CHAPTER VI.

OF THE INHABITANTS OF LILLIPUT; THEIR LEARNING, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS;

THE MANNER OF EDUCATING THEIR CHILDREN. THE AUTHOR'S WAY OF LIVING

IN THAT COUNTRY.

Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a

particular treatise, yet, in the meantime, I am content to gratify the

curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of the

natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact

proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for

instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches

in height, the sheep an inch and a half, more or less; their geese about

the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards, till

you come to the smallest, which, to my sight, were almost invisible; but

nature hath adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper

for their view; they see with great exactness, but at no great distance.

And, to show the sharpness of their sight, towards objects that are

near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling[29] a lark,

which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an

invisible needle with invisible silk.

Their tallest trees are about seven feet high; I mean some of those in

the great royal park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my

fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this

I leave to the reader's imagination.

I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many

ages, hath flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner

of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right

like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians;

nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of

the paper to the other, like ladies in England.

They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they

hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise

again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will

turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at the resurrection, be

found ready, standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the

absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in

compliance to the vulgar.

There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and, if

they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I

should be tempted to say a little in their justification. It is only to

be wished they were as well executed. The first I shall mention relates

to informers. All crimes against the state are punished here with the

utmost severity; but, if the person accused maketh his innocence plainly

to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an

ignominious death; and, out of his goods, or lands, the innocent person

is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he

underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges

he hath been at in making his defence, or, it that fund be deficient,

it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him

some public mark of his favor, and proclamation is made of his innocence

through the whole city.

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom

fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance,

with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from

thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and, since

it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying

and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and

connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always

undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once

interceding with the king for a criminal, who had wronged his master of

a great sum of money, which he had received by order, and run away with,

and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was

only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me, to offer

as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and, truly, I had

little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different

nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed.

Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which

all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in

practice by any nation except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring

sufficient proof that he hath strictly observed the laws of his country

for seventy-three moons, hath a claim to certain privileges, according

to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable sum of out

of a fund appropriated for that use; he likewise acquires the title of

_snillpall_, or _legal_, which is added to his name, but doth not

descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious

defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced

only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this

account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is

formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one,

to signify circumspection, with a bag of gold open in her right hand,

and a sword sheath in her left, to show she was more disposed to reward

than to punish.

In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good

morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to

mankind, they believe that the common size of human understanding is

fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to

make the management of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only

by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born

in an age; but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to

be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by

experience, and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service

of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they

thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by

superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put

into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at

least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous

disposition, would never be of such fatal consequences to the public

weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt,

and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his

corruptions.

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man

incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow

themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think

nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as

disown the authority under which he acts.

In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to

mean the original institutions, and not the most scandalous corruptions

into which these people are fallen, by the degenerate nature of man.

For, as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by

dancing on the ropes, or badges of favor and distinction by leaping over

sticks, and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they

were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor, now reigning,

and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and

faction.

Ingratitude is, among them, a capital crime, as we read it to have been

in some other countries; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill

returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of

mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore such a

man is not fit to live.

Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ

extremely from ours. Their opinion is, that parents are the last of all

others to be trusted with the education of their own children; and,

therefore, they have, in every town, public nurseries, where all

parents, except cottagers and laborers, are obliged to send their

infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the

age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some

rudiments of docility. These schools are of several kinds, suited to

different qualities, and to both sexes. They have certain professors,

well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as

befits the rank of their parents, and their own capacities as well as

inclinations. I shall first say something of the male nurseries, and

then of the female.

The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth are provided with

grave and learned professors, and their several deputies. The clothes

and food of the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in the

principles of honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and

love of their country; they are always employed in some business, except

in the times of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours

for diversions, consisting of bodily exercises. They are dressed by men

till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves,

although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendants, who

are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial

offices. They are never suffered to converse with servants, but go

together in smaller or greater numbers to take their diversions, and

always in the presence of a professor, or one of his deputies; whereby

they avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice, to which our

children are subject. Their parents are suffered to see them only twice

a year; the visit to last but an hour; they are allowed to kiss the

child at meeting and parting; but a professor, who always stands by on

those occasions, will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling

expressions, or bring any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like.

