MAY 


CONTENTS : 

Is Cremation I'nMasoiiic— John William- 

Devil Worship in France 

Class Lodges 

The Dignitv of Freemasonry 

Negro Masonry 

The Devil’s Half Acre 

Can You Prove Yourself? 

Caricature in Church 

The Un-Masonic Tongue 

The Superannuated Brother 

The Mysterious Lodger 

The Bov Was Better 

Delects of the Postal S>stem 

Editorials, Etc 

The Fruits of Non-Affiliation 

Physical Qualifications 

Grand Chapter R. A. M. of California . . . 
Grand Council R. ^ S. M. of California . 
Grand Commandery K. T. of California . 

Grand Bodies of Maine 

The Misuse of the White Ball 

Elections in Commanderies in California 

Editorial C *ips 

Chips from Other Quarries 

Li erary Notes 

Deaths 


Published by The Trestle Board Association, C. Moody Plumm er^ M anag er. 


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A MONTHLY MASONIC AND FAMILY MAGAZINE. 


Vol. XI. 


MAY, 1S97. 


No. 5. 


Is Cremation Un-Masonic? 

A Paper Read Before Durant Lodge , No. 

268, February 5, iSgj. by Bro. John 

Williams , of Oakland Lodge , No. 1S8. 

Worshipful Master and Brethren: On 
the 27th of December, 1S93, at the An- 
nual Communication of the Grand Lodge 
of Masons in the State of Pennsylvania, 
the Grand Master, Michael Arnold, report- 
ed among the decisions rendered by him, 
the following: 

THE DECISIONS. 

“Complaint was made to me that the Mas- 
ter of a Lodge declined to entertain a mo- 
tion to permit the cremated remains of a 
deceased brother to be placed in the Lodge- 
room, which decision w T as approved by the 
District Deputy Grand Master. In reply 
I also gave my approval of the action of 
the Master and the decision of the District 
Deputy Grand Master. A Lodge-room is 
a place for Lodge labor and refreshment, 
and not a place of Sepulture; nor is it a 
substitute for one. 

“On another occasion permission was 
asked to have the Masonic burial service 
performed at a crematory, which I refused. 
The burial service all through provides for 
a ceremony to be had over an open grave. 
A scroll is dropped in the grave and a sprig 
of evergreen. There is no provision in 
the Masonic burial service for dropping 
the scroll, the lambskin or a sprig of ever- 
green in a furnace. The right of the 
brethren to have their bodies disposed of 
in this quick and summary manner cannot 


be denied, but the mortuary tributes of the 
brethren should not be so summarily dis- 
posed of. The propriety of cremation is 
a matter on which each individual must 
form and hold his own opinion. Conse- 
quently, if a brother directs that his body 
be cremated, and his family desires the 
presence of the brethren at the house or 
church in which the funeral ceremonies are 
held, there is no objection to the attend- 
ance of the brethren thereat; but there is 
no burial sendee prepared for Masons to 
be used at a crematory. A vault is a grave, 
a furnace is not.” 

The report of Grand Master Preston, 
made to the Grand Lodge of Masons in 
California on October 13, 1S96, contains 
this decision: 

“The act of cremating the body of a de- 
ceceased Mason does not constitute a Ma- 
sonic burial. The performances of the 
ceremonies of our ritual for burial would 
not be appropriate on such an occasion.” 

The decision was approved by the Grand 
Lodge, and is now the law in this juris- 
diction. Therefore, as the law now stands, 
no Master Mason in Pennsylvania or in 
California who desires to have his remains 
cremated can be accorded a funeral with 
Masonic honors. 

Is this good Masonic law? Is it found- 
ed on Masonic principles ? Is it correct 
in ethics? Is there valid objection to it, 
from an ethical, a sanitary or a Masonic 
standpoint ? These are the questions, that, 
with all proper respect for the authority of 
the Grand Master and the Grand Lodge, 
it is the purpose of this paper to inquire 
into. 


i 9 6 THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


WHY DID CREMATION GIVE PLACE TO 
INHUMATION ? 

For the purpose of this inquiry I shall 
define cremation, or incineration, to be the 
act of burning to ashes, the human body 
after death, in contra- distinction to inhu- 
mation, or burial of the body in the earth. 

Notwithstanding the statements of some 
eminent authorities to the contrary, cre- 
mation is not a “fad” of modern origin. 
It is beyond question that the Romans and 
the Greeks buried their dead in the earliest 
ages of which we have any historical rec- 
ord, but many centuries before the Chris- 
tian era, they had discarded inhumation in 
favor of the pyre. “The pious care be 
ours the dead to burn,” says the Illiad, 
but to-day the descendants of both Greeks 
and Romans bury their dead. It is also 
certain that nearly all the early Christians, 
who were not of Semitic origin practiced 
cremation. Why then did cremation fall 
into disfavor and be superceded by inhu- 
mation among them ? 

The answer is in part because they grad- 
ually came to regard cremation as a purely 
pagan custom, and like all converts they 
abhorred whatever tended to remind them 
of the faith they had abjured; in part be- 
cause the great majority of the early Chris- 
tians belonged to the Semitic races, among 
which custom and tradition were all in 
favor of inhumation. There were other 
reasons also, that will presently be re- 
ferred to, not the least potent of which 
was the belief in the literal resurrection of 
the physical body, a belief in those days, 
with which burning the body to ashes was 
inharmonious and abhorrent. And it 
should not be forgotten that a powerful 
stimulus to earth burial was furnished by 
the example of Christ, whose body had 
been laid away in the tomb. 

The Egyptians, a Semitic race, embalm- 
ed their dead to prevent the destruction of 
the bodv; for it was their belief that at 
death the soul had only gone on a journey, 
and that at some future time it would re- 
turn and inhabit the body again. The 
Jews, another Semitic race which furnished 
large numbers of the early Christians, de- 
rived many of their customs from the 
Egyptians. They interred their dead, and 
burned in the fire of Tophet, outside of 
Jerusalem only such as were struck by 
lightning, suicides and unteethed infants. 

The tenth verse of the sixth chapter of 
the Book of Amos, speaks of burning the 


body; and the last two verses of the last 
chapter of the first Book of Samuel, tells 
us that the bodies of Saul and his sons 
were burned, and their bones buried under 
a tree. Like the request ol Jacob to be 
buried in the land of his fathers, the 
statement is narrative only. There is no 
commandment in the Scriptures as to the 
manner in which the dead shall be dis- 
posed. Both the Old Testament and the 
New are absolutely silent except as to his- 
torical narrative. 

The early Christians looked with dis- 
favor upon cremation. After the third or 
fourth century of the Christian era, all the 
teachings and traditions of the Church fa- 
vored earth burial, and they continue to 
favor it to this day. If the newspapers 
may be believed, a series of sermons is 
now being preached in St. Ignatius Church 
in San Francisco, that steks to prove that 
by reason of an ordinance of the Apos- 
tles, it is forbidden a Christian to direct* 
that his body shall be cremated after death. 
But the Reverend Father may be pardon- 
ed for failure to point out the ordinance, 
for no ordinance of the Apostles exists or 
ever has existed. Within a few years a 
Philadelphia priest refused to permit the 
incinerated remains of one of his flock to 
be brought into his church. Truly, inhu- 
mation, as opposed to cremation, makes 
strange bedfellows; the Catholic Church 
and the Masonic Grand Lodges in Penn- 
sylvania and California. The Grand Mas- 
ters may, however, be pardoned if they 
deem their venerable ally unkind when it 
classes cremation as a Masonic custom. 

In the early Christian centuries many 
men and women who had lived lives of 
extraordinary holiness, or had suffered 
martyrdom for the faith, were declared by 
the Church to be saints, and supernatural 
powers were attributed to their relics. But 
the great merit that attached to the bones 
of a saint would have no foundation if no 
bones existed, and none could exist if the 
body had been burned instead of buried. 

From the beginning to the present day 
the Church has taught veneration and rev- 
erence for the holy relics of saints and 
martyrs. The Holy Coat that was worn 
by Christ at the crucifixion is still pre- 
served in the Cathedral of Treves. It is 
periodically exhibited to bless the vision 
and strengthen the faith of hundreds of 
thousands of devout pilgrims who flock to 
see it from every part of Europe. Treves 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


*97 


is a seat of learning, with a university, 
whose charter dates from the year 1450, 
but it is doubtful if some famous profess- 
ors now attached to 'California universities 
could obtain a chair within its walls. 

