一个小小的建议.doc

A Modest Proposal by Dr. Jonathan Swift.  1729
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.
[1] 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 Cabin-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.
对于走过这座大城市,或在乡间旅行的人,他们看到的这些景象真是悲凉:街上、马路上、茅屋内挤满了女乞丐,后面跟着三个、四个或六个衣衫褴褛的孩子,向每个路人强要施舍。
These Mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in Strolling, 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.
这些母亲无法靠诚实劳动谋生,被迫终日游荡去养活那些无助的孩子,这些孩子长大后要么因找不到工作而沦为小偷,要么背井离乡去为西班牙那个觊觎王位者卖命,也许还会卖身到巴巴多斯。
[2] 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 mon-wealth wo