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06 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Adventure Books Collection

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  Chapter six of the Inhabitants of Lilliput, their learning, laws and customs,
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  the manner of educating their children, the author's way of living in that country,
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  His vindiction of a great Lady. Although I intend to leave the description
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  of this empire to a particular treatise, yet in the meantime I am content
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  to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of
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  the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion
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  in all other animals, as well as plants and trees. For instance,
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  the tallest horse and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the
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  sheep an inch and a half. More or less, they geeze about the
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  bigness of a sparrow, And so the several gradations downwards till you come to
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  the smallest, which to my sight were almost invisible. But nature has adapted
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  the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper. For their view. They
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  see with great exactness, but at no great distance, and to show the
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  sharpness of their sight towards objects that are near. I have been much pleased
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  with observing a cook pulling a lark, which was not so large as a
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  common fly, and a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible silk.
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  Their tallest trees are about seven feet high, I mean some of those in
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  the Great Royal Park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my
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  fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion. But this I
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  leave to the reader's imagination. I shall say but little at present of their
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  learning, which for many ages has flourished in all its branches among them.
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  But their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to
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  the right like the Europeans, nor from the right to the left like the
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  Arabians, nor from up to down like the Chinese, but a slant from
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  one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. They
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  bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion that
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  in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the
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  earth, which they conceived be flat, will turn upside down, and by
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  this means they shall, at their resurrection be found ready standing on their feet.
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  The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice
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  still continues in compliance to the vulgar. There are some laws and customs in
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  this empire very peculiar, and if they were not so directly contrary to those
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  of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in
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  their justification. It is only to be wished they were as well executed.
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  The first I shall mention relates to informers. All crimes against the state are
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  punished here with the utmost severity. But if the person accused makes his innocent
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  plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious
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  death, and out of his goods or lands. The innocent person is quadruplely
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  recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for
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  the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he had been at
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  in making his defense. Or if that fund be deficient, it is largely
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  supplied by the crown. The Emperor also confers on him some public mark of
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  his favor, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city.
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  They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail
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  to punish it with death. For they allege that care and vigilance, with
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  a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty
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  has no defense against superior cunning. And since it is necessary that there should
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  be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling and dealing upon credit, where fraud
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  is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the
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  honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember
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  when I was once interceding with the Emperor for a criminal who had wronged his
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  master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and
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  ran away with, and happening to tell his Majesty by way of extenuation,
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  that it was only a breach of trust. The Emperor thought it monstrous in
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  me to offer as a defense the greatest aggravation of the crime, And truly
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  I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer that different
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  nations had different customs. For I confess I was heartily ashamed. Although we
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  usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet
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  I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except
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  that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof that he has strictly observed
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  the laws of his country for seventy three moons, has a claim to certain
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  privileges according to his quality or condition of life, with a proportional sum of
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  money out of a fund appropriated for that use. He likewise acquires the title
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  of snil pal or legal, which is added to his no but does not
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  descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy
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  among us when I told him that our laws were enforced only by penalties,
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  without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of
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  justice in their courts of judicature is formed with six eyes, two before,
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  as many behind and on each side, one to signify circumspection, with a
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  bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheathed in her
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  left, to show she is more disposed to reward them to punish. In
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  choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals and to
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  great abilities, For since government is necessary to mankind, they believe that the
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  common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other, and that
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  Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs and mystery to be comprehended
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  only by a few persons of sublime genius, which there are, seldom are
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  three born in an age. But they suppose truth, justice, temperance,
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  and the like to be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues,
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  assisted by experience in a good intention, would qualify any man for the
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  service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But
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  they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior
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  endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands
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  as those of persons so qualified, and at least that the mistakes committed by
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  ignorance in a virtuous disposition would never be of such fatal consequence to the public
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  weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt,
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  and who had great abilities to manage to multiply and defend his corruptions. In
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  like manner, the disbelief of a divine providence renders a man incapable of holding
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  any public station. For since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of providence.
