I am reading number 731 from December 14, 1742 and the first thing I notice, besides the header, is that all [edit: lower case?] S's are F's. This is mildly annoying to me since I'm not feeling my best and it makes it a little more difficult to read. The next thing I question is why he's reprinting and article from August. I know information moved much more slowly in those days, but was it really so slow that his audience would not have heard this yet? Or does he have other rhetorical motives for reprinting an article from 4 months ago. Also, key words in each sentence are capitalized. Is that just a thing newspapers did back then or what?
As I near the end of the first column, I'm struck with the realization that I have no idea what I'm reading about. Which war is this? Why did Franklin's American audience care? I saw something towards the top about "loss of the colonies", but I don't understand who was talking to who and so I'm generally just pretty confused right now.
Alright- I'm picking up more about this war. It involves Austria, England and France, but I have no idea whose on which side other than Austria against France. Which side is England on and who is Franklin in support of? .... Oh, goodness, like 3 more countries just got mentioned. I'm back to being confused.
That sure is a really long quote on page 2. I wonder why he put quotes on every line? Was that just the rule back then instead of the rule we have now?
Ok, I'm not gonna lie, I'm starting to lose patience. I don't understand why all this is so important and I'm no longer seeing many stylistic things that interest me.
Ooooh, there's a bunch of advertisements on page three. Now those interest me more than I war I know nothing about. There's a reward posted for a lost or stolen mare with her colt. I love horses so that definitely stands out to me. Though, there is nothing that interesting to analyse about it. It's a very typical reward add and other than some minor wording, is almost exactly the types of advertisements we see today for lost animals. I had fun skimming over the list of books Franklin was selling. He had a wide variety. Did he like have a bookshop or something? I didn't realize he was also a bookseller. I love books! The next advertisement is also for a bookseller/binder. It makes me kind of want to go have one of my books rebound just too see what the process was like.
More war...
Runaway slave ad.... an irish man, that's interesting.
I'm not quite sure what this little bit is saying but it has something to do with a French Privateer ship, which is interesting. Pirates are cool.
And the last page is ENTIRELY adverts and they seem to be mostly for sale or lost ads.
This particular issue seemed to be more reprints and excerpts than original writing from Ben. I'm not sure whether this is typical of an issue or is it's unique to this issue. I don't feel like I have much to say about it, though, because I don't have much material with which to judge his writing style or character or anything else about him. It's all reprinted from another source, excerpts from something, or ads.
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