834 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 596. 



youth was fully capable of supporting him- 

 self in the great city as a printer. Franklin 

 had been induced by the governor to go to 

 England, where he was to buy a complete 

 outfit for a good printing office to be set up 

 in Philadelphia. He had already presented 

 the governor with an inventory of the ma- 

 terials needed in a small printing office, 

 and was competent to make a critical selec- 

 tion of all these materials; but when he 

 arrived in London on this errand he was 

 'Only eighteen years old. Thrown com- 

 pletely on his own resources in the great 

 •city, he immediately got work at a famous 

 printing house in Bartholomew Close; but 

 soon moved to a still larger printing house, 

 in which he remained during the rest of his 

 stay in London. Here he worked as a 

 pressman at first, but was soon transferred 

 to the composing room, evidently excelling 

 his comrades in both branches of the art. 

 The customary drink money was demanded 

 of him, first by the pressmen with whom he 

 was associated, and afterwards by the com- 

 positors. Franklin undertook to resist the 

 '.second demand ; and it is interesting to learn 

 that after a resistance of three weeks he 

 was forced to yield to the demands of the 

 men by just such measures as are now used 

 against any scab in a unionized printing 

 office. He says in his autobiography: "I 

 had so many little pieces of private mis- 

 chief done me by mixing my sorts, trans- 

 posing my pages, breaking my matter, and 

 so forth, if I were ever so little out of the 

 room * * * that, notwithstanding the mas- 

 ter's protection, I found myself obliged to 

 comply and pay the money, convinced of 

 the folly of being on ill terms with those 

 one is to live with continually." He was 

 stronger than any of his mates, kept his 

 head clearer because he did not fuddle it 

 with beer, and availed himself of the liberty 

 which then existed of working as fast and 

 as much as he chose. On this point he 

 says: "My constant attendance (I never 



making a St. Monday) recommended me to 

 the master; and my uncommon quickness 

 at composing occasioned my being put upon 

 all work of dispatch, which was generally 

 better paid. So I went on now very agree- 

 ably." 



On his return to Philadelphia Frank- 

 lin obtained for a few months another 

 occupation than that of printer; but this 

 employment failing through the death 

 of his employer, Franklin returned to 

 printing, becoming the manager of a small 

 printing office, in which he was the only 

 skilled workman and was expected to teach 

 several green hands. At that time he was 

 only twenty-one years of age. This print- 

 ing office often wanted sorts, and there was 

 no type-foundry in America. Franklin 

 succeeded in contriving a mold, struck the 

 matrices in lead, and thus supplied the 

 deficiencies of the office. The autobiog- 

 raphy says : "I also engraved several things 

 on occasion; I made the ink; I was ware- 

 house man and everything, and in short 

 quite a factotum." Nevertheless, he was 

 dismissed before long by his incompetent 

 employer, who, however, was glad to re- 

 engage him a few days later on obtaining 

 a job to print some paper money for New 

 Jersey. Thereupon Franklin contrived a 

 copper-plate press for this job— the first 

 that had been seen in the countiy — and cut 

 the ornaments for the bills. Meantime 

 Franklin, with one of the apprentices, had 

 ordered a press and types from London, 

 that they two might set up an independent 

 office. Shortly after the New Jersey job 

 was finished, these materials arrived in 

 Philadelphia, and Franklin immediately 

 opened his own printing office. His part- 

 ner 'was, however, no compositor, a poor 

 pressman, and seldom sober.' The office 

 prospered, and in July, 1730, when Frank- 

 lin was twenty-four years old, the partner- 

 ship was dissolved, and Franklin was at 

 the head of a well-established and profit- 