According to Gibbon, the most illustri- 
ous of the saints and prophets received the 
honors of martyrs. “The bodies of St. 
Andrew, St. Luke and St. Timothy had 
reposed near three hundred years in the ob- 
scure graves, from whence they were trans- 
ported, in solemn pomp, to the Church of 
the Apostles, which the magnificence of 
Constantine had founded on the banks of 
the Thracian Bosphorus. About fifty years 
afterwards the same banks were honored 
by the presence of Samuel, the judge and 
prophet of the people of Israel. His 
ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and 
covered with a silken veil, w r ere delivered 
by the bishops into each others hands. 
The relics of Samuel were received by the 
people with the same joy and reverence 
which they would have shown to the living 
prophet; the highways from Palestine to 
the gates of Constantinople were filled 
with an uninterrupted procession, and the 
Emperor Arcadius himself at the head of 
the most illustrious members of the clergy 
and senate advanced to meet his extraor- 
dinary guest, who had always deserved 
and claimed the homage of kings.- The 
example of Rome and Constantinople con- 
firmed the faith and discipline of the Cath- 
olic world. The honors of the saints and 
martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual mur- 
mur of profane reason, were universally 
established, and in the age of Ambrose 
and Jerom something was still deemed 
wanting to the sanctity of a Christian 
church till it had been consecrated by 
some portion of holy relics, which fixed 
and inflamed the devotion of the faith ul.” 

The resting place of the remains of St. 
Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian 
faith, were revealed in a vision to Lucian, 
a presbyter of Jerusalem. The ground 
was opened by the bishop in the presence 
of an innumerable multitude. When the 
coffin was brought to light the earth trem- 
bled, and an odor such as that of para- 
dise was smelt, which instantly cured the 
various diseases of seventy-three of the 
assistants. The remains were transported 
in solemn procession to a church construct- 
ed in their honor on Mount Zion, and the 
minutest particles of those relics, a drop 
of blood or the scrapings of a bone were 
acknowledged in almost every province of 


the Roman world to possess a divine and 
miraculous virtue. 

St. Augustine, the most profound theo- 
logian of his day, “a man whose under- 
standing scarcely admits the excuse of 
credulity,” has attested above seventy 
miracles performed by the relics of St. 
Stephen, of which three were resurrections 
from the dead. At Minorca the relics con- 
verted in eight days five hundred and forty 
Jews, but a profane historian ventures the 
suggestion that the relics of the saint re- 
ceived very material assistance through 
some wholesome severeties, such as burn- 
ing the synagogue and driving the more 
obstinate of the infidels to starve among 
the rocks. 

In illustrating the veneration in which 
holy relics were held by the early Chris- 
tians, I have taken the case of St. Stephen 
at random, not because there is any exag- 
geration in it, but because it offers a fair 
average of the number and character of 
the prodigies performed, The record of 
these miracles performed in fourteen hun- 
dred years, and the veracious testimony 
supporting them would make a large li- 
brary. Had cremation, however, not given 
way to inhumation the miracles would 
needs have been of some other character; 
they could not well be based upon bits of 
bones, for cremation would have destroyed 
the bones. 

CREMATION AND THE ROMAN CHURCH. 

It must not be supposed that hostility to 
the practice of cremation is confined solely 
to two Masonic Grand Masters and the 
Catholic Church. Cremation has many 
opponents among Protestants, both clergy- 
men and laymen, but there is no organized 
opposition. Among all classes of Protest- 
ants it probably has more ad\ocates than 
opponents. Organized opposition, that 
is worthy the name, comes only from the 
Catholic Church. There is no other. I 
shall try to show before I close, that the 
hostile attitude of the two Grand Masters 
is the result of accident or carelessness, 
rather than of Masonic sentiment. 

The attitude of the Catholic Church to- 
wards cremation is well, known, for its 
bishops and clergy have frequently ex- 
pounded it since the official decree was 
promulgated at Rome in 1886. The Very 
Rev. J. Hogan, S. S., thus defines the po- 
sition of the Church in Donahoe’s Maga- 
zine for July, 1894: 

“Doctrinally the Church has nothing to 


198 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


oppose to it, for no divine law has deter- 
mined the manner of disposing of the 
dead. Practically she is prepared to ad- 
mit it in cases of necessity, such as those of 
war or pestilence, when a large number of 
decaying bodies m-ty become a danger to 
the public health unless they are reduced 
to ashes.” 

“We go farther and say, that if we 
could suppose in some remote period the 
necessity to have become common, doubtless 
the Church would accommodate herself to 
it. But in the present circumstances she 
objects to the practice. She objects first of 
all, because she is instinctively conserva- 
tive, and dislikes all unnecessary changes, 
especially when the change would be a de- 
parture from what she has practiced uni- 
versally and invariably from the begin- 
ning.” 

After citing the several decrees of Rome 
in relation to the questions of cremation 
referred to the Vatican from 1884 to 1886, 
he continues: 

“From these rulings it is easy to gather 
the mind of the Catholic Church. She 
dislikes a change: she maintains her an- 
cient customs, to which she is bound by 
many ties; yet she is ever ready to take 
into account the requirements of the day 
and the advent of new methods so long as 
they are not introduced in a spirit of hos- 
tility to her faith. She clings to the past, 
yet she leaves to each individual Bishop 
to decide in what measure it may be advis- 
able to depart from it.” 

Bishop Hedley presents the position of 
the Church from a slightly different point 
of view, in this language: 

“There is nothing defined by the Church 
on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of cre- 
mation in the abstract, and it is easily con- 
ceivable that under certain circumstances 
the Church might, in deference to medical 
and sanitary authorities, allow the bodies 
of the dead to be burned. But the ancient 
Catholic and Jewish tradition is to lay the 
body in the earth. This expresses and 
symbolizes that ‘sleep,’ as St. Paul calls it, 
which is to be ended by the trumpet of the 
resurrection. It is the traditional and im- 
memorial signification of belief in the re- 
surrection of the body, and it is the basis 
of a ritual which embodies prayer for the 
dead, and which proclaims our fellowship 
with our brethren who are gone before. 
As a fact, although in this country many 
advocate cremation without in any way 


denying the resurrection of the body, it is 
found that on the continent it is chiefly 
promoted by anti-Christian societies who 
intend thereby to weaken belief in the life 
to come. Hence, the Holy See has for- 
bidden Catholics to practice cremation, or 
in any way to advhe or countenance it. 
No one could be buried with Catholic rites 
who left directions that his body should be 
cremated.” 

The decree itself, issued at Rome on 
May 19, 1886, is of special interest to all 
Masons, and because of the Masonic in- 
formation it contains, it should be particu- 
larly interesting to Past Grand Masters 
Preston and Arnold. It is as follows: 

“Several Bishops and prudent members 
of Christ’s flock, knowing that certain 
men possessed of doubtful faith, or belong- 
ing to the Masonic sect, strongly contend 
at the present day for the practice of the 
pagan custom of cremation, founding spe- 
cial societies to spread the custom, fear 
lest the minds of the faithful may be work- 
ed upon by these wiles and sophistries so 
as to lose by degrees, esteem and reverence 
towards the constant Christian usage of 
burying the bodies of the faithful — a usage 
hallowed by the solemn rites of the Church. 
In order, therefore, that some fixed rule 
may be laid down for the faithful, to pre- 
serve them from the insidious doctrines 
above mentioned, the Supreme Congrega- 
tion of the Holy Roman and Universal In- 
quisition is asked: 

“1. Is it lawful to become a member 
of those societies whose object is to spread 
the practice of cremation? 

“2. Is it lawful to leave orders for the 
burning of one’s own body or that of an- 
other ? 

“Their Eminences, the Cardinals Gen- 
eral Inquisitors, after grave and mature 
consideration answered: 

“To the first question, no; and if it is 
a question of societies connected with the 
Masonic sect, the penalties pronounced 
against this sect would be incurred. To 
the second, no. 

When these decisions were referred to 
our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII, His 
Holiness approved and confirmed them, 
and directed them to be communicated to 
the Bishops, in order that they might in- 
struct the faithful upon the detestable 
abuse of burning the bodies of the dead, 
and might do all in their power to keep 
the flock entrusted to their charge from 
such a practice.” 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


199 


CREMATION VERSUS INHUMATION. 

