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 ing 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

nistory, travels, tales, wonders and curiosities; just the thing for a boy. As we do not know the market value of his Pilgrim's Progress, we cannot tell whether the poor peddler did well by him, or the contrary. But, it strikes me, that that is not the kind of barter in which a mean, grasping boy usually engages.

His father being a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But, one day, he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a vegetarian book, this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think that people could live better without meat than with it, and that killing innocent animals for food was cruel and wicked. So he abstained from meat altogether for about two years. As this led to some inconvenience at his boarding-house, he made this cunning proposition to his master:

"Give me one half the money you pay for my board, and I will board myself."

The master consenting, the apprentice lived entirely upon such things as hominy, bread, rice and potatoes, and found that he could actually live upon half of the half. What did the calculating wretch do with the money! Put it into his moneybox? No; he laid it all out in the improvement of his mind. When, at the age of seventeen, he landed at Philadelphia, a runaway apprentice, he had one silver dollar, and one shilling in copper coin. It was a fine Sunday morning, as probably the reader remembers, and he knew not a soul in the place. He asked the boatmen upon whose boat he had come down the Delaware, how much he had to pay. They answered, Nothing, because he had helped them row. Franklin, however, insisted upon their taking his shilling's worth of coppers, and forced the money upon them. An hour after, having bought three rolls for his breakfast, he ate one, and gave the other two to a poor woman and her child, who had been his fellow-passengers. These were small things, you may say; but, remember, he was a poor, ragged, dirty runaway, in a strange town, four hundred

miles from a friend, with three pence gone out of the only dollar he had in the world.

Next year, when he went home to see his parents, with his pocket full of money, a new suit of clothes and a watch, one of his oldest Boston friends was so much pleased with Franklin's account of Philadelphia, that he determined to go back with him. On the journey Franklin discovered that his friend had become a slave to drink. He was sorely plagued and disgraced by him, and, at last, the young drunkard had spent all his money, and had no way of getting on except by Franklin's aid. This hard, calculating, mercenary youth-did he seize the chance of shaking off a most troublesome and injurious travelling companion? Strange to relate, he stuck to his old friend, shared his purse with him till it was empty, and then began on some money which he had been entrusted with for another, and so got him to Philadelphia, where he still assisted him. It was seven years before Franklin was able to pay all the debt incurred by him to aid this old friend; for abandoning whom few would have blamed him.

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A year after, he was in a still worse difficulty from a similar cause. He went to London to buy types and a press with which to establish himself in business at Philadelphia, — the Governor of Pennsylvania having promised to furnish the money. One of the passengers on the ship was a young friend of Franklin's, named James Ralph, with whom he had often studied, and of whom he was exceedingly fond. Ralph gave out that he, too, was proceeding to London to make arrangements for going into business for himself at Philadelphia. The young friends arrived -Franklin nineteen, and Ralph a married man with two children. On reaching London, Franklin learned, to his amazement and dismay, that the Governor had deceived him, that no money was to be expected from him, and that he must go to work and earn his living at his trade. No sooner had he learned this than James Ralph gave him another piece of stunning intelligence: namely, that he had run away from his family, and meant to settle in London as a poet and author!

Franklin had ten pounds in his pocket and knew a trade. Ralph had no money and knew no trade. They were both

strangers in a strange city. Now, in such circumstances, what would a mean, calculating young man have done? Reader, you know very well, without my telling you. What Franklin did was this he shared his purse with his friend until his ten pounds were all gone; and, having at once got work at his trade, he kept on dividing his wages with Ralph until he had advanced him thirty-six pounds, half a year's income, not a penny of which was ever repaid. And this he did, the coldblooded wretch!-because he could not help loving his brilliant, unprincipled comrade, though disapproving his conduct and sadly needing his money.

Having returned to Philadelphia, he set up in business as a printer and editor, and, after a very severe effort, he got his business well established, and, at last, had the most profitable establishment of the kind in all America. During the most active part of his business life, he always found some time. for the promotion of public objects; he founded a most useful and public-spirited club, a public library which still exists, and assisted in every worthy scheme. He was most generous to his poorer relations, hospitable to his fellow-citizens, and particularly interested in the welfare of his journeymen, many of whom he set up in business.

The most decisive proof, however, which he ever gave, that he did not overvalue money, was his retirement from a most profitable business for the purpose of having leisure to pursue his philosophical studies. He had been in business twenty years, and he was still in the prime of life-forty-six years of age. He was making money faster than any other printer on this continent. But, being exceedingly desirous of spending the rest of his days in study and experiment, and having saved a moderate competency, he sold his establishment to his foreman on very easy terms, and withdrew. His estate, when he retired, was worth about a hundred thousand of our present greenback dollars. If he had been a lover of money, I am confident that he could and would have accumulated one of the largest fortunes in America. He had nothing to do but continue in business, and take care of his investments, to roll up a prodigious estate. But not having the slightest taste for need

less accumulation, he joyfully laid aside the cares of business, and spent the whole of the remainder of his life in the service of his country; for he gave up his heart's desire of devoting his leisure to philosophy when his country needed him.

Being in London when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage to the Pacific, he entered warmly into a beautiful scheme for sending a ship for the purpose of stocking the islands there with pigs, vegetables, and other useful animals and products. A hard, selfish man would have laughed such a project to scorn.

In 1776, when he was appointed ambassador of the revolted colonies to the French king, the ocean swarmed with British cruisers, General Washington had lost New York, and the prospects of the Revolution were gloomy in the extreme. Dr. Franklin was an old man of seventy, and might justly have asked to be excused from a service so perilous and fatiguing. But he did not. He went. And, just before he sailed, he got together all the money he could raise-about three thousand pounds and invested it in the loan recently announced by Congress. This he did at a moment when few men had a hearty faith in the success of the Revolution. This he did when he was going to a foreign country that might not receive him, from which he might be expelled, and he have no country to return to. There never was a more gallant and generous act done by an old man.

In France he was as much the main stay of the cause of his country, as General Washington was at home. And who were the people, by whose restless vanity and all-clutching meanness his efforts were almost frustrated in Paris? Arthur Lee and William Lee, of Virginia, and Ralph Izard, of South Carolina!

Returning home after the war, he was elected President of Pennsylvania for three successive years, at a salary of wo thousand pounds a year. But by this time he had become onvinced that offices of honor, such as the governorship (f a State, ought not to have any salary attached to them. He thought they should be filled by persons of independent inc‹ ne, willing to serve their fellow-citizens from benevolence, or for the honor of it. So thinking, he, at first, determined no to receive any salary; but this being objected to, he devoted the