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70sEraVet

(5,641 posts)
2. Satire in the vein of Dr. Jonathan Swift, who, in 1729 after pleading with Parliment to aid the poor
Mon May 9, 2022, 09:35 PM
May 2022

made this outlandish suggestion:
Title: "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"

"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 was a little shocked to read one paragraph that referenced 'abortions'! I hadn't remembered that.)

"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."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm

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