police forces of which our country could boast; invented the Franklin stove to give out more heat with less wood. He helped to establish hospitals. He formed a debating club called "The Junta," the members of which kept their books at the rooms, and so easily out of it grew the first circulating library. He set on foot an academy, now the University of Pennsylvania; and he always worked by the principle that if he wished a thing well done, he must do it himself.

Then he started his "Poor Richard's Almanac," which, as we shall later see, helped the Philadelphians in forming regular, saving, and industrious habits. He became clerk of the General Assembly and postmaster of Philadelphia.

Finally, in 1748, when he was forty-two years old, he retired from business; for he had gained a competence and desired more leisure-which "leisure " he defined as "a time for doing something useful." His journalism and scientific investigations were already giving him world-wide fame, and he wished to accomplish even greater results in both.

As postmaster of Philadelphia, he had felt the necessity of a centralised system for all the colonies. To further his purpose, he travelled in a gig with his daughter Sallie throughout the "Thirteen Colonies," and in 1755, was appointed PostmasterGeneral.

In order to understand his later work as statesman

and diplomat, we must briefly glance at the growing unrest that confronted him. One result of the French and Indian War had been to teach the colonies a lesson of union against a common foe, and loyalty to England was at once giving place to patriotism. King George Third seemed to realise this and with high-handed measures tried to quell it but he little understood the spirit of his subjects scattered along the shore beyond the wide

sea.

first as a

Franklin had been twice to England journeyman-printer, and in 1757, as an agent from Pennsylvania to settle a dispute with the heirs of William Penn; and now, in 1765, as foremost American diplomat, he was sent again—this time to enlighten the Mother Country about her duty to the rebellious "Thirteen "- by protesting against the Stamp Act.

Somewhat later, we find our dignified advocate, standing before the court of the mightiest kingdom upon earth. What cared he for its pomp and pageantry as with calm demeanour and forceful argument he earnestly pleaded the cause of the colonies! and his address made such an impression that the obnoxious Stamp Act was repealed.

Among other things that Franklin did in London was to publish anonymously a most clever essay: "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One." This was an imaginary edict issued by the

King of Prussia, in which by right of ancestry, he asserts a claim to tax England and make her laws. It was written that England might see herself from the American point of view.

An amusing incident occurred in connection with this. Franklin, a little later, was visiting an English lord when the valet broke into the room, waving a newspaper as he excitedly exclaimed: "Here's news for ye! Here's the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!

Franklin endeavoured by every persuasion to avert war, but this he could not accomplish, and naturally he made enemies and lost power beyond the seas. Dr. Johnson even pronounced him "a master mischief-maker." Finally despairing of future usefulness, he sailed for home, reaching there at just about the time when the first guns were fired at Lexington and Concord.

He was at once elected to the Revolutionary Congress, and on July Fourth, 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence; and when Harrison appealed for a unanimous vote in the Senate, it was Franklin who exclaimed: "We must all hang together - or assuredly we shall all hang separately!"

During his ten years' absence abroad, his wife had died, and his daughter Sallie had taken her place at the head of his household; but quiet days were not for him yet another diplomatic mission awaited; for though seventy years of age, he was sent as com

missioner to the court of France to win sympathy for our nation in her war with England.

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The French were delighted to receive him. To them, he was "the personification of the rights of man'" the very principles which they were preparing to assert in their own Revolution. Franklin's demands were met -France generously aiding the colonies with both money and ships. Mirabeau styled Franklin "The Genius that freed America "; and another called him "a modern Solon."

A friend of King Louis XVI. and Queen Marie Antoinette, and surrounded by admiring courtiers, he-even at Versailles-maintained dignified simplicity; but he seemed by nature a patrician and greatly enjoyed court life.

Popular enthusiasm for Franklin ran high! Everywhere he heard his proverbs repeated in French. Applauded in public, people gathered in the streets to see him pass; his face appeared alike in print-shops and in the boudoirs of court ladies. They wore bracelets and carried snuff-boxes adorned with his head, and discussed his merits about a Franklin stove in the salon. Poets rhymed sonnets in his praise; and when a medal was struck in his honour, the great Turgot wrote an inscription which translated reads: "He has seized the lightning from Heaven and the sceptre from tyrants."

And then at the close of the Revolutionary War, with his fellow-commissioners, Adams and Jay, he

cordially conducted peace negotiations with England, and in 1783, signed the treaty, and when Thomas Jefferson was sent to France to replace him, Jefferson said: "I may succeed but can never replace him."

And the venerable diplomat returned and was welcomed by triumph and celebration as "The Father of Independence." He now becomes one of the framers and signers of the new Constitution. Indeed, his signature has been affixed to more of the early State compacts than that of any other man. It seemed as if no measure could be accomplished without his touch!

But with added honours, Franklin somehow grew more serious. He missed old companions and now at eighty years of age, felt the pains incident to infirmity and disease, and he said one day: "I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity when I ought to have been abed and asleep."

And yet he was cheerful and in the intervals of suffering, read and wrote and told many stories. He approached death without fear, saying that as he had seen a good deal of this world, he felt a growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other but he was not a religious man.

He died at Philadelphia on April seventeenth, 1790.

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the city of his loveTwenty thousand wit

nessed his burial; and from that day to this, probably millions more have done him reverence as they have stood before the plain, unobtrusive slab that marks