The pension from each family, for the education and entertainment of a

child, upon failure of due payment, is levied by the emperor's officers.

The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen, merchants, traders,

and handicrafts, are managed proportionally after the same manner; only

those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old,

whereas those persons of quality continue in their exercises till

fifteen, which answers to twenty-one with us; but the confinement is

gradually lessened for the last three years.

In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are educated much

like the males, only they are dressed by orderly servants of their own

sex; but always in the presence of a professor or deputy, till they come

to dress themselves, which is at five years old. And if it be found that

these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or

foolish stories, or the common follies practised by the chambermaids

among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned

for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of the

country. Thus, the young ladies there are as much ashamed of being

cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments beyond

decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their

education, made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of

the women were not altogether so robust, and that some rules were given

them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was

enjoined them: for their maxim is that, among people of quality, a wife

should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she

cannot always be young. When the girls are twelve years old, which

among them is the marriageable age, their parents or guardians take

them home, with great expressions of gratitude to the professors, and

seldom without tears of the young lady and her companions.

In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are

instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex and their several

degrees; those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years

old, the rest are kept to eleven.

The meaner[30] families who have children at these nurseries are

obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to

return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their

gettings, to be a portion[31] for the child; and, therefore, all parents

are limited in their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think

nothing can be more unjust than for people to leave the burden of

supporting their children on the public. As to persons of quality, they

give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to

their condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry

and the most exact justice.

The cottagers and laborers keep their children at home, their business

being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their

education is of little consequence to the public; but the old and

diseased among them are supported by hospitals; for begging is a trade

unknown in this empire.

And here it may perhaps divert the curious reader to give some account

of my domestic,[32] and my manner of living in this country, during a

residence of nine months and thirteen days. Having a head for

mechanics, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made for myself

a table and chair, convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the

royal park. Two hundred seamtresses were employed to make me shirts,

and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest kind

they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in

several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their

linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a piece.

The seamtresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at

my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended that

each held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord with

a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired

no more; for, by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb

is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the

help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a

pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in

the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for

taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the

ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a

plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length

of my coat; but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes

were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs

would not have been able to hold them), they looked like the patchwork

made by the ladies in England, only that mine were all of a color.

[Illustration: "THREE HUNDRED TAILORS WERE EMPLOYED TO MAKE ME CLOTHES"

P. 74.]

I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little convenient

huts built about my house, where they and their families lived, and

prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took up twenty waiters in my hand, and

placed them on the table; an hundred more attended below on the ground,

some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and other

liquors, flung on their shoulders; all of which the waiters above drew

up, as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as we

draw the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a good

mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable draught. Their

mutton yields to ours, but their beef is excellent, I have had a sirloin

so large that I have been forced to make three bites of it; but this is

rare. My servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones and all, as in

our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkeys I usually

eat at a mouthful, and I must confess they far exceed ours. Of their

smaller fowl, I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife.

One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living,

desired that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of

the blood of both sexes, might have the happiness, as he was pleased to

call it, of dining with me. They came accordingly, and I placed them in

chairs of state upon my table, just over against me, with their guards

about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended there likewise,

with his white staff; and I observed he often looked on me with a sour

countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but eat more than usual,

in honor to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with

admiration. I have some private reasons to believe that this visit from

his majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill offices to his

master. That minister had always been my secret enemy, though he

outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the moroseness of his

nature. He represented to the emperor the low condition of his treasury;

that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that exchequer

bills[33] would not circulate under nine per cent, below par; that I had

cost his majesty above a million and a half of _sprugs_ (their greatest

gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle); and, upon the whole, that it

would be advisable in the emperor to take the first fair occasion of

dismissing me.

[Illustration: "THE HAPPINESS ... OF DINING WITH ME." P. 76.]

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