PART III. A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN.
6. CHAPTER VI.
(continued)
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; take a strict view of
their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, 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 Langdon, 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 colours, the conduct, and the 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 vigour to a
crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to
fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion
of 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 owners
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, 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 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
favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a
general; a running sore, the administration.