Read this excerpt from Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. "The number of souls in Ireland being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couples whose wives are breeders, from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples, who are able to maintain their own children... "
Why does Swift include these sorts of "facts and statistics" in his e
O to make his use of verbal irony more effective
O to reinforce his stated arguments
O to head off opposition to his stated arguments
O to demonstrate that he is well-educated