All posts in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Vol II: Philadelphia

Mr. Franklin, In your Paper of the 18th past, some Verses were inserted, said to be design’d as a PIECE OF ADVICE to a good Friend. As this Piece of Advice, if it had been intended for a particular Friend alone, might have been as well convey’d to him privately; I suppose the Author by getting…

To the Printer of the Gazette. That SELF-DENIAL is not the ESSENCE of VIRTUE. It is commonly asserted, that without Self-Denial there is no Virtue, and that the greater the Self-Denial the greater the Virtue. If it were said, that he who cannot deny himself in any Thing he inclines to, tho’ he knows it will be to his…

Mr. Franklin, `Being the other Day near the Meeting-House Corner with some Gentlemen, in the open Street, I heard the following Piece of Conversation; and penn’d it down as soon as I came home. I am confident it varies scarce any thing from what really passed; and as it pleased the By-standers, it may possibly…

Mr. Franklin, Being old and lame of my Hands, and thereby uncapable of assisting my Fellow Citizens, when their Houses are on Fire; I must beg them to take in good Part the following Hints on the Subject of Fires. In the first Place, as an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, I would…

Saturday last, at a Court of Oyer and Terminer held here, came on the Tryal of a Man and his Wife, who were indicted for the Murder of a Daughter which he had by a former Wife, (a Girl of about 14 Years of Age) by turning her out of Doors, and thereby exposing her…