Let us now apply ourselves to the merits 
of the question. ' In the time at my com- 
mand it is not possible to discuss all the 
evidence that can be produced for and 
against both inhumation and incineration. 
I can only lay down my own conclusions 
and merely hint at the character of the 
testimony that has influenced me in reach- 
ing those conclusions. Permit me to hope 
that in doing so I may arouse sufficient in- 
terest in the question to prompt you to 
continue the investigation for yourselves. 

Burial in the ground, consigning the 
dead to the “secret and decent chemistry 
of nature,” as Bishop Coxe calls it, is a 
hallowed custom, hoary with age. It is 
the only method of disposal of the dead 
that the great majority of people on this 
continent have ever given a thought to. 
The literature of every Christian people, 
and of many peoples that are not Chris- 
tian, is filled with gentle reference to the 
grave and tender sentiment regarding the 
peaceful sleep of the dead beneath the 
green sod and the blue sky. Sentiment, 
religion and poetry are bound up in the 
tomb. Burial in the ground is practiced 
by nearly 400,000,000 of Christians and 
over 800,000,000 of Non-Christians. Nev- 
ertheless, familiar as the custom is to all 
of us, hallowed as the sentiment is to most 
of us, both custom and sentimeut rest upon 
a trinity ol ignorance, prejudice and su- 
perstition. None of its advocates have ad- 
vanced a single argument in its favor, that 
is not based upon sentiment. I submit, 
that in the face of utilitarianism, in the face 
of sanitary considerations that powerfully 
affect the welfare of the living, a senti- 
mental argument carries but little weight. 

I assert this proposition, whatever is 
against burial in the earth, is an argument 
in favor of cremation. 

The whole question is purely a sanitary 
question; there is not a particle of senti- 
ment or religion about it. To introduce ar- 
gument based jupon either sentiment or 
religion will only becloud it. But should 
it by any chance become a question of 
sentiment, argument would be useless, 
for the advocates of cremation see less 
to shock the nerves in the few minutes of 
the quick consuming flame, than in the 
long years of putrescent feeding of worms 
in a cold damp grave. When it comes to 
a question of taste, argument stops. There 
can be no disputing about taste. 


Now, how can burial in the earth injuri- 
ously affect the public health ? It affects it: 

(1.) By exhalation of noxious gases 
rising through the soil and causing air pol- 
lution. 

(2.) By drainage, introducing poison- 
ous matter into wells and other water- 
courses, causing water pollution. 

(3.) By the possibility of producing an 
epidemic through the opening of graves 
of persons who have died of an infectious 
disease. 

Time and the limits of this paper will 
only permit the citation of a few proofs in 
support of each proposition. 

First, as to air pollution and the dan- 
gers that arise from it. It is the experi- 
ence of all large cities that in time their 
cemeteries become overcrowded, and sev- 
eral corpses are put in the same grave. 
Noxious gases escape into the air or into 
the sewage drains, and thus reach houses, 
or will percolate so as to contaminate 
water which is afterwards used for domes- 
tic purposes. The great Paris cemeteries 
inflict headaches, diarrhoea and ulcerated 
sore throat on those who live in their im- 
mediate vicinity. In the epidemic of 
cholera in Burlington, Iowa, in 1850, it 
was observed that the neighborhood of the 
city cemetery was free from the disease un- 
til after some twenty interments of cholera 
victims had been made. After that the 
disease became virulent in the vicinity of 
the cemetery, and always in the direction 
from which the wind came. 

The investigations by the Massachusetts 
Board of Health shows that diphtheria and 
typhoid fever are disseminated not only by 
infectious emanations from sick rooms, but 
also from the graves of persons who had 
died from these complaints. In 1814, in 
the city of New York, a battalion of mil- 
itia was stationed on a lot on Broadway, 
the rear of which abutted on the Potters 
Field, from which arose an odious effluvi- 
um. A number of the soldiers were at- 
tacked with diarrhoea and fever, and al- 
though they were removed at once, one 
died. The others rapidly recovered. In 
March, 18S3, during an alarming preva- 
lence of typhoid fever in Carmansville, N, 
Y. , it was shown that all the cases devel- 
oped on three sides of, and close to Trin- 
ity cemetery, and that there was no other 
discoverable source or cause of the epi- 
demic. 

The late M. Pasteur in his investigations 
of the origin of bacteria discovered that 


200 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


these microscopic forms of life develop in 
infinite multitndes in dead bodies, work 
their way up through the soil to the sur- 
face, where they are scattered in every di- 
rection by the winds, with the possibility 
of propagating innumerable diseases. In 
Denmark a virulent cattle disease was 
communicated to some cows from their 
grazing in a field where, twelve years be- 
fore, cattle dying of the same complaint 
had been buried. 

The conclusions reached by Pasteur from 
his experiments were confirmed through 
the investigations of Dr. Domingo Freire, 
of Rio Janeiro, during the epidemic of 
yellow fever in that city. The investiga- 
tions of Dr. Freire showed that the soil of 
the cemeteries in which the victims of yel- 
low fever were buried was absolutely alive 
with microbic organisms, identical in every 
way with those in the blood of patients 
dying from the disease in the hospitals. 
“I gathered,” said he, “from a foot below 
the surface, some of the earth overlying 
the remains of a person who died of the 
fever about a year before. On examining 
a small quantity with the microscope I 
found myriads of microbes exactly identi- 
cal with those found in the excreta of per- 
sons stricken with the disease. Many of 
' the organisms were making spontaneous 
movements. These observations, which 
were verified in all their details by my as- 
sistants, show that the germs of yellow 
fever perpetuate themselves in cemeteries. 
In fact, the cemeteries are so many nur- 
series of yellow fever, for every year the 
rain washes the soil, and the fever germs 
with which it is so thickly sown, into the 
water courses and distributes them over 
the town and neighborhood.” 

A guinea-pig whose blood was shown by 
examination to be in a pure state, was shut 
up in a confined space in which was placed 
the earth taken from the grave just men- 
tioned. In five days the animal was dead, 
and its blood was found to be literally 
alive with the parasites in various stages of 
evolution. The injection of a grain of 
blood charged with these organisms into 
the veins of a rabbit was followed by death 
in a quarter of an hour. The blood of 
the rabbit was then found to contain the 
germ, and the injection of a grain of it 
into a guinea-pig was followed by death, 
the microscope showing that the blood of 
the guinea-pig swarmed with the parasite. 
This is the doctor’s concluding warning 
after narrating these experiments: “If each 


corpse is the bearer of millions of millions 
of organisms that are specifics of ill, im- 
agine what a cemetery must be in which 
new foci are forming around each body. 
In the silence of death these worlds of 
organisms, invisible to the unassisted eye, 
are laboring incessantly and unperceived 
to fill more graves with more bodies des- 
tined for their food and for the fatal per- 
petuation of their species.” 

Now as to the pollution of water. Dr. 
E. G. Rannev, Secretary of the Michigan 
State Medical Society, is authority for the 
statement, that “contamination of well wa- 
ter has been directly traced to cemeteries 
situate more than half a mile distant.” In 
the summer of 1877 when portions of the 
town of Hornellsville, New York, were 
scourged with diphtheria, the disease was 
most virulent and fatal in those districts 
where the wells were supplied by natural 
watercourses flowing from Mount Hope, 
where the village cemetery is located. In 
the same year the town of Watkins, N. Y., 
suffered from diphtheria to such an extent 
that whole families of children were swept 
away. The disease committed its ravages 
only in those parts of the town where the 
drinking water was supplied from courses 
having their rise on the hill west of the 
village. On this hill is “Lake View,” the 
village cemetery. 

The danger to be apprehended from 
wells in cemeteries, or from any streams in 
the vicinity is thus pointed out by the 
London Lancet , one of the foremost medi- 
cal publications in the world: 

“It is a well ascertained fact that the 
surest carrier and most fruitful nidus of 
zymotic contagion is this brilliant enticing 
looking water charged with the nitrates 
which result from organic decomposition. 
What, for example, was the history of the 
Broad street pump, which proved so fatal 
during the cholera epidemic of 1854? 
Was this water foul, thick and stinking? 
Unfortunately not. It was the purest look- 
ing and the most enticing water to be 
found in the neighborhood, and people 
came from a distance to get it. Yet there 
can be no doubt that it carried cholera to 
many who drank it.” 

