irregularity here, as elsewhere, was due to the change to the
Gregorian system of time.
B. FRANKLIN, CARTOONIST
Benjamin Franklin, who introduced many innovations into the American press, was the first to print the cartoon in his Pennsylvania Gazette. The occasion was a memorable one in American history. The government of the New York colony, on the recommendation of the Lords of Trade, issued on Decem- ber 24, 1753, a call for a meeting in Albany of the British colo- nies in America and announced the date for that meeting for June 14, 1754. Rumors of a possible war with the French was the immediate cause of the action. The rumors were not with- out some foundation, for on May 9, 1754, Franklin, who was one of the three commissioners to attend the Albany convention on behalf of Pennsylvania, published in The Pennsylvania Ga- zette an "advice" for Major Washington that the fort in the Forks of the Monongahela had been surrendered to the French. To increase the force of his appeal for "our common defense and security," he inserted a cartoon which represented a snake cut into eight parts: the head represented New England, and the seven other parts stood for New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Caro- lina. By way of a caption Franklin inserted under the cartoon the words "Join or Die."
INFLUENCE OF FIRST CARTOON
The power of the cartoon was at once recognized by the other editors of colonial papers. Before the end of the month, the snake cartoon had been copied in The New-York Gazette, The New-York Mercury, The Boston Gazette, and The Boston News- Letter. The Boston Gazette improved the original by putting the following words into the mouth of the snake, "Unite and Con- quer." The influence of the cartoon was not entirely confined to the papers already mentioned. The South Carolina Gazette, for example, doing the best it could with the mechanical facili- ties at its disposal, printed a "near-snake" with straight lines to represent its parts. Even The Virginia Gazette spoke of a
