Although I intend to leave the description of the empire to a particular treatise . As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inch 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 gradation downward till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature has adapted the eyes of Lilliputians to all objects for their proper view : they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And , yo show the sharpness of their sight towards objects that are near, I I have 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 great royal park, the tops whereof I could be just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the reader's imagination.
I will say but little at present of their learning , which, for many ages, has flourished in all its branch among them: but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being from left to right, like the Europeans,nor from right to left , like the Arabians, nor from up to down , like the Chinese, but aslant , from one corner of paper to 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 will turn upside down. 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 trail, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or lands, the innocent person is quadruple recompensed, for the loss of his time , for the danger he underwent, for the hardship his imprisonment and for all the charges he has been at in making his defence ;or , if largely supplied by the crown. The Emperor also confers in him some public mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city.
They look upon fraud as greater crime than theft , and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death, but honestly 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 the 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 received by order and ran away with it; and happenings to tell his majesty , by way of extenuation , that it was only q breach of trust , the Emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer it as defence the greatest aggravation of the crime ; and truly I had little to say in return, further 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.In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities, 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 .
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 benefactors , must needs to 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 .
In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are educated much like the males, but always in the presence of a professor or deputy. And if it be found that these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories.
The cottagers and labourers keep their children at home , their bussines being only to till and cultivate the earth and therefore their education is of little consequences yo the public. I had made for myself a table and a chair convenient enough , out of the largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make my shirts, and linen for my bed and table all of the strongest and coarsest kind they could get , which , however, they were for ed to quilt together in several folds , for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn.
I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals in little convenient huts build about my house , where they and their entry lived and prepared me two dishes . I took up twenty waiters in my hand ,and placed them on the table . One day imperial majesty , being informed of my way of living , desired" that himself and his royal consort with the young princes .They came accordingly and I placed them in a chair of state , upon my table ,just over against me , with their guards about them. I'm here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady , who was an innocent sufferer on my account. The treasures 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 sometime that she once came privately to my lodging . I own she came often to my house , but always publically . 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 . These false knowledge which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to mention made the treasurer show his lady for sometime an ill - countenance and me as a worse and although he was atlast undeceived and reconciled to her , yet I lost all credit with him .
They look upon fraud as greater crime than theft , and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death, but honestly 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 the 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 received by order and ran away with it; and happenings to tell his majesty , by way of extenuation , that it was only q breach of trust , the Emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer it as defence the greatest aggravation of the crime ; and truly I had little to say in return, further than the common answer , that different nations had different customs , for I confess , I was heartily ashamed.
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 benefactors , must needs to 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 .
The cottagers and labourers keep their children at home , their bussines being only to till and cultivate the earth and therefore their education is of little consequences yo the public. I had made for myself a table and a chair convenient enough , out of the largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make my shirts, and linen for my bed and table all of the strongest and coarsest kind they could get , which , however, they were for ed to quilt together in several folds , for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn.
I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals in little convenient huts build about my house , where they and their entry lived and prepared me two dishes . I took up twenty waiters in my hand ,and placed them on the table . One day imperial majesty , being informed of my way of living , desired" that himself and his royal consort with the young princes .They came accordingly and I placed them in a chair of state , upon my table ,just over against me , with their guards about them. I'm here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady , who was an innocent sufferer on my account. The treasures 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 sometime that she once came privately to my lodging . I own she came often to my house , but always publically . 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 . These false knowledge which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to mention made the treasurer show his lady for sometime an ill - countenance and me as a worse and although he was atlast undeceived and reconciled to her , yet I lost all credit with him .
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