Benjamin Franklin's Humor

4. Philadelphia Comic Relief 1748–1757

65 Philadelphia Comic Relief 4 PHILADELPHIA COMIC RELIEF 1748–1757 Although strained over the years, the humor of Poor Richard’s prefaces helped create the public taste for an indigenous comic hero. Franklin’s more serious writing led to increasing success in business, technology, and public service. He wrote position papers for the Pennsylvania legislature (Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency) and instructions for improved home heating (Account of the New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire-Places). In July 1747, when a French fleet invaded Delaware Bay, his pamphlet, Plain Truth, led to a volunteer association for homeland security. Step by step, he ascended to leadership as city councilman, assemblyman, and alderman. His mother wrote, “I am glad to hear that you are so well respected in your toun for them to chuse you alderman alltho I dont know what it means nor what the better you will be of it beside the honor of it.”1 When the legislature voted Franklin to be Speaker, Pennsylvania’s proprietor, Thomas Penn, called him “dangerous” as “a Sort of Tribune of the people.”2 At the same time, Franklin devoted considerable research and writing to promoting modern popular education in Education of Youth in Pensilvania (1749) and Idea of the English School (1751). He wrote influential essays on population (“The Increase of Mankind ,” 1751) and on public health and hospitals. His reputation spread across the colonies for writing a proposal for a federated BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S HUMOR 66 union at the Albany Congress (1754) and across the western world for reports on discovering the sameness of lightning and electricity , discoveries that brought honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale (1753) and the prestigious Copley Medal of Britain’s Royal Society (1753). That he could devote little time to writing humorous pieces for his almanac or newspaper is less surprising than that he could write any at all. The Poor Richard’s prefaces, which at first served primarily to mock almanac competitors as astrologers, came to attack astrology as pseudoscience. The preface of 1751 ironically laments the deterioration of astrology—“Scarce any other Use is made of our learned Labours, than to find the best Time of cutting Corns, or gelding Pigs.” Franklin’s focus broadened to abuse of science generally. He decried, for instance, William Whiston’s pseudoscientific signs that people were using to predict “a new Heaven and a new Earth.” By 1757, Franklin used Poor Richard to mock a growing class of amateurs called virtuosi. They were intrigued as much as Franklin by scientific experiments, but their ingenuity broke the bounds of common sense. Impersonating an ingenious projector and parodying the virtuosi’s style, Franklin submits a useful plan for improving modern life, “How to make a Striking Sundial, by which not only a Man’s own Family, but all his Neighbors for ten Miles round, may know what a Clock it is, when the Sun shines, without seeing the Dial.” Chuse an open Place in your Yard or Garden, on which the Sun may shine all Day without any Impediment from Trees or Buildings. On the Ground mark out your Hour Lines, as for a horizontal Dial, according to Art, taking Room enough for the Gun. On the Line for One o’ Clock, place one Gun; on the two o’ Clock Line two Guns, and so of the rest. The Guns must all be charged with Powder, but Ball is unnecessary. Your Gnomen or Style must have twelve burning Glasses annex’d to it, and be so placed as that the Sun shining through the Glasses, one after the other, shall cause the Focus or burning Spot to fall on the Hour 67 Philadelphia Comic Relief Line of One, for Example, at one a Clock, and there kindle a Train of Gunpowder that shall fire one Gun. At Two a Clock, a Focus shall fall on the Hour Line of Two, and kindle another Train that shall discharge two Guns successively; and so of the rest. Note, There must be 78 Guns in all. Thirty-two Pounders will be best for this Use; but 18 Pounders may do, and will cost less, as well as use less Powder, for nine Pounds of Powder will do for one Charge of each eighteen Pounder, whereas the Thirty-two Pounders would require for each Gun 16 Pounds. Note also, That the chief Expence will be the Powder, for the Cannon once bought...