy.
Of course there would be many screams of protest now at such a suggestion, drawing on the rather suspect concept that human life is somehow sacred. But we also draw the line at eating many animals with little obvious reason. We divide them into companion pets and domestic exploitables. The English find the eating of horse to be unacceptable now that thy are reduced to mere pets and sport but I have eaten horse in France where there is such a tradition and many failed English racehorses have met their fate in a specialist abbatoir over the channel. It is a rather poor meat compared to good beef but healthier, being low in fat. Most of us who are neither Moslem or Jewish (or vegetarian) will eat pork with relish although a pig is demonstrably far smarter than any pet dog. We are most particular about which animals we will eat and which are either sacrosanct or too exotic and strange. A people who habitually eat dog in parts of Korea and China are regarded with horror. And those who seek out the meat of rare wild species are regarded with disgust although it is a given among those charged with environmental management that if you wish to control an environmental pest, then you should persuade people to eat them. Rabbits in Australia and Burmese Pythons in Florida, both are excellent eating but for some odd reason, only rural foragers s ever bother with them!
Be that as it may, if we could be persuaded to go there, a newborn would be around 8kg on average and a one year old ‘weaner’ over 20kg, half that as dressed weight. It would not be a cheap meat by modern standards but would fit well into a structure of exotic meats exploited by specialized butchers and restaurants for the high end dining trade keen to experience something special. And given the constant experimentation by celebrity chefs, there would be no shortage of those prepared to prepare this most exotic of meats in an expensive a manner as the market will bear, as Swift himself noted for the celebrity cooks and taverners of his own day. As with the London restaurant who recently offered a rice pudding dessert made with human milk at a very high price indeed. It was nothing special apparently but the price was justified by the strange experience. Further, given the benefit to the public purse, it should be generously subsidized by the government with a bounty per head which recognizes the savings in future pensions and education.
It might be difficult to persuade the average American or European to accept this trade from a standing start. Swift gives the example of the executed criminal in Formosa (probably invented) who is butchered and sold off to members of the court neatly jointed, for an upper class feast. Would cannibalism be acceptable in this case? Or in case of the survival of the football team who crashed in the Andes and ate parts of the frozen dead to survive until rescue, many of them racked by subsequent guilt? I speak here as one who has consumed human flesh in curiosity as with the breast milk pudding. My daughter-in-law graciously donated the placenta of my first grandson for the experiment and I cooked it like the liver it resembled. It was interesting but nothing special beyond the novelty. I’d rather eat black pudding and other offal. She herself was unconvinced by claims of almost magical health benefits to the mother. But I’m sure that many of you would consider that culinary treat to be obnoxious, unacceptable, weird or merely bizarre. The strength of my curiosity overcame that.
But could any woman even consider surrendering her living infant child for the table of the rich and indolent, no matter how desperate she was? Well, there are many poverty stricken families in the third world who, cursed with yet another unwanted child, have demonstrated their willingness to sell their children into slavery and prostitution with no hope of seeing them again or even of their survival. Surely such desperate families could be persuaded to surrender their excess offspring for a modest sum. So it could be advantageous to start this initiative with an import trade, again solving a problem of First World protein demand and Poor World famine and misery with a single solution of ruthless efficiency. In a global community and with effective refrigerated transport, it is now quite possible for the wealthy western nations to exploit the poor and desperate of the undeveloped world yet again, that ‘fourth’ world of nations that are not ‘underdeveloped’ because they will never develop. It has been suggested to me that already the African ‘bush meat’ sold surreptitiously in London markets at high price to the nostalgic local Africans might contain somewhat more than dried gazelle and hippopotamus. And if the locals were unwilling, as with the slave trade of old, it would be no problem to organize for dominant groups to capture, exploit and export the young of the neighboring groups that they despise. Remember Rwanda?
A more likely success might be found in this time of popular action movies with a high body count and empty morality in the use of older youths of fourteen or so as the objective of hunters. Many of those already ethically challenged to the point where they will kill for mere sport would find such a modest escalation to be little of an obstacle. This is a more complex use and was whimsically promoted in Swift’s time as a solution to the loss of available venison on the estates of greedy aristocrats who overhunted their deer. Their meat would be tougher than an infant, leaner and requiring more careful preparation but would have the greater flavour that more mature meats enjoy and as a virtual by-product of the primary interest and endeavour, the hunt itself, would be found no doubt at a more reasonable cost. It might also be possible to persuade the families of the young to make their juvenile children voluntary prey by offering substantial prizes to those who survive the chase. Several popular movies have been based on this idea ranging from arthouse to Schwartzenegger.
Swift poses his overall proposal with a direct challenge to objectors. That those who object to his scheme must offer a solution that will feed a million mouths and backs, which was of course his real point. We have now solved this problem to some extent with a widespread pension scheme in our welfare state but it misses something. We have fed those mouths but not the backs – we have prevented them starving but not given them anything to do and in that lies a serious social risk.
The Chinese answer was previously in engaging their huge population of displaced rural workers in massive infrastructure projects of dubious value, based on pure manual labour, unassisted by heavy machinery. In China, huge dams were built by labourers carrying earth on their backs or in baskets – the slower manner of work offset by the huge number of toilers. Five hundred men and women can move a massive pile of soil and rock debris if they work steadily and are fed appropriately on a healthy and economic diet of rice and vegetables with a little meat – the ‘iron rice bowl’. This has been replaced in modern times with villagers migrating to the factories of the cities for part or all of the year to work for food and low wages, assembling cheap products for western markets and for their own elites. The grand canals, roads and railways of Britain were built manually by Irish ‘navies’ in this way in the 19th Century on a diet of cheap meat and rough beer and they thrived on it, far fitter and healthier than the average worker. A massive amount of the landscape was repurposed in a surprisingly short time as a constant and steady pecking will soon create a monstrous hole if pursued diligently. I liken this to my travel by mobility scooter. A mere and laughable 10kph maximum, restricted by law, but a remarkable distance can be covered if the slow and steady pace is maintained.
