REVIEW.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 2, 18 December 1856, Page 2

REVIEW.

The Clockmakcr ; or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville. London, David Bruce, Paternoster Row, Edinburgh :— IF. P. Nimmo.

Tins is a wonderful book —one of the wittiest and wisest we ever read. It is a book to make men think as well as laugh. In Sam Slick we have an excellent interpreter of Yankee go-a-headism, and a political philoso-

pher whose “sayings” are deep though quaint. Speaking of the Province of Nova Scotia with “ most' philosophical air,” he delivers himself “ It is much behind the intelligence of the age. But if it is behind us in that respect, it is a long chalk ahead on us in others. I never seed or heard tell of a country that had se many nateral privileges as this. Why there are twice as many harbours and water powers here, as we have all the way from Eatsport to New Qrleens. They have all they can ax, and more than they desarve. They have iron, coal, slate, grindstone, lime, firestone, gypsum, freestone, and a list as long as an auctioneer’s catalogue. But thay are asleep or stone blind to them. Their shores are crowded with fish, and their lands covered with wood. A govenment that lays as light on ’em as a down counterpain, and no taxes. Then look at their dykes. The Lord seems 'to have made ’em on purpose for such lazy folks. If you were to tell the citizens of our country that these dykes had been cropped for •a hundred years without manner, they’d say, they guessed you had seen Col. Crockett, the greatest hand at a flam in our nation. You have heerd tell of a man who couldn’t see London for the houses, I tell you, if we had •this country, you could’nt see the harbours for the shippin. There’d be a rush of folks to it, as there is in one of our inns, to the dinner table, whqn they sometimes get jammed together in the door-way, and a man has to take a running leap over their heads, afore he can get in. A little nigger boy in New York found a diamond worth 2,QUO dollars; well, he sold it to a watch-maker for 50 cents —the little critter didn’t know no better. lour people are just like the nigger boy, they dont know the valy of their diamond."

These Nova Scotians are amazingly like ourselves and were there no such place as Nova Scotia we should think this “ cutest” of clockmakers meant Auckland; whose people unquestionably have “ all they can ax, and more than they desarve” in the way of “ a list •as long as an auctioneer’s catalogue” of harbours, water powers,And other “ naterel privileges ;” but are, nevertheless, a long way behind the intelligence of the age ; to their ■“nateral privileges” either asleep or stone ■blind, and the very image of that nigger boy who didn't know the valy of his diamond.

According to Sam Slick the Nova Scotians have two faults, one is a habit of talking too iinuch another a habit of not “ cypherin’’ at •all.

“Do you know the reason monkeys are no good ? because they chatter all day long—so do the niggers—and so do the blue-noses of Nova Scotia—it’s all talk and no work; now, with us it’s all work and no talk —in our shipyards, our factories, our mills, and even in our vessels, there’s no talk—a man can’t work and talk too. 1 guss if you were to the factories ■to Lowel we’d show you a wonder— five hundred galls at work together all in, silence. I don’t think our great country has such a real nateral curiosity as that—l expect the world don’t contain the beat of that; for a woman’s tongue goes so slick uf itself, without water power or steam, and moves so easy on its hinges, that it’s no easy matter to put a, ■spring stop on it, I tell ye—it comes as mitral as drinkin mint julip.

“I don’t pretend to say the galls don’t nullify the rule sometimes at intermission and arter hours, but when they do, if they don’t let go, then it’s a pity. You have heard a school come out of little boys, Lord its no touch to it; or a flock of geese at it, they are no more a match frr ’em than a pony is for a •coach-horse. But when they are to work, all’s as still as sleep and no snoring. I guess we have a right to brag o’ that invention—we trained tbe dear critters, so they don’t think of striking the minutes and seconds no longer.

“ Now the folks to Halifax take it all out in talkin—they talk of steam-boats, Whalers, and railroads—but they all end where they begin —in talk. I don’t think I’d be out in my latitude, if L was to say they beat the womenkind at that. One feller says, I talk of going to England—another says, I talk of going to the country —while a third says, I talk of going to sleep. If we happen to speak of such things, we say, ' I’m right off down East;’ or ‘ I’m away off South,’ and away we go, jist like a streak of lightnin.

