Question

Which sentence from "A Modest Proposal" is the best example of satire?

Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed.
Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.
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 cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children.

Answer 1

Sentence 2: "Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child."

Why: this line most clearly treats human beings as economic commodities — a deliberately outrageous proposal used to mock and expose the cruelty and utilitarian logic of the ruling class. It uses irony and grotesque reversal (selling children as a way to improve society) — key techniques of satire.