Close to all this is the idea of voluntary slavery – in service to those who can afford to feed and house them in reasonable conditions. Many of us feel as if we are little more than wage slaves and our employers usually avoid the responsibility of feeding and housing us as they would with true slaves. Understanding that the poor may be poor because they are of a poor work temperament, unemployed for their unwillingness to work while a pension is freely available or of a very low intellect which requires constant and careful supervision for even the simplest tasks. I’ve often watched those condemned to community service orders as I was the CSO liaison officer for a high school. Once out of sight of their work supervisor, many would sit around and avoid even the pretense of work and even encourage the less indolent to join them for a smoke. Nevertheless, for a significant proportion this form of controlled and supervised basic work for a living wage could be a welcome option. Especially if it came with a cabin and a canteen. Once National Service for a couple of years in the Army took this role and a French friend of mine had the option of doing two years in the Fire service (Pompiers) rather than the Army.
The payment of a small pension could be conditional on taking up such ‘slave’ positions – small because the private ‘owner’ would provide a roof and food so any formal payment would be ‘all found’ and completely discretionary funds. The ‘owner’ would pay all or part of the pension or a fee to the government. A variation of this is ‘work for the dole’, a government scheme where the unemployed are required to work on public projects in exchange for their unemployment pension. And it would be a far cry from those American ‘chain gangs’ which were neo-slavery of the most unpleasant and corrupt form. The great Snowy River dam project was built after the war in Australia by hopeful immigrants who had to work on in manual tasks to qualify for citizenship, free movement and better prospects. Both benefitted, the state and the immigrant. But it is open to objection and resistance as it is reminiscent of the use of convicts in Early Australia where the condemned of reasonable character and disposition were handed off to free settlers who often treated them poorly. Equally today there are many who might sign on these welfare ‘slave order’ pensioners for rural and construction projects and exploit them mercilessly. The pensioners would need to have considerable protection. Further there would be opposition from regular farm labourers and construction workers who might be displaced from reasonably well paid jobs in preference for these minimum wage recipients. There would have to be an onus on the ‘slavemaster’ applicant to show that the project or task was wholly new and separate or created new jobs.
The worst has happened in the USA where the Americans have outsourced this idea with their concept of minimum wage. An employer can offer self-defined entry level jobs at a wage which is lower than the poverty line. This is supposed to be to create employment with basic low level jobs but is surprising how many positions have turned out to be ‘minimum’ and many fair wage recipients have been displaced. Amazon, Macdonalds and the like are built on the concept, virtually slavery without the expenses or responsibilities. Those who manage to live on the minimum wage must usually share housing or move back in with parents so that they can afford to eat!
Note!
Swift was of course engaged in writing a biting satire, of such a unique character that it is now referred to as ‘Swiftian’. Some people are so righteously outraged by the proposal that they miss the point. You can tell it’s satire because it is full of jokes and ironies but they are too wokishly dim or angry to recognize them. His audience at the time were rolling around laughing at the outrageousness. He was a man of compassion, a public intellectual and cleric of the Anglican church who rose to be Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and who wrote the truly great satire, Gulliver’s Travels which we now mistake for a children’s book. No, it’s dense, rich and savagely critical. He was quite cynical at times like any good satirist (“Pie crusts and promises are made to be broken.”) and gave us some great ideas (“Every dog must have its day.”) but was in no way serious about the rich eating the children of the poor. (Duh!) No more am I. But he was serious about his challenge to find a solution to the problem of he poor and wretched of 18th Century Ireland and so am I serious about suggesting that we find useful work for the poor and hopeless, marginalised by the automation of the simple, manual employment that would have given them work and dignity. There’s no justice in denying them work, its meaning and its income, and then complaining when they break in through the bathroom window and steal our computers.
*Freakonomics, Dubner, S. & Levitt, S., Joanna Cottler Book, 2005
The Original - 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 mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing till they arrive at six years old; except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier; during which time they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers; as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me, that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to this age, they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half a crown at most, on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriments and rags having been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the 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.
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 farmers) 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 excellent 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.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.
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.
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 supplied 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 county 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 cannot 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 schoolboys, 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 become breeders themselves: and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed, that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Psalmanaazor, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London, above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country, when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as a prime dainty; and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the Emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty’s prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court in joints from the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at a playhouse and assemblies in foreign fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed; and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken, to ease the nation of so grievous an incumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known, that they are every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers, they are now in almost as hopeful a condition. They cannot get work, and consequently pine away from want of nourishment, to a degree, that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour, they have not strength to perform it, and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of Papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country, than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to a distress, and help to pay their landlord’s rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintainance of a hundred thousand children, from two years old, and upwards, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation’s stock will be thereby encreased fifty thousand pounds per annum, besides the profit of a new dish, introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among our selves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns, where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection; and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating; and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards, or enforced by laws and penalties. It would encrease the care and tenderness of mothers towards their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the publick, to their annual profit instead of expence. We should soon see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barrel’d beef: the propagation of swine’s flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a Lord Mayor’s feast, or any other publick entertainment. But this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I freely own, and was indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual Kingdom of Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon Earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shopkeepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.
But, as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, As things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for a hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, There being a round million of creatures in humane figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock, would leave them in debt two million of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers, cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of intailing the like, or greater miseries, upon their breed for ever.
I profess in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.