The Humble Petition of the Footmen in and about the City of
Dublin.
NOTE.
Swift may have written the following mock petition by way of
satire
against the many absurd petitions which were presented at the
time
to the Irish House of Commons, and of which two examples were
quoted in the note to a previous tract. If coal-porters and
hackney-coachmen might address the Honourable House, why not
footmen?
* * * * *
The present text is based on that found at the end of Swift's
“Serious and Useful Scheme to make an Hospital for
Incurables,”
issued by George Faulkner in 1733. Faulkner reprinted this
volume
in 1734.
[T. S.]