Gulliver's Travels | Chapter VI - Page 2
The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting.
To keep senators in the interest of the crown it was proposed that the members should raffle for employments, every man first taking an oath, and giving security that he would vote for the court, whether he won or no; after which the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy. Thus hope and expectation would be kept alive; none would complain of broken promises, but impute their disappointments wholly to Fortune, whose shoulders are broader and stronger than those of a ministry.
Another professor showed me a large paper of instructions for discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. He advised great statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons; their times of eating, upon which side they lay in bed, with which hand they wipe their posteriors; to take a strict view of their excrements; and, from the color, the odor, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness, or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs: because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent as when they are at stool which he found by frequent experiment. For, in such conjunctures, when he used, merely as a trial, to consider which was the best way of murdering the King, his ordure would have a tincture of green, but quite different when he thought only of raising an insurrection or burning the metropolis.
The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many observations both curious and useful for politicians; but, as I conceived, not altogether complete. This I ventured to tell the author, and offered, if he pleased, to supply him with some additions. He received my proposition with more compliance than is usual among writers, especially those of the projecting species, professing he would be glad to receive further information.
I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langden, where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner, wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colors, the conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigor to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their pockets with forfeitures, and raise or sink the opinion of the public credit as either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the criminal in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters; for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese to signify a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favorite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.
Where this method fails they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings. Thus N shall signify a plot, B a regiment of horse, L a fleet at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say in a letter to a friend, our brother Tom has just got the piles, a skilful decipherer would discover that the same letters which compose that sentence may be analyzed in the following words: Resist—a plot is brought home—the tour. And this is the anagrammatic method.
The professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating these observations, and promised to make honorable mention of me in his treatise.
I saw nothing in this country that could invite me to a longer continuance, and began to think of returning home to England.
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also:
- - For teachers, the Gulliver's Travels Lesson Plan.
- - Gulliver's Travels summary and study guide in the eNotes.
Tell a friend about Gulliver's Travels at eNotes.
