Poetry · Chapter
Slickens explained
A satirical play in verse about a mining operation that floods farms with slickens (mining waste), featuring a granger who lost his family and farm, and a committee that arrives to investigate but offers no real help.
What happens
A satirical play in verse about a mining operation that floods farms with slickens (mining waste), featuring a granger who lost his family and farm, and a committee that arrives to investigate but offers no real help.
Themes in this chapter
Political Satire
The play mocks politicians, lawyers, and committees who exploit the system for personal gain while ignoring the suffering of ordinary people.
Hypocrisy and Corruption
Characters like Nozzle, Ringdivvy, and Feegobble openly discuss bribery, assessments, and legal manipulation as normal practice.
Justice and Revenge
Hayseed seeks recompense for his destroyed farm and family, but the committee offers only empty promises.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The narrator is not present; the chapter is a play with distinct characters.
Key passages
“For still the law Holds that if one do evil undisturbed His right to do so ripens with the years; And one may be a villain long enough To make himself an honest gentleman.”
The law allows a wrongdoer to become legitimate simply by persisting in wrongdoing long enough.
Satirizes the legal concept of adverse possession or prescription applied to moral corruption.
“Could slickens forever Choke up the river, And slime's endeavor Be tried on grain, How small the measure Of granger's treasure, How keen his pain!”
If mining waste keeps ruining the river and crops, the farmer's wealth will be tiny and his suffering immense.
Highlights the environmental and economic devastation caused by mining debris.
“O bribery's great— 'Tis a pillar of State, And the people they are free!”
Bribery is celebrated as a foundation of government, and the people are supposedly free.
Sarcastic commentary on political corruption.