it
themselves. 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, smith's work, or carpenter's work;
for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any
other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes
and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is
neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the 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 one or other
of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool
and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades
to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son,
inclinations often following descent: 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 person 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; 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 everywhere the common course of life amongst
all mechanics except the Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night
into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are
before dinner and three after; they then sup, and at eight o'clock,
counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours: the rest of their
time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is 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 lec