The next statement is from Dr. Thorn- 
burg, in the Chautauquan of November 
last. “A single case of typhoid fever, if 
the excreta be improperly disposed of, is 
sufficient to contaminate a whole reservoir, 
lake or river, and endanger the health and 
lives of thousands of persons. Strikingly 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


20 1 


illustrative in this connection is the epi- 
demic which occurred at Plymouth, Pa., 
in the summer of 18S5. The estimated 
population of the town was 9,000. Of this 
number 1, 104 were attacked with the fever 
and over ten per cent, of the cases proved 
fatal, there having occurred in all 1 14 
deaths. The epidemic was traced to a 
single case of typhoid fever, located upon 
a hill side up the stream which supplied 
water to the reservoir of the town. The 
dejections were not properly disposed of, 
and in the spring when the annual thaw 
came, the germs of typhoid fever were car- 
ried down the hillside into the stream, and 
then into the reservoir from which the 
residents received their drinking water/’ 

As to the possibility of producing an 
epidemic through opening graves of per- 
sons who have died of an infectious dis- 
ease. In an address delivered before the 
New York Academy of Medicines in 1891, 
Dr. J. L. Smith mentioned the case of an 
unfortunate gravedigger, who, having dis- 
interred the remains of persons who had 
died twenty three years before from diph- 
theria, fell a victim soon after to the dis- 
ease himself. In 1828, Professor Bianchi 
demonstrated how the fearful reappearance 
of the plague at Modena was caused by ex- 
cavations in the. ground where, three hun- 
dred years previously, the victims of the 
pestilence had been buried. The malig- 
nity of the cholera which scourged Lon- 
don in 1854 was augmented by the exca- 
vations made for sewers in the soil where, 
in 1665. one hundred and eightv-nine 
years before, those dying from the plague 
had been buried. Sir John Simon predict- 
ed this result, and warned the authorities 
of the danger of disturbing the spot. 

When the parish church of Minchin- 
hampton was rebuilt in 1843 the super- 
fluous soil of the burying ground adjoining 
it was disposed of for manure and deposit- 
ed in many of the neighboring gardens. 
As a result, the town was nearly depopu- 
lated. 

I have cited a sufficient number of illus- 
trations to prove that the subject of crema- 
tion is, when properly understood, of deep 
interest and vast importance. . The dead 
should not be permitted to endanger the 
health of the living. The remedy is the 
remedy of the old Greeks and Romans — 
fire. Neither freezing nor boiling will kill 
certain kinds of disease germs, but no 
germ known to medical science can pass 
through fire without being destroyed. 


This earth was intended for the living, not 
for the dead. The dead in their graves 
are powerless to help us, but their power 
to harm by polluting the air we breathe 
and the water we drink is beyond calcula- 
tion. 

According to the character of the soil in 
which the body is buried, and the manner 
in which it is coffined, it takes from eight 
to forty years for a body to become en- 
tirely resolved into its original elements. 
That means that hundreds of thousands of 
bodies are in a state of putrescent decom- 
position every minute and hour of the year. 

What is the difference between resolu- 
tion in the grave and resolution in the fur- 
nace? In result there is none. Chemical 
science demonstrates that decomposition is 
but slow combustion. Sir Henry Thomp- 
son, in the Contemporary Review for Jan., 
1874, says: 

“The problem which nature sets herself 
to work in disposing of the dead animal 
matter is always one and the same. The 
order of the universe requires its perform- 
ance; no other end is possible. The prob- 
lem may be slowly worked or quickly 
worked; the end is always the same. It 
may be thus stated. The animal must be 
resolved into 

(a) Carbonic acid, water and ammonia. 

( b ) Mineral constituents, more or less 
oxidized, elements of the earth’s structure, 
lime, phosphorous, iron, sulphur, mag- 
nesia, etc. 

The first group gaseous in form, go into 
the atmosphere. 

The second group ponderous and solid, 
remain where the body lies until dissolved 
and washed into the earth by rain. 

The problem to be worked is: Given- a 
dead body, to resolve it into carbonic acid, 
water and ammonia, and the mineral ele- 
ments, rapidly, safely and not unpleas- 
antly. The answer may be practically 
supplied in a properly constructed furnace. 
The gases can be driven off without op- 
pressive odor, the mineral constituents will 
remain in a crucible. The gases will ere 
night be consumed by plants and trees. 
The ashes, or any portion of them, may be 
preserved in a funeral urn, or may be scat- 
tered on the fields, which latter is their 
righteous destination.” 

I have gone into all this detail to show 
that the manner of disposal of the bodies 
of the dead is a subject in which every 
man, whether Mason or profane, has a 
deep interest. To the Mason it not only 


202 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


has a Masonic interest peculiar to himself, 
but it has a sanitary interest as well that 
affects every living member of his family. 

THE GRAND MASTER’S PROHIBITION. 

In searching for the authority that jus- 
tified the Grand Masters in putting crema- 
tion in the Masonic Index-prohibitorhis , 
these questions suggests themselves. What 
is Masonry? and, what are the sources and 
characteristics of Masonic Law ? 

I am one of those who believe that 
Masonry is something more than an or- 
ganization of men that is held together 
simply by bonds devised by men. I place 
no reliance whatever in the legend that 
gives it birth at the building of King Sol- 
omon’s Temple. It has within itself, in 
its outward symbols, and in its great cardi- 
nal principles of Right, and Truth and 
Justice, the evidence that it existed long 
before the Israelites as a people appear in 
history. Its symbols, both esoteric and 
exoteric, point to a Chaldean origin long 
before Egypt became a nation. I do not 
wish to be understood as asserting that it 
has always existed in its present form, or 
that it has always borne its present name. 
Such an assertion would be childish. I do 
claim, however, that its cardinal principles 
are the same now as they were thousands 
of years ago, when on the plains of Chal- 
dea, the pomegranate, the lotus and the 
pillars now styled Jachin and Boaz, com- 
manded a reverence as religious symbols 
that is not surpassed in our own day by 
the reverence that is paid to any religious 
symbol whatever. 

At various periods in the world’s history 
these principles have found expression in 
organizations of men drawn together by 
mutual tastes and sympathies, having for 
their object always the betterment, never 
the spoliation of their fellowmen, teaching 
in their rites and ceremonies the ethical 
duties of man, the unity of God and the 
immortality of the soul. 

We recognize them at one period in the 
Osiric Mysteries of the Egyptians, and the 
Mithraic among the Persians. We find 
them in the Dionysiac and the Eleusinian 
Mysteries of the Greeks and Romans, that 
according to Cicero brought to their Tem- 
ples men from the remotest regions of the 
earth. We see them again in the Essenian 
Mysteries of the Jews, in the Druidic Mys- 
teries of the Celts, and in the Masonic 
Mysteries of our own times. We find 
them frequently changing the name by 


which they are known to the world; fre- 
quently changing subordinate regulations 
to conform to the requirements of a par- 
ticular age or country; but we never find 
them changing the great central doctrine 
of the pursuit of Truth, a doctrine that is 
at .once their duty to expound, and their 
warrant for existence. 

A traveler following the course of a river 
sees it at one time a broad smooth stream 
winding its way between low grassy banks 
that stretch out into broad green meadows. 
Again he will see it sweeping by precipi- 
tous cliffs, its bed narrowed and the placid 
stream turned into a rushing torrent. The 
direction of his road changes, and the river 
is lost to his sight. After days of travel 
he again comes upon it, but now bed and 
banks and landscape have again changed. 
A different soil imparts a new color to the 
water. He is in another country whose 
people have a language and laws and cus- 
toms vastly different from those of his own, 
and the name of the river is not now the 
name by which it is known in his own land. 

Nevertheless, it is the same stream, 
changed only by its environments. 

It is thus that I look upon Freemasonry. 
Its cardinal principles have always exist- 
ed, and always will exist. They may dis- 
appear for a time, as in the shifting scenes 
of history, nations and dynasties rise and 
fall, and carry their customs with them, 
but the cardinal principles can never be- 
come entirely lost. When they reappear 
possibly their outer covering may be 
changed to suit the requirements demand- 
ed by new surroundings. They may bear 
one name now, and another again, but 
stripped of the husks of local environ- 
ment they are the same principles forever 
and in all places. 

I am one of those who believe that Ma- 
sonry is a natural religion, and by natural 
religion I mean a religion that appeals to 
human reason, a religion that is common 
to and can be accepted by all [mankind. 
Such a religion is founded in the Masonic 
Landmarks. Brotherly Love, Relief and 
Truth, the Spirit of Right, and Truth and 
Justice. Such a religion does not teach 
that God, the Grand Architect of the Uni- 
verse, ever intended to restrict His mer- 
cies and His blessings to any one race or 
sect, and consign all the rest of His chil- 
dren to everlasting misery. The religion 
of Masonry teaches no such creed. 

