Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/222

212 grow stronger; for, I doubt, the new project of tanning without it is at an end. Our beef, I am afraid, still continues scandalous in foreign markets for the old reasons. But our tallow, for any thing I know, may be good. However, to bestow the whole kingdom on beef and mutton, and thereby drive out half the people, who should eat their share, and force the rest, to send sometimes as far as Egypt for bread to eat with it, is a most peculiar and distinguished piece of publick economy, of which I have no comprehension.

I know very well that our ancestors the Scythians, and their posterity our kinsmen the Tartars, lived upon the blood, and milk, and raw flesh of their cattle, without one grain of corn; but I confess myself so degenerate, that I am not easy without bread to my victuals.

What amazed me for a week or two, was to see, in this prodigious plenty of cattle, and dearth of human creatures, and want of bread, as well as money to buy it, that all kind of flesh meat should be monstrously dear, beyond what was ever known in this kingdom. I thought it a defect in the laws, that there was not some regulation in the price of flesh, as well as bread: but I imagine myself to have guessed out the reason: in short, I am apt to think, that the whole kingdom is overstocked with cattle, both black and white: and as it is observed, that the poor Irish have a vanity to be rather owners, of two lean cows, than one fat, although with double the charge of grazing, and but half the quantity of milk; so I conceive it much more difficult at present, to find a fat bullock or wether, than it would be if half of them were fairly knocked on the