Produced by Andrew Sly
The Clockmaker
or
The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville,
by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.
From the 1871 edition.
The name "Sam Slick" has passed into popular use as standing for asomewhat conventional Yankee, in whom sharpness and verdancy arecombined in curious proportions; but the book which gave rise tothe name has long been out of print. It is now revived, under theimpression that the reading public will have an interest in seeinga work which, more probably than any other one book, served to fixthe prevailing idea of the Yankee character. However true or falsethe impression it created, the qualities which rendered it populara generation ago remain, in a shrewdness of observation, a fund ofanecdote and racy adventure, a quaintness of expression, and keenmother wit. In no other work of literature is there preserved solarge a collection of idiomatic phrases, words, and similes,—wholestories in themselves and pictures of society at the time, which growmore interesting, the more historic they become.
The keen peddler comes sharply forward from a background ofProvincial shiftlessness and dullness, and it is a mark of thegeniality of the book that, although it seems to have had its originin a desire on the part of its author to goad the Provinces intoenergy and alertness, the local questions and politics discussed givea flavour to the narrative without limiting the reader's interest.One does not need to be deeply concerned in Nova Scotia prosperity,nor versed in the turnings of petty politics, to take a livelypleasure in the sharp thrusts which the author, under shield of theClockmaker's wit, gives at stupidity and narrowness. The two sidesof the question involved are as little a matter of concern to thegeneral reader as the opposing factions of York and Lancaster.
No doubt the marked contrast between the neighbouring people ofNova Scotia and New England was quickly discerned by so good anobserver as the author proved himself to be, while his national andpartisan judgments made his characterization of the Yankee to be adouble-edged sword, that cut with equal keenness the Colonist and theDemocrat. While he has no liking for the United States politically,he is very glad to make their enterprise and industry put to shamethe slow wits of his countrymen; and the quiet satire of UnitedStates institutions and character which he displays by letting Slickrun to the end of his rope is curiously mingled with the contemptwhich he lets the same character express for Nova Scotians, and inwhich it is plain he himself joins.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born at Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1796,was educated at King's College, and admitted to the bar in 1820. Heentered political life shortly after, and was elected member of theHouse of Assembly. In 1829 he was appointed Chief Justice of theCourt of Common Pleas, and in 1840 was made Judge of the SupremeCourt. He resigned in 1842, and went to England to reside, where,in 1859, he was elected member of Parliament for the Borough ofLaunceston, and at the dissolution of Parliament in 1865 he declinedreelection on the score of infirm health. He died at Isleworth inJuly of the same year. His party politics were of the old Toryschool, and he held rigidly by them, sharing the common experience ofcolonial partisans, who, on returning to the mother country, are veryapt to set a higher value on their party principles than those whohave always remained at home.
The first appearance of his "Clockmaker" was in the form of aseries