I have seen the Master Mason degree 
conferred upon a Hindoo disciple of Bud- 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


203 


dha. There were present, lending willing 
assistence, Jews and Christians and Mo- 
hammedans. Among the Christians were 
those belonging to nearly every sect. I 
cannot name them all, but I recognized 
among them Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 
Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, 
Unitarians, Spiritualists and Theosophists. 

But in that Lodge-room there was no 
sect. Every man there called every 
other man brother, and would fly to the 
other’s assistance if assistance were need- 
ed. Every man there looked upon every 
other man as being one of God’s creat- 
ures on a level and an equality with 
himself. All were working at the same 
time, in the same way, for the same ob- 
ject, and that object was the ascertainment 
of how best to apply the Masonic prin- 
ciples of Right and Truth and Justice in 
benefitting Mankind. There was no con- 
tention, no strife, no argument. 

That Lodge room was a sight to put to 
shame and confusion the puerile squab- 
blings and hairsplittings of the purblind 
tribe of theologians that would make of 
God’s vineyard afield of battle. It was such 
a sight as can only be witnessed within the 
walls of a Masonic Lodge. If it was not 
the Spirit of God speaking through that 
natural religion the Essence of Right and 
Truth and Justice, that in some degree is 
in the heart of every man, then I do not 
know what to call it. I have no other 
name for it. 

SOURCES OF MASONIC LAW. 

Masonic law can only spring from three 
sources: 

(1.) The Ancient Landmarks. 

(2.) The Will of the Grand Master. 

(3.) Legislation by the Grand Lodge. 

Let us first consider the will of the 
Grand Master. 

By the very nature and form of the 
Masonic Institution, the Grand Master of 
Masons is a unique personage. There is 
no officer like him known to the civil 
law. In the exercise of his prerogative he 
has anauthoritv to command implicit obedi- 
ence that is only equalled by that of the 
Czar or the Pope. When the brand Lodge 
is not in session, the Grand Master as Grand 
Master , is an autocrat. His will is the Su- 
preme law. No matter how illogical or 
unjust his decisions may be. they must be 
obeyed under penalty of discipline that 
may even extend to an arrest of the charter 
and dismemberment of the Lodge. He 


may rule that black is white, and the rul- 
ing will be law, until the Grand Lodge 
reviews and sets it aside. 

As a source of Masonic law. any edict 
issued or decision rendered bv the Grand 
Master, whether originating with himself 
or coming up lo him from the Brethren, 
becomes law, and remains law, until the 
Grand Lodge changes it, either by refusal 
to confirm, or if confirmed, by subsequent 
repeal. 

At the Annual Communication of the 
Grand Lodge, the usual procedure is for 
the Grand Master to report his official acts 
since the last regular Communication. In 
this Jurisdiction his decisions on questions 
of Masonic law are referred at the opening 
of the session to the Committee on Juris- 
prudence, and that committee after exam- 
ination of the decisions, reports back to 
the Grand Lodge. If the committee be of 
the opinion that the decisions are based 
upon sound Masonic principles, it recom- 
mends that they be concurred in, and the 
decisions be confirmed. On the other 
hand if, in the judgment of the committee, 
a decision is not based upon sound prin- 
ciples, the recommendation is that the de- 
cision be not concurred in, and if the rec- 
ommendation be adopted the decision 
thereupon ceases to be binding as law. 

Grand Masters have, time and again, 
rendered decisions that have failed to re- 
ceive the confirmation of the Grand Lodge, 
but it may be doubttd, if such a decision 
has ever been rendered, when the facilities 
or the time at the Grand Master’s com- 
mand have permitted a full examination 
of the law of the question before him. 

If there be one man in the Fraternity 
who more than any other is a hard worked 
man, that man is the Grand Master. The 
office is the pinnacle of Masonic honor, 
but it is no sinecure. As a rule, in his 
private capacity, the Grand Master is a 
citizen of considerable importance in the 
community, having his full share of priv- 
ate business that may not be neglected. 
On the top of this come the duties that 
adhere to the office of the Grand Master, 
and, like his private business, they may not 
be put aside. Noblesse oblige There is 
hardly a mail that does not bring him cor- 
respondence from every part of the Juris- 
diction upon every conceivable topic, 
Masoni' and sometimes un Masonic. 
Then too, he is in almost constant com- 
munication with the dignitaries of for- 
eign, or of Sister Grand Bodies. From 


204 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


his own obedience comes for settle- 
ment every sort of Masonic dispute, and 
he is called upon to interpret almost 
every section of the Constitution. A 
few years ago a Grand Master face- 
tiously reported to his Grand Lodge, that 
during his term of office, he had at one 
time and another been importuned to grant 
dispensations to permit the violation of 
nearly every principle of Masonic law, and 
the great number of requests that had come 
to him to interpret the plainest and sim- 
plest provisions of the statutes led him to 
believe that many of the Brethren adopted 
that method in order to obtain the Grand 
Master’s autograph. 

There have been instances where the 
Grand Lodge has refused to adopt the 
recommendation of the committee, but as 
a rule the Grand Lodge looks to its com- 
mittees for information and leadership in 
legislation. The committees therefore, in 
great measure, mould the law. 

It often happens that the Committee on 
Jurisprudence (the most important of all 
the committees) is burdened at the very 
beginning of the session with an enormous 
amount of work. In the short space of 
three or four days during which the Grand 
Lodge is in session, the committee is ex- 
pected to examine and make a recommend- 
ation upon every question that comes be- 
fore it. Frequently in so short a time it 
cannot give some particular question the 
mature consideration which its importance 
demands, and it- asks leave to refer such 
question to its successor, the new commit- 
tee to be appointed by the incoming Grand 
Master. Frequently also, many questions 
receive insufficient consideration, and 
hasty and sometimes unwise legislation is 
the result. 

I have long entertained the belief that 
it would be better for the Craft if the Grand 
Master were required to file his decisions 
with the Committee on Jurisprudence as 
soon as rendered. Such a procedure, by 
giving the committee plenty of time to ex- 
amine the law on intricate questions, be- 
fore the meeting of the Grand Lodge, 
would in a large measure correct the evils 
from which spring hasty, ill-considered 
legislation. 

AS TO LAW MADE BY THE GRAND LODGE. 

The Grand Lodge is a representative 
body composed of its own Past Grand 
Masters, and the Past Masters and Masters 
and Wardens of all constituent Lodges un- 


der its obedience. It is pre eminently a 
body of high intelligence, composed as it 
is of those who have had experience in the 
actual work of the Craft. Every man in 
it is, or has been, an officer in his own 
Lodge, experienced in the consideration of 
the questions that perpetually come before 
the Craft, long before such questions find 
their way into die Grand Lodge. Com- 
posed as the Grand Lodge is of such men, 
it is at once apparent that the chances are 
all against unwise legislation. But, never- 
theless experience has shown that a faulty 
law will occasionally creep in. 

•‘Even deep browed Homer sometimes nods.” 

All statute law emanates from the Grand 
Lodge. Within the confines of its own 
territory its authority is supreme, and in 
California it even places restrictions upon 
some of what were once considered to be 
the inalienable prerogatives of the Grand 
Master. For instance, a California Grand 
Master is not permitted by the Constitution 
of the Grand Lodge to make a Mason at 
sight. The Grand Lodge has the power 
to repeal or amend laws of its own enact- 
ment. 

LANDMARK LAW. 

Next we come to the law of the Ancient 
Landmarks. One injunction runs through 
the entire web and woof of Freemasonry, 
and that injunction is that the Ancient 
Landmarks shall not be disturbed. Let 
us ask then, What are the Landmarks? 
Briefly they are the immemorial usages 
and fundamental principles of the Craft, 
and they are fixed — unchangeable. 