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  The Liliputians that nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ
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  such men as disown their authority under which he acts. In relating these in
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  the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original institutions,
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  and not the most scandalous corruptions into which these people are fallen by the degenerate
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  nature of man. For as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by
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  dancing on the ropes or badges of favor and distinction, by leaping over sticks
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  and creeping under them, the reader is to observe that they were first introduced
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  by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and grew to the present height
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  by the gradual inquiries of party and faction. Ingratitude is among them a capital
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  crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries. For
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  they reason thus that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor must needs be a
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  common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he has received no obligation,
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  and therefore such a man is not fit to live. Their notions relating
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  to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours, For since the
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  conjunction of male and female is founded upon the great law of nature. In
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  order to propagate and continue the species, the Liliputians will needs have it that
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  men and women are joined together like other animals, by the motives of concupiscence,
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  and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like nature principle,
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  for which reason they will never allow that a child is under any obligation to
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  his father for begetting him, or to his mother for bringing him into the
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  world, which, considering that the miseries of human life, was neither a
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  benefit in himself, nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts in their
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  love encounters were otherwise employed. Upon these and the like reasonings, their opinion
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  is that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education
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  of their own children, and therefore they have in every town public nurseries,
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  where all parents, except cottagers and labourers, are obliged to send their infants
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  of both sexes, to be reared and educated when they come to the age
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  of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of
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  docility. These schools are of several kinds suited to different qualities and both sexes.
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  They have certain professors well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of
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  life as befits the rank of their parents and their own capacities, as well
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  as inclinations. I shall first say something of the male nurseries, and then
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  of the female. The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth are provided
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  with grave and learned professors and their several deputies. The clothes and food of
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  the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in the principles of
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  honour, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of
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  their country. They are always employed in some business, except in the times
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  of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours for diversion
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  consisting of bodily exercises. They are dressed by men till four years of age,
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  and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so
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  great, and the woman attendant, who are age proportionally two hours at fifty,
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  perform only the most menial offices. They are never suffered to converse with
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  servants, but go together in smaller or greater numbers to take their diversions,
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  and always in the presence of a professor or one of his deputies, whereby
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  they avoid these early bad impressions of folly and vice to which our children are
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  subject. Their parents are suffered to see them only twice a year. The
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  visit is to last but an hour. They are allowed to kiss the child
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  at meeting and parting, but a professor, who always stands by on those
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  occasions will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or
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  bring any presence of toys, sweetmeats and alike. The pension from each family
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  for the education and entertainment of a child, upon faire failure of due payment
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  is levied by the Emperor's officers. The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen,
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  merchants, traders, and handicraft are managed proportionally after the same manner. Only
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  those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old, whereas those
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  of persons of quality continue in their exercises till fifteen, which answers to twenty
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  one with us, but the confinement is gradually lessened for the last three years.
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  In the female nurseries, the young girl's equality are educated much like the
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  males only they are dressed by orderly servants of their own sex, but always
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  in the presence of a professor or deputy, till they come to dress themselves,
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  which is at five years old. And if it be found that the
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  nurses ever presumed to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories or the common
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  follies practiced by chambermaids among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city,
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  imprisoned for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part
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  of the country. Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards
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  and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments beyond decency and cleanliness.
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  Neither did I perceive any difference in their education made by their difference of
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  sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether so robust,
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  and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller
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  compass of learning was enjoined them for their maximies that among peoples of quality,
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  a wife should always be a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always
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  be young. When the girls are twelve years old, which among them is
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  the marriageable age, Their parents or guardians take them home with great expressions of
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  gratitude to the professors, and seldom without tears of the young lady and her
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  companions. In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are
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  instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex and their several degrees.
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  Those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept
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  till eleven. The meaner families who have children at these nurseries are obliged,
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  besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to
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  the steward of the nursery, a small monthly share of their gettings to be
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  a portioned for the child. And therefore all parents are limited in their expenses
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  by the law. For the Liliputians think nothing could be more unjust than for
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  people, in subservance to their own appetites to bring children into the world and
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  leave the burden of supporting them on the public. As to persons of quality,
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  they give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child suitable to their
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  condition, and these funds are always managed with good husbandry, and the most
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  exact justice. The cottages and laborers keep their children at home, their business
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  being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their education is of
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  little consequence to the public. But the old and diseased among them are supported
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  by hospitals. For begging is a trade unknown in this empire, and here
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  it may perhaps divert the curious reader to give some account of my domestics and
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  my manner of living in this country. During a residence of nine months and
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  thirteen days, having a head mechanically turned, and being likewise forced by necessity,
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  I had made for myself a table and chair convenient enough out of the
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  largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred seamstresses were employed to make me
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  shirts and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest
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  kind they could get, which, however, they were forced to quilt together
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  in several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their
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  linen is usually three inches wide and three feet make apiece. The seamstresses took
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  my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck and
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  another at my mid leg. With a strong cord extended that each held by
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  their while a third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an
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  inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more,
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  for by a mathematical computation that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist,
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  and so on to the neck and the waist. And by the help
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  of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a
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  pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in the same
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  manner to make me clothes. But they had another contrivance for taking my measure.
