Franklin gave way to a little pleasant humor when, in 1748, he proposed to wind up the "electrical season" by a banquet à la Lucullus, to be given to a few of his friends and fellow-workers, not in a sumptuously decorated hall, but _al fresco_, on the banks of the Schuylkill. "A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shock," he wrote, "and roasted by the electrical jack before a fire kindled by the electrical bottle, when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France and Germany are to be drunk in electrified bumpers under the discharge of guns fired from the electrical battery." It is hardly to be supposed that such an elaborate program was carried out. Indeed the difficulty of preparing the apparatus and getting it ready for action on the banks of a river were formidable enough to say the least. Franklin, however, had a Leyden battery capable of doing considerable electrocution, for with two jars of six gallons capacity each, he knocked six men to the ground; the same two jars sufficed to kill a hen outright, whereas it required five, he tells us, to kill a turkey weighing ten pounds. The "electrical bumper" was a wine-glass containing an allowance, let us say, of some favorite brand and charged in the usual way. On approaching the lips the two coatings would be brought within striking-distance and a spark would take place, if not to the delight of the performer, at least to the amusement of the on-lookers. It was subsequently remarked that guests whose upper lip was adorned with a moustache could quaff the nectar with impunity, as every bristle would play the part of a filiform lightning-rod and prevent the apprehended, disruptive discharge! Not quite so humorous was his suggestion of a hammock to be used by timid people during an electric storm: "A hammock or swinging-bed, suspended by silk cords equally distant from the walls on every side, and from the ceiling and floor above and below, affords the safest situation a person can have in any room whatever; and which, indeed, may be deemed quite free from danger of any stroke of lightning." (1767.) In his experiments on puncturing bodies by the spark-discharge, Franklin does not fail to notice the double burr produced when paper is used.[9] His words are: "When a hole is struck through pasteboard by the electrified jar, if the surfaces of the pasteboard are not confined or compressed, there will be a bur raised all round the hole on both sides the pasteboard, for the bur round the outside of the hole is the effect of the explosion every way from the centre of the stream and not an effect of direction." (1753.) The spelling is Franklin's _unreformed_.