“What made it much worse, too, was the exceedingly loose notions which these beings entertained upon the subject of the rights of property. They apparently laboured under the delusion that the world was made for giants, and for giants alone--a theory exceedingly convenient for those who happened to be giants, but the reverse {141}of agreeable to those who did not come within that somewhat limited category. These excellent individuals took exactly what they pleased from its owner, without so much as ‘by your leave’ or ‘with your leave,’ and never for a moment dreamed of paying the value of the article in question. This was not a comfortable state of things for the people of the land, who saw their sheep and oxen, pigs and poultry, and other possessions which they prized, taken away by the great bullies against whom they dared not lift a voice nor wag a finger. “But this was not all. It is bad enough to be robbed by another person, and not pleasant to be assaulted, but I am not sure whether to be utterly ignored and despised is not worse than either, especially when accompanied by such aggravating circumstances as those to which I am now going to allude. These huge creatures used to go walking about just as if there were no such things as men and women in the world. They would kick over a cottage for fun, sit down upon a barn or outhouse and crush its roof with their weight, out of mere ignorance or wanton folly; and even now and then set their foot on a human being and crush him into the earth, as if he were a snake, taking no account whatever of his prayers and struggles. In fact, they got into the habit of treating people as if they were merely an inferior part of creation placed upon the earth to cultivate and make it more useful for giants, and intended to be robbed, maltreated, trodden under foot, and put out of the way, just when and how it suited their imperious masters, for whom, and for whose sake alone, the universe had been created.