“The common man is a simple creature. If he dies, he dies, if he recovers, he recovers.”

In the first scene, the civic leaders’ casual disregard for public duty is evident. The Warden of Charities, the man placed in charge of helping the needy, speaks nonchalantly about the indifferent approach to healthcare. Rather than spend money on costly medicine, they simply trust a patient to either recover or die. That the Warden would speak so freely and that the other leaders barely acknowledge this callousness suggests that this disdain for altruism and duty is widespread under The Impact of Corruption.

“Solomon himself couldn’t sort out true from false in a law report.”

The Judge is the designated head of all legal matters in the small town. Like the other civic leaders, however, he is corrupt and ineffective. Under his watch, the court has become a chaotic mess. The Judge himself cannot discern truth from falsity in his own court, which speaks to the nature of justice in the corrupt province. Corruption erodes the nature of truth itself, so much so that even the justice system cannot determine what is true and what is not.

“Those swindlers—I bet they’re already hard at it concocting petitions against me.”

The Mayor is a pompous man. His arrogance leads him to accuse the shopkeepers of conspiring against him. In his mind, he is unfairly persecuted by a group of untrustworthy business owners.