In Dr. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Free- 
masonry the introduction to twenty-five 
landmarks that are there discussed is in 
this language: 

“In ancient times it was the custom to 
mark the boundaries of lands by means of 
stone pillars, the removal of which by mal- 
icious persons would be the occasion of 
much confusion, men having no other 
guide by which to distinguish the limits of 
their property. To remove them, there- 
fore, was considered a heinous crime. 
‘Thou shalt not,’ says the Jewish law, ‘re- 
move thy neighbor’s landmark, which they 
of old time have set in thine inheritance.’ 
Hence those peculiar marks of distinction 
by which we are to be separated from the 
profane world, and by which we are en- 
abled to designate our inheritance as the 
‘Sons of Light’ are called the landmarks 
of the Order. The universal language 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


205 


and the universal laws of Masonry are 
landmarks, but not so are the local cere- 
monies, laws and usages, which vary in 
different countries. To attempt to alter or 
remove these sacred landmarks by which 
we examine and prove a Brother’s claims 
to share in our privileges is one of the most 
heinous offenses that a Mason can com- 
mit.” 

And he closes as follows: ‘‘The last and 
crowning landmark of ail is, that these 
landmarks can never be changed. Nothing 
can be substracted from them. Nothing 
can be added to them. Not the slightest 
modification can be made in them. As 
they were received from our predecessors, 
we are bound by the most solemn obliga- 
tions of duty to transmit them to our suc- 
cessors.” 

With the unwritten landmark law, I class 
the general or universal law’s and regula- 
tions that are contained in the old Consti- 
tutions and Charges. These were enacted 
by bodies that at the time had universal 
jurisdiction, and therefore operated over 
the Craft wheresoever dispersed. As the 
bodies that enacted them have long since 
passed out of existence, it is the opinion of 
many eminent Masonic jurists that they are 
unrepealable. 

Three of the ancient landmarks have a 
direct bearing upon the question we are 
discussing. I will therefore quote them 
in full as given by Grant in his ‘‘Ancient 
Landmarks:” 

First. ‘ Every Mason must be obedient 
to the laws of the country in which he lives 
or sojourns.” 

‘‘Do you promise to conform to the law’s 
of the country, respect magistrates, not to 
be concerned in plots or conspiracies, but 
patiently submit to the decisions of law?” 
was one of the verv old charges given to a 
Master at his installation. 

Second. ‘‘Freemasonry existing from 
a time when the memory of man runneth 
not to the contrary, w’as anciently oper- 
ative and speculative; it is now specula- 
tive, embracing a system of ethics, moral, 
religious and philosophical, and relates 
to the social, ethical and intellectual prog- 
ress of man.” 

Third. “Every affiliated Master Mason 
is entitled to a burial with Masonic cere- 
monies and honors.” 

We have seen that Masonic law’ can 
spring only from the landmarks, from ex - 
cathedra decisions of the Grand Master, 
and from legislation by the Grand Lodge! 


We shall now’ consider the question. Has 
a Grand Master any moral or ethical right 
to refuse to the Craft any reasonable re- 
quest that is not foroidden by the laws of 
the land, by the landmarks, or by the 
statutes of Freemasonry ?* 

I will try to show that he has not. 

The law of the landmarks is rigid as 
iron, but unless effort be made to evade it, 
its grasp is as soft as velvet. It imposes no 
irksome burden upon a conscientious 
mind. On the contrary, the highest ex- 
pression of the principles and philosophy 
of Freemasonry is found in a painstaking 
endeavor to observe and obey in all their 
fullness the mandates of Masonic land- 
mark law’. Living the life that the law 
inculcates, makes men better husbands, 
better fathers, better neighbors, better 
members of society and more useful citi- 
zens of the State. 

In the command that her ancient land- 
marks shall not be disturbed, Masonry is 
inflexible; but otherwise she is an indul- 
gent mother, denying her children noth- 
ing they may ask, unless the request is 
forbidden by her own laws or by the laws 
of the land. By the very nature of her 
organization, no request that would be for 
the good of her children can be condemn- 
ed, either by her own laws or by the 
civil law. A progressive science, keeping 
pace with the advancing civilization of 
the age, she encourages the philosophical 
investigation of every question that can 
influence the moral, ethical, spiritual or 
intellectual welfare of mankind. The 
highest attainable measure of human duty 
is the standard she perpetually urges her 
children to follow. As a guide and a light 
unto men, teaching by precept and by ex- 
ample, she regards w’ith instinctive abhor- 
rence any attempt to shackle the freedom 
of inquiry into any question whatsoever 
in which humanity has an interest. 

The educated mind is the power that 
molds the thought of a people and the des- 
tinies of a nation. By the very nature of 
her duties to mankind in the dissemination 
of the principles of Right and Truth and 
Justice, Masonry is compelled to keep in 
the fore front of human progress. Any at- 
tempt to confine her within bounds pre- 
scribed by a past age, but which the prog- 
ress of the world and the advancement of 
the race, have outgrow’n and cast aside, 
interferes with the mandates of her land- 
marks, and cannot stand. Her landmarks 
and the spirit of her philosophy are un- 


206 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


changeable guide posts that point the way 
to an inquiry that is as broad and unbound- 
ed as the necessities of mankind. 
if When Grand Master Arnold, of Penn- 
sylvania, and Grand Master Preston re- 
fused to permit the Masonic funeral ser- 
vice to be performed over the remains of 
a deceased Mason at a crematory, the re- 
fusal became Masonic law in their respect- 
ive Jurisdictions. As good Masons we 
must obey the law, no matter how illogi- 
cal or unjust it may be, but we are not for- 
bidden to criticize it, nor are we forbidden 
to pursue within proper bounds measures 
and methods having for their object its 
repeal. 

We have the landmarks for our au- 
thority that Masonry embraces a system of 
ethics, moral, religious and philosophical, 
and relates to the social, ethical and intel- 
lectual progress of man. 

Ethics is the science of human duty. 
The moment it is shown that humanity has 
an ethical interest in the manner of dis- 
posal of the bodies of the dead, that mo- 
ment the question becomes a live question, 
and falls within the purview of Masonic 
landmark law. If it can be further shown 
that of two methods, (neither of which is 
forbidden by any law, civil or Masonic), 
one is capable of producing harmful con- 
sequences, while the other produces no 
such consequences, then the question is 
simplified. In such a case, if the Grand 
Master were called upon to promulgate an 
official preference, the law of the land- 
marks would compel him to select that 
method which was least injurious to the 
health of the living. Masonry has as much 
interest in the welfare of the living, as any 
Institution can r ossibly have. 

Should the Grand Master decline to give 
official preference to either method, then 
the question would remain just as it was 
before it came up to him. Neither method 
being illegal, it would be a matter of 
choice, in which case the last wishes of the 
deceased brother should be carried out to 
the letter. If those wishes were that his 
remains should be cremated, then cremated 
they should be, and with Masonic honors, 
for there would be no law, human or Di- 
vine, to forbid it. 

In Pennsylvania and California crema- 
tion is tabooed by Masonic law, but I can- 
not believe that this law has its foundation 
in sound Masonic principles. I cannot 
believe that it is other than obnoxious to 
the great body of the Craft, to those who 


favor inhumation quite as much as to 
those who favor incineration, for the rea- 
son that it interferes with personal rights 
and privileges that every Mason is entitled 
to who preserves his standing in the Fra- 
ternity. It violates the Masonic birthright 
conferred by the ancient landmarks that 
give to every Master Mason the right to 
have the Masonic funeral service performed 
over his remains. 

But, it may be urged, cremation is not 
burial in the earth, and burial in the earth 
having come down to us as established 
custom from times of old, it is quite as 
much a landmark as is the right to demand 
the performance of the funeral ceremonies 
prepared for it. 

Examination of the objection will dem- 
onstrate that it is untenable. The funeral 
ceremonies do not constitute a landmark, 
but the right to demand their performance 
does. Burial is not a landmark, nor can 
cremation, or any other method of disposal 
of the body ever become a landmark. 

There is a wide difference between a 
landmark that is firmly fixed within the 
control of the Institution and a custom 
subject to changes over which the Frater- 
nity can exercise no control. 

The rites and ceremonies incidental to 
its ritual are its own children, the prod- 
uct of its own creation, and as such they 
are always a component part of the Ma- 
sonic Institution. Burial, cremation, or 
any other method of disposal of the dead, 
are customs governed by local laws, and 
as such are subject to change. Masonry 
has no control when the civil law steps in. 

The law of the landmarks governs prin- 
ciples, customs and usages which are en- 
tirely and unqualifiedly Masonic. The 
disposition of the body after death cannot 
always be controlled by the Fraternity. 