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  I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my
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  neck. Upon this ladder, one of them mounted and let fall a plumb
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  line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my
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  coat, but my waist and arms I measured myself when my clothes were finished,
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  which was done in my house, for the largest of theirs would not
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  have been able to hold them. They looked like the patchwork made by the
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  ladies in England, only that mine were all of a color. I had
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  three hundred cooks to dress my victuals in little convenient huts built about my house
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  where they and their families lived, and prepared me two dishes apiece. I
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  took up twenty waiters in my hand and placed them on the table, a
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  hundred more attendant below on the ground, some with dishes of meat, and
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  some with barrels of wine and other liqueurs slung on their shoulders, all which
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  the waiters above drew up as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner,
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  by certain cords, as we draw the bucket upper well. In Europe,
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  A dish of their meat was a good mouthful, and a barrel of their
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  liqueur a reasonable draft. Their mutton yielded to ours, but their beef is
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  excellent. I have had a surloin so large that I have been forced to
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  make three bites of it, but this is rare. My servants were astonished
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  to see me eat it, bones and all. As in our country we
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  do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkeys I usually ate at
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  a mouthful, and I confess they far exceeded hours of their smaller fowl.
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  I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife. One
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  day, his Imperial Majesty, being informed of my way of living, desired
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  that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of the blood of
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  both sexes, might have the happiness, as he was pleased to call it,
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  of dining with me. They came accordingly, and I placed them in
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  chairs of state upon my table, just over against me, with their guards
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  about them. Filnap, the Lord High Treasurer, attended there likewise, with
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  his white staff, and I observed he often looked on me with a sour
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  countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but ate more than usual
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  in honor to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with
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  admiration. I have some private reasons to believe that this visit from his Majesty
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  gave Filmnap an opportunity of doing the ill offices to his master. That minister
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  had always been my secret enemy. Though he outwardly caressed me more than was
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  usual to the moroseness of his nature, he represented to the Emperor the low
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  condition of his treasury, that he was forced to make up money at a
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  great discount, that exchequer bills would not circulate under nine percent below par.
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  That I had cost his Majesty above a million and a half of sprugues their
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  great is gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle, and upon the
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  whole that it would be advisable in the Emperor to take the first fair occasion
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  of dismissing me. I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent
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  lady who was an innocent sufferer. Upon my account, the Treasurer took a
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  fancy to be jealous of his wife from the malice of some evil tongues,
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  who informed him that her Grace had taken a violent affection for my person,
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  and the court scandal ran for some time that she was once come privately to
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  my lodging. This I solemnly declared to be a most infamous falsehood, without
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  any grounds further than that her Grace was pleased to treat me with all innocent
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  marks of freedom and friendship I own. She came often to my house,
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  but always publicly, not ever without three more in the coach, who were
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  usually her sister and young daughter, and some particular acquaintance. But this was
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  common to many other ladies of the court, and I still appealed to my
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  servants round whether they at any time saw a coach at my door without knowing
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  what persons were in it. On those occasions when a servant had given me
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  my notice, my custom was to go immediately to the door, and,
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  after paying my respects, to take up the coach and two horses very carefully
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  in my hands. For if there were six horses the POSTILI had always unharnessed
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  four and placed them on a table where I had fixed a movable rim quite
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  round of five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I often have four
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  coaches and horses at once on my table, full of company, while I
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  sat in my chair, leaning my face towards them. When I was engaged
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  with one, set the coach more gently drive the others round my table.
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  I have passed many afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I defy the
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  Treasurer or his two informers. I will name them and let them make the
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  best of it. Clusterrel and drunlow to prove that any person ever came to
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  me incognito except the Secretary Valdressel, who was sent by express command of his
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  Imperial Majesty. As I had before related, I should not have dwelt so
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  long upon this particular if it had not been a point wherein the reputation of
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  a great lady is so nearly concerned to say nothing of my own, though
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  I then had the honor to be an ardec, which the treasure himself is
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  not. For all the world knows that he is only a glum glum,
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  a title inferior by one degree, as that of a marquis is to a
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  duke in England. Yet I allow he preceded me in right of his post.
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  These false informations, which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an
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  accident not proper to mention, made the Treasurer show his lady for some time
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  an ill countenance, and me are worse. And although he was at last
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  undeceived and reconciled to her, yet I lost all credit with him, and
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  found my interest declined very fast with the Emperor himself, who was indeed too
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  much governed by that favorite end of Chapter six, Part one,