The Almighty Sprug: Gulliver's Eyewitness Account of the Quaint Economy of Lilliput



  The

  Almighty

  Sprug:

  Gulliver’s Eyewitness

  Account of the Quaint

  Economy of Lilliput

  By Richard J. Wilson J.D.

  Copyright 1012 Richard J. Wilson J.D.

  Gulliver’s manuscript

  with maps of Lilliput and Blefuscu

  Gulliver

  Introduction

  Ye know me as Capt. Gulliver in Jonathan Swift’s famous book of Gulliver’s Travels. His book made me rich; and the story of my voyage to the remote Pacific Islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu made me famous. The good Dean gave word for word my description of the islands, and its people and much of their quaint political behavior. He told how the inhabitants were very tiny, hardly reaching to my ankle, but were very industrious, intelligent, and hard working.

  And he accurately observed that they were evenly divided into two political parties – the High Heels who strongly argued a soft boiled egg must always be opened on the pointed end – and the Low Heels who strongly argued it should only be opened on the round end. And he described in detail the intrigues and infighting that ensued from this major political difference.

  But to my great disappointment the good Dean completely left out my report of the quaint economy of Lilliput. His excuse was that nobody would believe a modern society would worship its money as a living God, and certainly such a report could not be included in a book published by a frocked Dean of The Church of England. So I didn’t press the point and was just happy to have my other reports published.

  However, as time passed, I found my reminisces of the quaint economy of Lilliput and the joys, problems, and infighting between the High Heels and Low Heels over the economy was probably the most interesting thing I witnessed in all my voyages. So I have written this brief account while it is still fresh in mind in the hope that in future it will be found by someone settling my estate and be published.

  I’ll start in the beginning with how I arrived on the islands of Lilliput, and the resources of the islands, and then describe how the Lilliputians began worshipping their money as a God, reorganized their economy into a theocracy directed by it, and then describe what it was like to live in a society ruled by the Anointed of the “invisible hand” of The Almighty Sprug.

  My account, however, will only make sense if you look at things as I did from the point of view of the little people. Remember, they didn’t have the advantage we have of using a sophisticated secular monetary system backed by gold and silver and run by a brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer, for on their island there was not a scrap of rare metal.

  Gulliver’s map of the islands

  of Lilliput and Blefuscu that

  I found folded into his manuscript

  1

  The Potential

  Gardens of Eden

  I chanced upon the islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu in June of 1699 while on what should have been an uneventful voyage from Tahiti to the north coast of Australia delivering 200 “transportation” prisoners. In a sudden and unexpected typhoon, as they called such Pacific storms, I lost my ship with all hands and all prisoners. Fortunately, the last person to abandon ship, I got tangled in a bunch of empty wine skins that acted as bladders and miraculously kept me afloat.

  Apparently I was carried ashore by wind and tide to what turned out to be the uncharted Island of Lilliput. When I revived the next morning, I found myself tied down by hundreds of very tiny threads, and held prisoner by a huge mob of very tiny people. One islander was standing on my chest, and he weighed so little he felt like a mouse.

  When the little people found I wasn’t dangerous, they set me free, and, on my first walk about, I found Lilliput to be a blessed place. It had warm gentle breezes, regular soft rain common to the South Pacific, and I discovered that the island’s rich volcanic soil and the hard work of the people easily yielded two and, in some leeward areas, as much as three annual harvests. In all respects Lilliput had the potential of being a virtual Garden of Eden.

  Later I learned that Scripture in their Holy Book confirmed that the Lilliputians had indeed once lived in a Garden of Eden. But, unfortunately, by the time I arrived, their society had become a struggle for survival. A few lived like emperors, a small middle class prospered, and the lower class struggled to keep food on their table and a roof over their heads.

  But the strange thing was the tiny people were not in the least upset at the passing of the Garden of Eden. They found the struggling for survival far more exciting than life in the humdrum Garden of Eden. Once they traded the Garden of Eden for the struggle for survival, they wondered why it had taken them so long to make the change.

  I know it sounds like a sea story, and I can understand why the good Dean Swift excluded my account as unbelievable, but let me describe in detail what caused the little people to change from a tranquil and secure life in a Garden of Eden to their present condition, and why they preferred it. I’ll begin with the problem they had during the Garden of Eden that triggered the change – the problem of the tithe.

  THE TITHE PROBLEM; During their Garden of Eden period the tiny people worked their fields, paid their tithe of 10% required by their Holy Book to the aristocratic land owners, and traded their goods by barter in well regulated marketplaces provided by the Emperor that included three imperial agents sitting on high stools with the power to resolve any dispute that might arise.

  Their economy at the time was driven by their natural sense of pride in workmanship, sense of duty to society, and a natural joy in cooperating with each other in mutual trust. With this attitude and their natural resources and hard work, as organization and technology improved, production improved, until, eventually, they were producing enough to provide prosperity and employment for everyone.

  But this very full employment and prosperity presented a serious problem, for as I said Scripture required the people deliver 10% of the production as a tithe to the castles of their Lords and Ladies, and, as production increased, the tithe increased, until eventually the castle’s occupants were unable to consume one day’s tithe before another was delivered.

  Thus, day after day, the castles became more and more glutted with all manners of food and animals, and it didn’t take long before every castle on the island became little more than a stinking garbage dump. It became so bad the Lords and Ladies, instead of being honored and respected by the peasants, became objects of subtle ridicule – vestiges of which still lingered when I arrived.

  Just as peasants all over the world should do when passing before the gate of the castle of their betters, the Lilliputians would respectfully stop, stand on one leg, doff their cap, close their eyes, and bow deeply toward the castle. But, because of the stink, the peasants began holding their nose between the thumb and fourth finger of the right hand, with their little finger stiff out pointing to the castle.

  When I arrived, even though the problem of the stink had long been resolved by the birth of The Almighty Sprug, the naughty practice of holding their nose continued. In fact the practice became so ingrained in their culture, that whenever they would mention their Lords and Ladies, they would still hold their nose and, thus, speak of their betters with a very distinct nasal sound.

  Well, getting back to the stink, quite naturally the Low Heels in Parliament proposed the sensible solution of reducing the tithe. However, the High Heels shouted them down arguing that the tithe was required by Scripture in their Holy Book, and couldn’t possibly be eliminate
d. The High Heels were sticklers for not deviating from any kind of ancient documents, especially ecclesiastical works.

  Furthermore the High Heels argued the tithe was necessary as a mark of distinction between a peasant and his betters. Without a tithe, they complained, there’d be no difference between a peasant and his Lord and Lady, and the entire social structure of the island would crumble. So the full tithe remained a fixture, and, as organization and technology improved, production naturally increased, and the stink in the castles grew ever worse.

  The peasants, of course, enjoyed the growing prosperity of their Garden of Eden, but the Lords and Ladies were at their wits end to find some way to stop all the production to allow them to keep the tithe as a mark of distinction from the peasants, while doing away with the stink. Many books