Gulliver's Travels

f the inhabitants of Lilliput; their learning, laws, and customs; the
manner of educating their children. The author’s way of living in that
country. His vindication of a great lady.

Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a
particular treatise, yet, in the mean time, 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 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 has 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 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, has 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 downward, 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 their 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 makes 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 has been at in making his defence; or, if that fund be
deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also
confers on him some public mark of his favour, 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 defence 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 has 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 emperor for a criminal who had wronged his
master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran
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. [330]

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 has strictly observed the laws of
his country for seventy-three moons, has a claim to certain privileges,
according to his quality or condition of life, with a proportionable
sum of money out of a fund appropriated for that use: he likewise
acquires the title of snilpall, or legal, which is added to his name,
but does 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 sheathed in her left, to show she is 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 consequence 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 favour 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 has 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. For, since the conjunction of male and female is
founded upon the great law of nature, in order to propagate and
continue the species, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that men and
women are joined together, like other animals, by the motives of
concupiscence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds
from the like natural principle: for which reason they will never allow
that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him,
or to his mother for bringing him into the world; which, considering
the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself, nor
intended so by his parents, whose thoughts, in their love encounters,
were otherwise employed. Upon these, and the like reasonings, 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
labourers, 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 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 honour, 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
attendant, 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 is 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 proportionably after the same manner; only
those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old,
whereas those of 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
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 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 females 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 peoples
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 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 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, in subservience to their own appetites,
to bring children into the world, and leave the burthen of supporting
them 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 labourers 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 domestics, and my manner of living in this country,
during a residence of nine months, and thirteen days. Having a head
mechanically turned, 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 sempstresses 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 sempstresses 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 patch-work made by the ladies in England,
only that mine were all of a colour.

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: a hundred more attended below on the
ground, some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and
other liquors slung on their shoulders; all 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 ate at a mouthful, and I 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 ate
more than usual, in honour 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 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.”

I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who
was an innocent sufferer upon my account. The treasurer took a fancy to
be jealous of his wife, from the malice of some evil tongues, who
informed him that her grace had taken a violent affection for my
person; and the court scandal ran for some time, that she once came
privately to my lodging. This I solemnly declare to be a most infamous
falsehood, without any grounds, further than that her grace was pleased
to treat me with all innocent marks of freedom and friendship. I own
she came often to my house, but always publicly, nor ever without three
more in the coach, who were usually her sister and young daughter, and
some particular acquaintance; but this was common to many other ladies
of the court. And I still appeal to my servants round, whether they at
any time saw a coach at my door, without knowing what persons were in
it. On those occasions, when a servant had given me notice, my custom
was to go immediately to the door, and, after paying my respects, to
take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for, if
there were six horses, the postillion always unharnessed four,) and
place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim quite round, of
five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I have often had four
coaches and horses at once on my table, full of company, while I sat in
my chair, leaning my face towards them; and when I was engaged with one
set, the coachmen would gently drive the others round my table. I have
passed many an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I
defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and let
them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that any person
ever came to me incognito, except the secretary Reldresal, who was
sent by express command of his imperial majesty, as I have before
related. I should not have dwelt so long upon this particular, if it
had not been a point wherein the reputation of a great lady is so
nearly concerned, to say nothing of my own; though I then had the
honour to be a nardac, which the treasurer himself is not; for all
the world knows, that he is only a glumglum, a title inferior by one
degree, as that of a marquis is to a duke in England; yet I allow he
preceded me in right of his post. These false informations, which I
afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to
mention, made the treasurer show his lady for some time an ill
countenance, and me a worse; and although he was at last undeceived and
reconciled to her, yet I lost all credit with him, and found my
interest decline very fast with the emperor himself, who was, indeed,
too much governed by that favourite.