"... there are other arguments made in favor of DST. These range from increased opportunities for leisure, enhanced public health and safety, and economic growth. In the end, a full evaluation of DST should account for these multiple dimensions but the evidence here suggests that continued reliance on Benjamin Franklin’s old argument alone has become misleading."
But Franklin's essay was obvious satire. Franklin presented his April 26, 1784, "Essay on Daylight Saving Time" in the Journal de Paris. The satirical paper pokes fun at himself (and Parisians in general) for sleeping until noon. For example:
"I was the other evening in a grand company, where the new lamp of Messrs. Quinquet and Lange was introduced, and much admired for its splendour; but a general inquiry was made, whether the oil it consumed was not in proportion to the light it afforded, in which case there would be no saving in the use of it....
"I went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with my head full of the subject. An accidental sudden noise waked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined at first, that a number of those lamps had been brought into it; but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at the windows I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, from whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters.
"I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanac, where I found it to be the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward, too, and found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as till eight o'clock. Your readers, who with me have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them, that he gives light as soon as he rises." [Emphasis added]
Franklin then presents his calculations on the number of candles that would saved in the city of Paris with DST. But he also makes additional tongue-in-cheek recommendations:
1. Tax windows with shutters;
2. Place guards in wax and tallow shops to prevent families buying more than one pound of candles per week;
3. Outlaw coaches in the street after sunset other than of physicians, surgeons, and midwives; and
4. At sunrise ring church bells or let cannons be fired to awake sluggards who would sleep in daylight.
That Franklin's article was not taken seriously at the time (at least in the U.S.) is evident in that the U.S. didn't use DST until WWI and again during WWII. After that it was continued locally in various regions before the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
John Adams when he was in Paris at the same time as Franklin was aggravated by Franklin's late rising and frequent partying which made it hard to get Franklin to read and sign important documents.