r oats, or cows, or _Yahoos_; and wherever
there is any want (which is but seldom) it is immediately supplied by
unanimous consent and contribution. Here likewise the regulation of
children is settled: as for instance, if a _Houyhnhnm_ has two males, he
changes one of them with another that has two females; and when a child
has been lost by any casualty, where the mother is past breeding, it is
determined what family in the district shall breed another to supply the
loss.

CHAPTER IX.

A grand debate at the general assembly of the _Houyhnhnms_, and how it
was determined. The learning of the _Houyhnhnms_. Their buildings.
Their manner of burials. The defectiveness of their language.

One of these grand assemblies was held in my time, about three months
before my departure, whither my master went as the representative of our
district. In this council was resumed their old debate, and indeed the
only debate that ever happened in their country; whereof my master, after
his return, give me a very particular account.

The question to be debated was, "whether the _Yahoos_ should be
exterminated from the face of the earth?" One of the members for the
affirmative offered several arguments of great strength and weight,
alleging, "that as the _Yahoos_ were the most filthy, noisome, and
deformed animals which nature ever produced, so they were the most
restive and indocible, mischievous and malicious; they would privately
suck the teats of the _Houyhnhnms'_ cows, kill and devour their cats,
trample down their oats and grass, if they were not continually watched,
and commit a thousand other extravagancies." He took notice of a general
tradition, "that _Yahoos_ had not been always in their country; but that
many ages ago, two of these brutes appeared together upon a mountain;
whether produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or
from the ooze and froth of the sea, was never known; that these _Yahoos_
engendered, and their brood, in a short time, grew so numerous as to
overrun and infest the whole nation; that the _Houyhnhnms_, to get rid of
this evil, made a general hunting, and at last enclosed the whole herd;
and destroying the elder, every _Houyhnhnm_ kept two young ones in a
kennel, and brought them to such a degree of tameness, as an animal, so
savage by nature, can be capable of acquiring, using them for draught and
carriage; that there seemed to be much truth in this tradition, and that
thos