Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
Other services rendered by Franklin to Philadelphia related to the better
paving and lighting of its streets. These streets were laid out with great
regularity, but, being wholly unpaved, were mere quagmires in winter and
stifling stretches of dust in summer. So bad was their condition as a rule
that Philadelphia came to be known among the country people around it as
"Filthy-dirty." Franklin, when he lived near the Jersey Market, witnessed
with concern the miserable plight of its patrons as they waded about on
either side of it in mire deep enough to have prompted the observation of
Napoleon, based upon his campaigns in Poland, that mud should be accounted
a fifth element. A step was taken when a stretch of ground down the middle
of the market was paved with brick. This offered a firm footing, when once
attained, but, before a pedestrian could attain it, he might be overshoes
in wet clay. By tongue and pen, Franklin at length succeeded in having the
spaces between the market and the foot pavements of the streets flanking it
laid with stone. The result was that for a season a market woman could
reach the market dry-shod, but, in the course of time, the pavements became
loaded with mud shaken off the wheels of passing vehicles, and this mud,
after being thus deposited, was allowed, for lack of street cleaners, to
remain where it fell. Here was an inviting situation, indeed, for such a
municipal housewife as Franklin. Having hunted up a poor, industrious man,
who was willing to contract for the sum of sixpence per month, per house,
to sweep up and carry away the dirt in front of the houses abutting on
these pavements, he wrote and published a paper setting forth the marked
advantages to the neighborhood that would result from such a small
expenditure--the reduced amount of mud that people would carry around on
their shoes, the readier access that customers would have to the shops near
the market, freedom from wind-borne dust and other kindred benefits not
likely to escape the attention of a man to whom even the dust of unpaved
streets suggested the following reflections in the _Autobiography_:
Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces
of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little
advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a
poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in
order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his
life than in giving him a thousand guineas. The money
may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having
foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he
escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers,
and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive
breaths, and dull razors; he shaves when most
convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of
its being done with a good instrument.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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