WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEAN?

JEFFERSON DAVIS thinks he was.

He is reported to have said, lately, that Dr. Franklin was "the incarnation of the New England character, — hard, calculating, angular, unable to conceive any higher object than the accumulation of money." There are many other people who, though they honor the memory of Franklin, have received the impression that, in money matters, he was very close and saving. To correct this error, I will now briefly relate his pecuniary history, from his boyhood to his death, showing how he got his money, how much of it he got, and what he did with it.

I will begin with the first pecuniary transaction in which he is known to have been concerned, and this shall be given in his own words:

"When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for

one."

That was certainly not the act of a stingy, calculating boy.

His next purchase, of which we have any knowledge, was made when he was about eleven years old; and this time, I must confess, he made a much better bargain. The first book he could ever call his own was a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, which he read, and re-read, until he had got from it all that so young a person could understand. But being exceedingly fond of reading, he exchanged his Pilgrim's Progress for a set of little books, then much sold by peddlers, called "Burton's Historical Collections," in forty paper-covered volumes, containing