eased from being a tradesman and ranked among their learned men. Out of
these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and
the Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of
late their Ademus.

"And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to
be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily make
the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are
obliged to labour. But, besides all that has been already said, it is to
be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less
labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among
us employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a house
that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at
a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small
charge; it frequently happens that the same house which one person built
at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more
delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he, suffering it to
fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians
all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece
of ground, and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but
show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings
are preserved very long with but very little labour, and thus the
builders, to whom that care belongs, are often without employment, except
the hewing of timber and the squaring of stones, that the materials may
be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly when there is any
occasion for it. As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent
in them; while they are at labour they are clothed with leather and
skins, cut carelessly about them, which will last seven years, and when
they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the other;
and these are all of one colour, and that is the natural colour of the