“ We go a-head, the Nova Scotians go astarn. Our ships go a-head of the ships of other folks, our steam-boats beat the British in speed, and so do onr stage-coaches; and I recon a rael right down New York Trotter might stump the univarse for “ going a-head.” But since we introduced the Railroads, if we don’t go “ a-head” its a pity. We never fairly knew what goin the whole hog was till then; we actilly went a-head of ourselves, and that’s no easy matter I tell you. If they only have edication here, they might learn to do so too, but they don’t know nothin.’ You undervalue them, said I, they have their college and academies, their grammer schools and primary institutions, and I believe there arc few among them who cannot read and write.

“ I guess all that’s nothin’, said he. As for Latin and Greek, we don’t valy it a cent; we teach it, and so we do painting and music, because the English-do, and wc like togahead on ’em, even in them are things. As for readin, it is well enough for them that has nothin to do, and writin is plaguy apt to bring a man to States prison, particularly if he writes his name so like another man as to have it mistaken for his’n. Cypherin is the thing—if a man knows how to cypher, he is sure to get rich. We are a “ calculatin’’ people, we all cypher. “ A bear always goes down a tree starn foremost. He is a cunnin critter, he knows tant safe to carry a heavy load over his head, and his rump is so heavy, he dont like to trust it over hisn, for fear it might take a lurch, and carry him heels over head to the ground ; so he lets his starn down first, and his head arter. I wish the blue-noses would find us an excuse in their rumps for running backwards, as lie has. But the bear “ cyphers" he knows how many pounds his hams vergli, and he “ calculates" if he carried them up in the air, they might be top heavy for him. “ If we had this Province we’d go to work and cypher” right off.”

It is the boast of Sam Slick that he manages to sell an immense number of clocks (which certainly cannot be called necessary articles) among people with whom money is scarce, by virtue of a knowledge more than common of “ soft soder and human nater.”

In a “ cruel easy” way Mr. Slick delivers his opinions with regard to men and things. They are the opinions of a keen observer who need not shrink from comparison with anyone of the very best satirical writers of this age. Cant has often been the subject of invective, oftener of satire. Johnson warned Boswell against it.—Above all things, said he, beware of cant. Stern directed against it his liveliest sarcasm; and a number not to be numbered have denounced or rediculed it; but our friend Slick equals the best of them when he saj-s:-

“ There’s nothin I hate so much as cant, of all kinds; its a sure sign of a tricky disposition. If you see a feller cant in religion, clap your hand in your pocket, and lay right hold of your puss, or he’ll steal it, as sure as you’re alive: and if a man cant in politics, he’ll sell you, if h e gets a chance, you may depend. Law and physic are jist the same, and every mite and morsel as bad. If a lawyer takes to can tin, its like the fox preachin to the geese, he’ll eat up his whole congregation ; and if a doctor takes to it, lie’s a - quack as sure as he rates. The Lord have massy on you, for he won’t. I'd sooner trust my chance with a naked hook at any time, than one that’s half covered with bad bait. The fish will sometimes swaller the one, without thinkin, but they get frightened attother, turn tail, and off like a shot.”

Sam Weller is shrewd and amusing et voila lout. Sam Slick is more than shrewd and amusing—he is profound. Youth, says he, is the time for improvement ; a new country is never too young for exertion—push on—keep movin—-go a-head. In point of instructiveness neither Sara Weller nor any other “ sketch” by Boz can compare with him. We wish he would come here. Although mere clock-maker our rulers might learn from him “ pretty considerable.” lie would tell them as he told his fellow traveller when talking of Nova Scotia. —If he saw a farm all gone to wreck, he’d say, here’s bad husbandry and bad management; and if he saw a Province like this, of great capacity, and great nateral resouces, poverty-striken, he’d say there’s bad legislation.