第2章

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,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 flea 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 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,Icannot 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 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 Salmanaazor,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 play-house 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 over-run,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.