Read the following passage:
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,
all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.
To what real-world problem fror Swift's time is the narrator referring?