A curious demonstration of Dr. Franklin's philosophy of lightning.
About thirty-four years after this date, when Doctor Franklin, by his
opposition to Lord North's measures, had become very unpopular, George
III. was persuaded to pull down the _sharp points_ of that "HOARY
REBEL," and set up the _blunts_ of an impudent quack, because,
forsooth, he was a _loyal subject_! Scarcely were the _sharps_ taken
down from the palace, to which, during thirty four years, they had
been an excellent safeguard, before a dismal cloud rose upon the city,
black as midnight, and when right over the palace discharged a
cataract of electric fluid, with horrid glare and thunder, stunning
all ears, blinding all eyes, and suffocating every sense with the
smell of sulphur. The famous _blunt conductors_ presented no point to
catch the bolt, which, dashing at the stately edifice, tore away all
its gable end, marring the best apartments, and killing several of the
king's servants.
Shortly arrived the packet from New York, with news of a far more
dreadful thunder-clap which had bursted on poor George in America--the
capture of his grand Canada army! which Lord North had promised him
should soon bring the rebels to their marrow bones. The next day the
following pasquinade made its appearance in the newspapers:
"While you, great George, intent to hunt,
Your sharp Conductors change to blunt,
The nation's out of joint;
Franklin a wiser course pursues,
And all your thunder fearless views,
By sticking to the POINT."
I cannot quit this subject without observing, that from Dr. Franklin's
experiments it appears, that death by lightning, must be the easiest
of all deaths.
"In September, 1752," says he, "six young Germans, apparently doubting
the truth of the reported force of electricity, came to me to see," as
they said, "if there was _any thing in it_. Having desired them to
stand up side by side, I laid one end of my discharging rod on the
head of the first; this laid his hand on the head of the second, that
on the head of the third, and so on to the last, who held in his hand
the chain that was attached to the lightning globe. On being asked if
they were ready, they answered _yes_, and boldly desired that I would
give them a _thumper_; I then gave them a shock; whereat they all
dropped down together. When they got up, they declared that they had
not felt any stroke; and wondered how they came to fall. Nor did any
of them _hear_ the crack, or _see_ the light of it."
He tells another story equally curious. "A young woman, afflicted with
symptoms of a palsy in the foot, came to receive an electrical shock.
Heedlessly stooping too near the prime conductor, she received a smart
stroke in the forehead, of which she fell like one perfectly lifeless
on the floor. Instantly she got up again complaining of nothing, and
wondering much why she fell, for that nothing of the sort had ever
happened to her before."
Nay, he also tells us of himself, that by accident, he received a
shock which in an instant brought him to the floor, without giving him
time to _see, hear, or feel any thing of the matter_! Hence he
concludes, and I think with good reason, that all who dread the idea
of pain in dying, would do well to pray, if it be God's will, to die
of _coelataction_, as the ancients called it, or a _touch from
heaven_.
It is worthy of remark, that persons thus knocked down, do not
_stagger_, or fall _lengthwise_, but as if deprived instantaneously
of strength and firmness, they sink down at once, doubled or folded
together, or as we say, "_all in a heap_."
Dr. Franklin seldom suffered any thing to escape him. From the power
of lightning to dissolve the hardest metals, he caught an idea
favourable to cooking and matrimony. First, an old dunghill cock
killed in the morning by a shock from his electrical jar, by dinner
was become so tender that both the doctor and several of his literary
friends pronounced it equal to a young pheasant. Second, an old
bachelor thought to be far gone in a consumption, had hardly received
more than a couple of dozen smart shocks of electricity, before he
turned into courting with great spirit, and presently got himself a
wife.
If electrical jars could be had cheap, this discovery concerning the
old dunghill cock might prove a good hint to those gentlemen in the
_tavern-keeping_ line, who are so very frugal that they will not keep
up a coop full of young poultry, fat and fine, and always ready for
the traveller, but prefer giving him the pain, long after his arrival
at their door, to hear the lean tenants of the dunghill flying and
squalling from the pursuit of the barking dogs and noisy servants.
And as to the experiment on the other kind of old CAPON, the grunting
wheezing old bachelor, it clearly points to the wish often expressed
by Dr. Franklin, viz. "_that the legislature would order an electrical
machine, large enough to kill a turkey cock at least, to be placed in
every parish, at the cost and for the benefit of all the old bachelors
of the same_."