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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 39
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necessary, he suppos'd, to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor.
I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could
only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water
of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and
therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more
strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five
shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor;
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always
under.
Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left the
pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings, was demanded
of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as I had paid below; the
master thought so too, and forbad my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks,
was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and bad so many little pieces of
private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my
matter, etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all ascribed
to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not regularly admitted,
that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself oblig'd to comply
and pay the money, convinc'd of the folly of being on ill terms with those one
is to live with continually.
I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquir'd considerable influence.
I propos'd some reasonable alterations in their chappel(4) laws, and carried
them against all opposition. From my example, a great part of them left their
muddling breakfast of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be
suppli'd from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel,
sprinkled with pepper, crumbl'd with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the
price of a pint of beer, viz., three half-pence. This was a more comfortable as
well as cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued
sotting with beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the
alehouse, and us'd to make interest with me to get beer; their light, as they
phrased it, being out. I watch'd the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected
what I stood engag'd for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a
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