off in five minutes.  There was a general post, and Benjamin Franklin was deputy postmaster-general for the northern district of the colonies.  But the letters were carried thirty miles a day by postriders on horseback, and there were never more than three mails a week between even the great towns.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a postrider left New York city for Philadelphia.  Every Monday and Thursday another left New York for Boston.  Once each week a rider left for Albany on his way to Quebec.  On the first Wednesday of each month a packet boat sailed from New York for Falmouth, England, with the mail, and this was the only mail between Great Britain and her American colonies.  We put electricity to a thousand uses; but in 1763 it was a scientific toy.  Franklin had just proved by his experiment with the kite that lightning and electricity were one and the same, and several other men were amusing themselves and their hearers by ringing bells, exploding powder, and making colored sparks.  But it was put to no other use.  If we take up a daily newspaper published in one of our great cities and read the column of wants, we find in them twenty occupations now giving a comfortable living to millions of men.  Yet not one of these twenty existed in 1763.  The district messenger, the telegraph operator, the typewriter, the stenographer, the bookkeeper, the canvasser, the salesman, the commercial traveler, the engineer, the car driver, the hackman, the conductor, the gripman, the brakeman, the electrician, the lineman, the elevator boy, and a host of others, follow trades and occupations which had no existence in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Run away, the 23d of this Instant January, from Silas Crispin of Burlington, Taylor, a Servant Man named Joseph Morris, by Trade a Taylor, aged about 22 Years, of a middle Stature, swarthy Complexion, light gray Eyes, his Hair clipp’d off, mark’d with a large pit of the Small Pox on one Cheek near his Eye, had on when he went away a good Felt Hat, a yelowish Drugget Coat with Pleits behind, an old Ozenbrigs Vest, two Ozenbrigs Shirts, a pair of Leather Breeches handsomely worm’d and flower’d up the Knees, yarn Stockings and good round toe’d Shoes.  Took with him a large pair of Sheers crack’d in one of the Bows & mark’d with the Word [Savoy].  Whoever takes up the said Servant, and secures him so that his Matter may have him again, shall have Three Pounds Reward besides reasonable Charges, paid by me Silas Griffin.

     From a Philadelphia newspaper

%93.  Labor.%—­On the other hand, if we take up a newspaper of that day and read the advertisements, we find that a great deal of what existed then does not exist now.  The newspapers were published in a few of the large towns, and appeared not every day, but once a week.  In the largest of them would be from seventy-five to eighty advertisements, setting forth that such a merchant had just received from England