[109. Growth of Philadelphia; what a young printer was doing for it.]—By the year 1733, when the people of Savannah[1] were building their first log cabins, Philadelphia[2] had grown to be the largest city in this country,—though it would take more than seventy such cities to make one as great as Philadelphia now is.
Next to William Penn,[3] the person who did the most for Philadelphia was a young man who had gone from Boston to make his home among the Quakers. He lived in a small house near the market. On a board over the door he had painted his name and business; here it is:
1 See paragraph [104].
2 See paragraph [99].
3 See paragraph [96].
| FRANKLIN WHEELING A LOAD OF PAPER. |
[110. Franklin's newspaper and almanac;[4] how he worked; standing before kings.]—Franklin was then publishing a small newspaper, called the Pennsylvania Gazette.[5] To-day we print newspapers by steam at the rate of two or three hundred a minute; but Franklin, standing in his shirtsleeves at a little press, printed his with his own hands. It was hard work, as you could see by the drops of sweat that stood on his forehead; and it was slow as well as hard. The young man not only wrote himself most of what he printed in his paper, but he often made his own ink; sometimes he even made his own type.[6] When he got out of paper he would take a wheelbarrow, go out and buy a load, and wheel it home. To-day there are more than three hundred newspapers printed in Philadelphia; then there were only two, and Franklin's was the better of those two.
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A TYPE. (The Letter B.) |