Haliburton

Thomas Haliburton, the author of the book "The Clockmaker, The Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick of Slickville", demonstrates the power an author can have over his audience. By using two fictional characters, Sam and the Squire, Haliburton is able, although sometimes through ridicule not always gentle, to persuade his primary readers at that time, the Nova Scotians or Bluenoses as he refers of them, into a more worthy and industrious way of life. Haliburton tends to stick to a few important factors, which he feels are important if Nova Scotia is to grow and prosper, as he ultimately hopes will occur.

Through various economic, political and social maxims, Haliburton reaches his ultimate goal, to reach out to his fellow countrymen, make them see the true value of their country and stop looking for reasons why they are not prospering, and start looking for ways they can.

Haliburton spends a great deal of time emphasizing Nova Scotia's economic needs. He does a very good job of pointing out the province's economic potential but talks of the province as being 'stagnant' because of the Bluenoses inability to 'cypher'. By using Sam, who is not from this 'stagnant province' Haliburton is able to present which economic activities he feels

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' The whole country is like this night;beautiful to look at, but silent as the grave - still as death, asleep, becalmed.

"We must have a canal from Bay Fundy to Bay Varte, right through Cumberland neck, by Shittyack, for our fishing vessels to go to Labradore.

"Give up politics - it's a barren field, and well watched too; where one critter jumps a fence into a good field and gets fat, more nor twenty are chased round and round, by a whole pack of yelpin curs, till they are fairly beat out, and eend by bein half starved, and are at the liftin at last. 97

and he leashes out at the politicians and states they can't be trusted. There it makes the old man younger, but here it makes a child a giant. 67

Haliburton then goes on to discuss what he feels disadvantageous to the province. Sam's character argues that a railroad is what is needed from Halifax to the Bay of Fundy in order to increase the economy.

"Now these Blue Noses have no motion in 'em, no enterprise, no spirit, and if any critter shows any symptoms of activity, they say he is a man of no judgment, he's speculative, he's a schemer, in short he's mad. He is able to show the different roles each of these categories take amongst different social groups, low, middle and higher class, amongst different races, the blacks primarily, and amongst women and how they were treated during his time of writing. 166

"No, make a farmer of him, and you will have the satisfaction of seeing him an honest, an independent, and a respectable member of society - more honest than traders, more independent than professional men, and more respectable than either. The maxim of this chapter is 'a women, a dog and a walnut tree…the more you lick the better they be. The first is the building of a railroad.

Approximate Word count = 1372
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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