Neither in the landmarks nor in the 
ritual is there one word of command as to 
what shall be done with a dead Mason. 
Nor can there be. A man may be drown- 
ed and his body lost beyond recovery; he 
may perish on a desert, or be devoured by 
wild beasts, and in such, or similar cases, 
the disposition of his body cannot be con- 
trolled. Control of the body cannot be 
the subject of a landmark. Masonry does 
not attempt impossibilities. 

The question then as to whether crema- 
tion is or is not a burial cuts no figure. 
The disposition of the body is a matter 
that at any time may be made the subject 
of regulation by the laws of the land. In 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


207 


such a case Masonry neither could nor 
would attempt to control it, for it is an un- 
alterable landmark that a Mason must 

obev the laws unless thev are aimed at the 

* - # 

destruction of the Fraternity. 

Let us now examine the objection that 
the funeral service has been prepared for 
use over an open grave, and not over a 
furnace. Again, I think the objection is 
not well taken. The principle involved is 
the Masonic funeral honors. To attach 
more importance to some particular part 
of a changeable ceremony than to the 
principle upon which the ceremony itself 
is founded, is like placing a higher value 
on the husks than upon the ear of corn 
that is within them. The particular lan- 
guage used in the funeral service is sub- 
ject to regulation. It requires no extra- 
ordinary degree of intelligence to change 
a word or a phrase here and there, to adapt 
it to use over an open grave, over an open 
lurnace or over a body about to be buried 
at sea. To argue otherwise is not compli- 
mentary to the mentality of the rank and 
file of a Fraternity that numbers among 
its members some of the brightest intel- 
lects and most brilliant scholars the world 
has ever known. The supposition is ab- 
surd and unthinkable. The Spirit of Ma- 
sonry never contemplated a funeral cere- 
mony so rigid that its honors could be ac- 
corded to only one method of disposal of 
the body. 

To say that the Masonic funeral service 
shall only be performed over an open grave 
is, apart from its absurdity, equivalent to 
a demand under penalty of forfeiture of 
Masonic honors, that the body shall be 
buried, even though it had been the wish 
of the deceased that his body should be 
burned. If such a demand be not an un- 
warranted interference with personal rights 
and privileges, what is it? No Mason 
will imagine for a moment that the Grand 
Masters had any such interference in con- 
templation, yet no other logical conclusion 
is deducible from their decisions. 

Suppose an epidemic should appear 
whose contagious characteristics compell- 
ed the passage of a law that the dead 
bodies of its victims should be burned in- 
stead of being buried. Such a law would 
be a sanitary law to protect the public 
health. Will any one say that Masons 
would not obey the law? Will any one 
say that in such a case it would be con- 
sonant with the Spirit of Masonry to for- 
bid the Masonic funeral service over the 


remains, because the law of the land com- 
pelled incineration instead of inhumation ? 
I think not. To forbid the service would 
be contrary to the spirit of Masonry, which 
always adapts itself to its ethical surround- 
ings, and would be in violation of the 
landmarks which say that every Master 
Mason in standing is by ?ight entitled to 
have the Masonic funeral service performed 
over his remains. 

I again repeat that the form of service 
is changeable according to local require- 
ments. It is not a landmark, but a local 
custom, that can be changed at any time 
to meet local exigencies without violation 
either of the laws or the spirit of Masonry. 

A few years ago a large party of Masons, 
among them being the Grand Master for 
California, visited the Hawaiian islands. 
Now, had it so happened that one of their 
number had died while on shipboard, and 
that the rules of the ship, as ships’ rules 
usually do, required an immediate burial, 
would Masonic law justify resistance on 
the part of the surviving Brethren to a 
burial at sea? Would Masonic law re- 
fuse the honor of its burial service be- 
cause circumstances beyond its control 
consigned the body to the fishes in the 
ocean instead of to the worms in the earth ? 
Will any one say that the loving remem- 
brance that prompts, and is the foundation 
of every funeral service in the world is 
null and void and inoperative, and shall 
not be respected unless the ceremony is 
performed over an open grave? If a Ma- 
son perish in a conflagration, as Masons 
have perished, shall Masonic honors be 
denied his memory ? The Spirit of Ma- 
sonry contemplates no such distinction 
between tweedle dum and tweedle dee. 

When the spirit has left the body, what 
takes place ? By operation of natural laws 
the body resolves itself into its original 
elements; the gases find their way into the 
atmosphere, where they are absorbed by 
trees and grasses and other forms of vege- 
table life; the water either evaporates or 
seeps away, and the minerals remain in 
the earth, some time or other to 'mingle 
with and become a part of it. There is 
absolutely no other disposition of the 
body to be made; on land or sea the end 
is the same. 

In the grave the process of resolution is 
continued for a long number of years be- 
fore it is finally completed, and it carries 
with it great danger to the living. In the 
crematorium the process is the same, but it 


208 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


terminates in an hour, and is absolutely 
without danger to any one. 

The Grand Masters having determined 
to single out and give their official appro- 
bation to one particular process of nature 
in her task of reassimilation of the ele- 
ments that compose matter, it would seem 
reasonable to expect that preference would 
be given to that method which is declared 
by every natural, ethical and sanitive law 
to be least harmful to the public health. 
That they should give preference to a 
method, which by the same laws is de- 
clared to be frought with grave danger to 
mankind, is a paradox that can best be ex- 
plained by the assumption that their choice 
was made without having given to the 
subject the due consideration demanded 
by its importance. 

It would also seem reasonable to sup- 
pose that if a process were not under ban 
of any law, the Grand Masters would 
have hesitated before arraying themselves 
against it; and that they would have re- 
turned the answer to their petitioners, that 
the process not being forbidden by any 
law of nature, of ethics, of morality, of 
religion or of the State, neither would Ma- 
sonry forbid it. Indeed, it is difficult to 
see how Masonry can forbid it, without 
transgressing her own law of the landmarks. 

That the present funeral service was pre- 
pa’red for use over an open grave, and not 
for use in any other manner, simply ar- 
gues that it was prepared at a time when 
the question of cremation had not become 
sufficiently prominent to attract any con- 
siderable attention. 

It must not be forgotten that there is a 
wide difference between a landmark and a 
custom, and that the funeral ceremony is 
a custom subject to change, while the 
right to the ceremony is a landmark and 
unchangeable. To hold that the phrase- 
ology of the funeral service is a rigid 
formula that cannot be changed to meet 
the exigencies of a particular situation, is 
to ignore the teaching that Masonry is a 
progressive science, is to assert that Ma- 
sonry is lacking in common sense, by plac- 
ing a higher value upon the husk than up- 
on the grain that is within it. 

We are taught that Masonry is univer- 
sal, that it exacts from its children a belief 
in a Supreme Being, but that it does not 
attempt to interfere with, or inquire into 
the manner by which that Supreme Being 
manifests or makes himself known in the 
hearts of men. 


There are countries whose inhabitants 
are believers in God, whose laws both re- 
ligious and civil are widely at variance 
with our own. Nevertheless, Masonry is 
not debarred from such countries; the local 
customs affect the shell of Masonry, not 
the heart. There are countries where cre- 
mation of the dead is the custom of the 
land or the law of the tribe. Because the 
body is not buried in a grave should a Ma- 
son dying there be refused the honors of 
the funeral rites of his Craft? If he were 
a subject of such a country, amenable to 
its laws, and those laws made cremation 
compulsory, it would be his Masonic duty 
to obey the law, even though his personal 
preference should be in favor of interment. 
Masonry teaches obedience to the law. 

What law does the Mason violate when 
he asks that his body shall be burned in- 
stead of buried ? Does he violate a law of 
the land ? No. Does he violate a law of 
the Church ? Masonry gives no official re- 
cognition to any Church or sect, and is not 
bound by ecclesiastical canon. Does he 
violate a sanitary law? No. Does he 
violate any law based upon the principles 
of morality or of ethics ? No. Does he 
violate any of the ancient landmarks, stat- 
utes or principles of Freemasonry? The 
answer again is no. 

As a question of morals, of ethics and 
of Masonic common sense, then why should 
his request be denied ? 

This brings us back again to the origi- 
nal question, what moral or ethical right 
has a Grand Master to refuse to the Craft 
any reasonable request that is not forbid- 
den either by natural, civil or Masonic 
law ? 

The answer is that he has none. 

From these considerations I cannot be- 
lieve that any Grand Master, in the absence 
of statutory provision, is justified by Ma- 
sonic law in refusing permission to per- 
form the Masonic funeral service over the 
cremated remains of a Master Mason. 

o 

Devil Worship in France. 


