OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE.

"Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them all, that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; from their childhood they are instructed in it, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves.100

"Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself, such as the manufacture of wool, or flax, masonry, smiths' work, or carpenters' work; for there is no other sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.

"All the island over they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except that which is necessary for marking the difference between the two sexes, and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters; and, as it is not ungraceful, not uneasy, so it is fitted for their climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn

100 Agriculture, though not unfavourable to personal comfort and independence, very often indisposes men to assert their political rights. Rural populations, being, in fact, generally ignorant, easily become a prey to designing and plausible knaves. Whatever divides men brutalizes them. They can only be civilized by being brought together in masses.

one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit better with their feebleness, leaving the other ruder trades to the men. Generally the

same trade passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent; 101 but if any man's genius lies another way, he is by adoption translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken, not only by his father but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good man. And if, after a man has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.

"The chief, and almost the only business of the syphogrants is, to take care that no man may live. idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently.102 Yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is the common course of life of all tradesmen everywhere, except among the Utopians; but they, dividing the day and night into

101 More or less this must be the case in all countries. But it is apt to create a spirit of caste, than which nothing can be more unfavourable to freedom or to happiness. The Egyptians were enslaved by it, and the Hindoos are, though no institutions have ever been able to maintain it rigidly.

102 A law of Solon.

twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of them are before dinner; and after that they dine, and interrupt their labour for two hours, and then they go to work again for other three hours, and after that they sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, they go to bed, and sleep eight hours; and for their other hours, besides those of work, and those that go for eating and sleeping, they are left to every man's discretion: yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is for the most part reading.

"It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before day-break; 103 to which none are obliged to go but those that are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or another, according to the variety of their inclinations. But if others that are not made for contemplation choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trade, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are commended rather as men that take care to serve their country. After supper, they spend an hour in some diversion; in summer it is in their gardens, and in winter it is in the halls

103 The little Arab boys in Marocco follow this plan. Every morning they are in the mosque before sunrise, where the Sheikh expounds to them the Koran, and teaches the elements of reading and writing. Among the poor there is only one hour devoted to learning every day; for immediately after breakfast all the pupils go to work, and are employed till the evening. The rich do as they please.

where they eat; and they entertain themselves in them, either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or such like foolish and mischievous games. They have two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, by which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the vices and the virtues, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special oppositions between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice does either openly assault or secretly undermine virtue, and virtue, on the other hand, resists it, and the means by which either side obtains the victory.

"But this matter of the time set off for labour is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may, perhaps, imagine that, since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions. But it is so far from being true, that this time is not sufficient for supplying them with a plenty of all things, that are either necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend, if you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind; 104 and if some few women are dili

104 Women were generally industrious at Athens, except the very rich. In our own country, and in Germany, the same thing could once be said; but other maxims now prevail, and it is thought more becoming in a woman to discuss the merits of

gent their husbands are idle. Then consider the great company of the idle priests, and of those that are called religious men; add to these all the rich men, chiefly those that have estates in lands, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons that do nothing but go swaggering about.104 Reckon in with these all those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labours mankind are supplied, is much less than you did perhaps imagine. Then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that men do really need; for we who measure all things by money, give occasions to many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and that serve only to support riot and luxury. For if those who are at work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance of them, and by that means the prices of them would so sink, that tradesmen could not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about useless things were set to more profitable trades; and if all that number that languish out their life in sloth and idleness, of whom every one consumes as much as any two of the men that are

opera-dancers, or novels written by or for that class of people, than to know aught of household matters.

105 Sir Thomas More, we see, was no admirer of the Almack coteries, et hoc genus omne. He must have been a singular

courtier.