Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/241

231 if they could be executed, our people generally would be happier, or even richer. Is not the hope of being one day able to purchaſe and enjoy luxuries, a great ſpur to labour and induſtry? May not luxury therefore produce more than it conſumes, if, without ſuch a ſpur, people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent? To this purpoſe I remember a circumſtance. The ſkipper of a ſhallop, employed between Cape-May and Philadelphia, had done us ſome ſmall ſervice, for which he refuſed to be paid. My wife underſtanding that he had a daughter, ſent her a preſent of a new-faſhioned cap. Three years after, this ſkipper being at my houſe with an old farmer of Cape-May, his paſſenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleaſed with it. "But (ſaid he) it proved a dear cap to our congregation."—How ſo?—"When my daughter appeared with it at meeting, it was ſo much admired, that all the girls reſolved to get ſuch caps from Philadelphia; and my wife and I computed that the whole could not have coſt leſs than a hundred pounds."—"True (ſaid the farmer), but you do not tell all the ſtory. I think the cap was nevertheleſs an advantage to us for it was the firſt thing that put our girls upon knitting worſted mittens for ſale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there, and you know that that induſtry has continued, and is likely to continue and increaſe to a much greater value, and anſwer better purpoſes."—Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little piece of luxury, ſince not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps, but the Philadelphians by the ſupply of warm mittens.