With this change of the name of the publisher, came a new prospectus, probably the first effort of the kind, of the then youthful philosopher. This prospectus was rather an odd one, as will be seen by the following extract: 'The main design of this weekly will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life; which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals, which may be drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of human life.' The character of the paper, however, does not appear to have been changed for the better by the change of names. It was continued in the name of Benjamin Franklin some time after he had left it; but the members of the club at length grew wearied with the labor, and the paper expired in 1727. James Franklin then removed to Rhode Island, and established the first newspaper in that State, at Newport. It remains to notice but one more of the early Boston editors, who seems to have been an odd fish--somewhat witty, but, to use a homely proverb, 'as rough as a rat-catcher's dog.' He first established the _Boston Weekly Rehearsal_, in 1731, and afterward the _Boston Evening Post_. His name was Thomas Fleet. Massachusetts was then a slaveholding country, and Fleet owned several negroes, two of whom he instructed in the art of printing. Their names were Pompey and Caesar--the only two _Romans_, I believe, who ever belonged to the printing fraternity. These honest fellows lived and printed until after the war of the Revolution, having become freemen by the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. Fleet was droll and witty in the conduct of his paper, especially in his advertisements. Witness the following advertisement of one of his negro women for sale: 'To be sold, by the printer of this paper, the very best negro woman in this town, who has had the small pox and the measles; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, will work like a beaver.' There was a common evil existing in those days which, it is to be feared, has now become chronic. People were prone to omit paying for their newspapers. Fleet had often to complain of this crying sin, even against men of great religious professions. On one occasion he read them quite a severe lesson upon their injustice and oppression in this respect. 'Every one,' says he, 'thinks he has a right to read news, but few find themselves inclined to pay for it. 'Tis a great pity a soil that will bear _piety_ so well, should not produce a tolerable crop of common honesty.'