His newspaper, the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, was the best in the colonies. Besides the ordinary news and advertisements, together with little anecdotes and squibs which he was always so clever in telling, he printed in it extracts from _The Spectator_ and various moral writers, articles from English newspapers, as well as articles of his own which had been previously read to the Junto. He also published long poems by Stephen Duck, now utterly forgotten; but he was then the poet laureate and wrote passable verse. He carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse; but what would now be considered indelicate jests were not infrequent. These broad jokes, together with witticisms at the expense of ecclesiastics, constituted the stock amusements of the time, as the English literature of that period abundantly shows.
Opening one of the old volumes of his _Gazette_ at random, we find for September 5, 1734, a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which, to encourage the propagation of the species, all the old maids of the country are to be raffled for. Turning over the leaves, we find the humorous will of a fellow who, among other queer bequests, leaves his body "as a very wholesome feast to the worms of his family vault." In another number an account is given of some excesses of the Pope, with a Latin verse and its translation which had been pasted on Pasquin's statue:
"Omnia Venduntur imo Dogmata Christi Et ne me vendunt, evolo. Roma Vale."
"Rome all things sells, even doctrines old and new. I'll fly for fear of sale; so Rome adieu."
In the number for November 7, 1734, we are given "The Genealogy of a Jacobite."
"The Devil _begat_ Sin, Sin _begat_ Error, Error _begat_ Pride, Pride _begat_ Hatred, Hatred _begat_ Ignorance, Ignorance _begat_ Blind Zeal, Blind Zeal _begat_ Superstition, Superstition _begat_ Priestcraft, Priestcraft _begat_ Lineal Succession, Lineal Succession _begat_ Indelible Character, Indelible Character _begat_ Blind Obedience, Blind Obedience _begat_ Infallibility, Infallibility _begat_ the Pope and his Brethren in the time of Egyptian Darkness, the Pope _begat_ Purgatory, Purgatory _begat_ Auricular Confession, Auricular Confession _begat_ Renouncing of Reason, Renouncing of Reason _begat_ Contempt of Scriptures, Contempt of the Scriptures _begat_ Implicit Faith, Implicit Faith _begat_ Carnal Policy, Carnal Policy _begat_ Unlimited Passive Obedience, Unlimited Passive Obedience _begat_ Non-Resistance, Non-Resistance _begat_ Oppression, Oppression _begat_ Faction, Faction _begat_ Patriotism, Patriotism _begat_ Opposition to all the Measures of the Ministry, Opposition _begat_ Disaffection, Disaffection _begat_ Discontent, Discontent _begat_ a Tory, and a Tory _begat_ a Jacobite, with Craftsman and Fog and their Brethren on the Body of the Whore of Babylon when she was deemed past child bearing."