Essays of Benjamin Franklin

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Identifikator:: 1752429486

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-127700

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Franklin, Benjamin http://d-nb.info/gnd/118534912

Title:: Essays of Benjamin Franklin

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: xi, 273 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: XXVII. To Benjamin Vaughan

Collection:: Economics Books

: Essays 1 gant and ruin themselves. Law cannot prevent this; and perhaps it is not always an evil to the pub- lic. A shilling spent idly by a fool may be picked up by a wiser person, who knows better what to do with it. It is therefore not lost. A vain, silly fellow builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it ex- pensively, and in a few years ruins himself; but the masons, carpenters, smiths, and other honest trades- men have been by his employ assisted in maintaining and raising their families; the farmer has been paid for his labor, and encouraged, and the estate is now in better hands. In some cases, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the same manner as it is a private one. If there be a nation, for instance, that exports its beef and linen, to pay for the importation of claret and porter, while a great part of its people live upon potatoes, and wear no shirts, wherein does it differ from the sot, who lets his family starve, and sells his clothes to buy drink? Our American commerce is, I confess, a little in this way. We sell our victuals to the Islands for rum and sugar—the substantial necessaries of life for superfluities. But we have plenty, and live well nevertheless, though, by being sober, we might be richer. The vast quantity of forest land we have yet to clear and put in order for cultivation will, for a long time keep the body of our nation laborious and frugal. Forming an opinion of our people and their man- ners by what is seen among the inhabitants of the seaports, is judging from an improper sample. The <784] 23;

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