The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

On the Employment of Time, and on Indolence--particularly as respecting the State.
By Doctor FRANKLIN.

All that live must be subsisted.
A subsistence costs something. He
that is industrious, produces, by his in
dustry, something that is an equivalent,
and pays for his subsistence : he is there-
fore no charge or burden to society. The
indolent are an expense uncompensated.

There can be no doubt but all kinds
of employment that can be followed
without prejudice from interruptions,
work that can be taken up & laid down,
often in a day, without damage (such
as spinning, knitting, weaving, &c.)
are highly advantageous to a commu-
nity ; because in them may be collected
all the produce of those fragments of
time, that occur in family business, be-
tween the constant and necessary parts
of it, that usually occupy females ; as
the time between rising and preparing
for breakfast, between breakfast and
preparing for dinner, &c. &c. The
amount of all these fragments is, in the
course of a year, very considerable to a
single family--to a state proportionally.

Highly profitable therefore it is,
in this case also, to follow that divine
direction, "Gather up the fragments,
that nothing be lost". "Lost time is lost
subsistence ; it is therefore lost treasure.
Thereby, in several families, many
yards of linen have been produced from
the employment of those fragments on-
ly, in one year ; though such families
were just the same in number as when
not so employed.

It was an excellent saying of a cer-
tain Chinese Emperor, "I will, if pos-
sible, have no idleness in my domin-
ions ; for if there be one man idle,
some other man must suffer cold or
hunger."--We take the Emperor's
meaning to be, that the labor due to
the public by each individual, not be-
ing performed by the indolent, must
naturally fall to the share of others,
who must thereby suffer.