The flesh of infants may be used as gloves and summer boots
• Swift objects to eating girls as old as 14
because they would serve better as
breeders, and because people would
object that it is "a little bordering on
cruelty"
Although there are many suffering
"aged, diseased," or injured people,
nothing needs to be gone for them
because they are already dying "as fast
as can be reasonably expected"
Poor Irish tenants, who have already sold
their crops and cattle to pay the rent,
will now be able to pay by selling their
children
The sale of children will boost the
economy, by much reducing the cost of
raising children, and stimulating
consumption at taverns
Mothers will love their children more,
because they can now be sold profitably
as food
Husbands will now love their wives as
much as they do the farm animals that
are about to give birth
.
Swift says no one should talk to him
about a long list of alternative solutions,
most of them far more reasonable and
humane, until there is “at least some
glimpse of hope, that there will ever be