A volume under the above title, bv A. 
E. Waite, recently issued from the press 
of Geo. Red way, London, England, cov- 
ers matters of considerable interest to the 
Masonic Fraternity of the United States. 

The title is somewhat misleading. The 
book, in reality, is a defense of high-grade 
Masonry from the aspersions of its ene- 
mies, who accuse its possessors of occult 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


209 


practices, adverse to Christianity, because 
based upon satanic worship, and which en- 
able them to bring about, among other 
manifestations, an actual materialization 
of the evil one himself. 

An assertion of this kind to a Mason — 
or even to a profane of ordinary intelli- 
gence — must appear utterly preposterous, 
but, nevertheless, it must be regarded 
with some degree of seriousness, when we 
consider the nature of the evidence ad- 
duced, the number of witnesses, the col- 
lateral testimony brought forward, and the 
absolute belief in the truth of the accusation 
which is entertained by a number of intel- 
ligent people of power and influence in the 
higher ranks of society. 

During the middle ages and later, a be- 
lief in the power of certain persons to 
evoke, communicate with, and receive aid 
or guidance from the powers of darkness 
was common, but in these modern days, 
such credence has . been relegated to the 
ignorant negro or wilder savage with 
whom voodooism and fetich worship seem 
more naturally allied. 

To assert then, gravely, that even now, 
in these days of Christian enlightenment, 
there actually does exist a cultus of Luci- 
fer, would seem to tax credulity heavily, 
and yet such is. the actual fact. There 
does really exist such a sect, possessing 
creed, ceremonial and liturgy; widespread 
in dissemination, and of sufficient unity 
and numerical strength to support a peri- 
odical devoted to its own peculiar inter- 
ests. It is the knowledge of this fact 
which gives a certain amount of force to 
the effort to ally it with the mysticism of 
Masonry in the upper philosophical de- 
grees. 

Modern Devil Worship may assume one 
of two forms. It may be the worship of 
the evil principle, acknowledging its wick- 
edness, but in awe of its power, seeking 
to propitiate its wrath; or it may be the 
adoration of a power, regarded evil by 
other religions, but which this cultus be- 
lieve to be good. The former are the cul- 
tivators of what is styled Black Magic, and 
these do not seem to be organized as a 
sect, but act separately and as individuals. 
The latter hold Lucifer — the light-bearing 
sun of the morning — as the beneficent god, 
whilst the Christian Adonai is held to be 
the Prince of Darkness and the veritable 
satan. It is inferred from the condition of 
the world at present, that the mastery of 
the moment resides with the evil princi- 


ple. Adonai reigns surely, as the Chris- 
tian believes, but this sect considers him 
the author of all human misery, and Jesus, 
the Christ of Adonai, the messenger of 
misfortune, suffering and false renuncia- 
tion. These worshipers of Lucifer pro- 
fess to have taken sides with the cause of 
humanity and work to prepare his king- 
dom, and he promises to raise up for them 
a Savior who will be anti-Christ, their 
leader and king to come. 

Thus this doctrine of Lucifer is a kind 
of reversed Christianity. It is in fact the 
revival of an old heresy founded on a philo- 
sophical blunder; in a word it is a Mani- 
chian system with a special anti-Christian 
application. 

This blasphemous cultus is that which is 
said to be now propagated by what is 
called the Palladian Order, and forming a 
part of the mystery of Masonry as inter- 
preted in an active anti -Masonic move- 
ment now at work in France. 

The Masonic archeologist, Ragon, pub- 
lished a ritual of the Order of the Palladi- 
um, or Sovereign Council of Wisdom, con- 
stituted in France on May 20, 1737, and 
which, after the manner of the androgyne 
Lodges then springing into existence, in- 
itiated women under the title of Compan- 
ions of Penelope. This Order failed to 
spread, but in some untraceable way was 
supposed to have been connected with the 
legendary Palladium of the Knights Tem- 
plar — the idol Baphomet. Little, how- 
ever, was heard of this mythical image for 
a period of over sixty years, but in 1801, 
according to these recent anti-Masonic 
writers, an Israelite — Isaac Long — is said 
to have carried the original Baphomet and 
the skull of the Templar Grand Master, 
Jacques de Molay, from Paris to Charles- 
ton, S. C., and was afterward concerned 
in the reconstruction of the Scottish Rite 
of Perfection and of Herodom under the 
name of the Ancient and Accepted Scot- 
tish Rite, organizing a Lodge of the 33 0 , 
which became the Mother Supreme Coun- 
cil of that Rite throughout the world. 

Eight years later, on the 29th of De- 
cember. 1809, Albert Pike was born in the 
city of Boston of parents who, although 
of humble position, by hard struggles suc- 
ceeded in sending him to Harvard Col- 
lege, where he was graduated M. A. in 
the year 1829. Beginning life as a school- 
master, his romantic and roving disposi- 
tion carried him to the wild West, leading 
him to explore even the then imperfectly 


210 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


known regions of the Rocky Mountains. 
In 1833 he settled in Arkansas and, drift- 
ing into journalism, founded the Arkansas 
Advocate , and by both his prose and poetry 
obtained a reputation in literature. After 
the civil war, in which, upon the Southern 
side, he took an active part, he followed 
law and literature, re-establishing in Mem- 
phis the Memphis Appeal , (now the Com- 
mercial Appeal , which still shows the Ma- 
sonic impress), which he sold in 1868 and 
migrated to Washington. In Little Rock 
Albert Pike was initiated a Mason, and 
ten years later, that is in 1859, he was 
elected Sovereign Commander of the Su- 
preme Council of the Scottish Rite at 
Charleston, and by his wonderful knowl- 
edge of the ritual, antiquities, history and 
literature of Masonry, combined with ex- 
traordinary powers of organization, be- 
came a person of wide and commanding 
influence in the Scottish Rite. 

Thus far in the sketch of Albert Pike 
our writers have adhered pretty closely to 
history, but now they follow with a most 
fantastic combination of fact and fancy. 
They go on to state that when the Italian 
patriot, Mazzini, projected the centraliza- 
tion of high-grade Masonry, he could find 
no person in the whole Fraternity more 
suited by his position and influence to col- 
laborate with him than Albert Pike. Out 
of a secret partnership, which he then 
formed, there was begotten, on September 
20, 1870 — that is to say, by a remarkable 
coincidence, on the very day the Italian 
troops entered Rome — a “Supreme Rite 
and Central Organization of Universal 
High-Grade Masonry,” the act of creation 
being signed by the American Sovereign 
Commander and the Italian liberator, the 
two founders sharing the power between 
them. A “Supreme Dogmatic Diction- 
ary” was created in Charleston, S. C., 
with Albert Pike at its head, under the 
title of “Sovereign Pontiff of Universal 
Masonry,” while Mazzini took the posi- 
tion of “Supreme Executive,” with head- 
quarters at Rome, under the title of “Sov- 
ereign Chief of Political Action.” 

During the whole space of seventy years 
the De Molay skull and the Baphomethad 
remained on deposit at Charleston, and 
that is the very intelligent reason why the 
just constructed organization was called 
the “New Reformed Palladian Rite.” 
Subsequently, our writers continue, five 
central Grand Directories were established 
— at Washington, Montevideo, Naples, 


Calcutta and Port St. Louis, in Mauritius. 
Thus by a twofold apparatus — the Pal- 
ladium and the Scottish Rite — Albert Pike 
held all Masonry in the hollow of his hand. 

Four persons are cited as Pike’s coad- 
jutors in the United States — Gallatin Mac- 
kay, of honorable memory; a Scotchman 
named Longfellow, whom some of our 
French authors confound with the poet; 
somebody simplv called Holbrook, and 
finally Phileas Walder, a Swiss, who was 
first a Lutheran minister, then a Mormon, 
afterward a Spiritualist and finally an oc- 
cultist and disciple of the great French 
magus, Eliphas Levi. 

When Mazzini died, our writers say, he 
named Adrian Lemmi, of Italy, as his suc- 
cessor, and when in the fullness of years 
the Sovereign Pontiff himself passed into 
the “higher life of fire” (the palladian no- 
tion of beatitude), the pontificate itself, 
after resting briefly upon the shoulders of 
Albert George Mackey, was transferred to 
the Italian and the seat of the “Dogmatic 
Directory” removed to Rome. 

It is claimed that while the Scottish 
Rite continued its speculative teachings, 
the Palladium betook itself to magic, and 
succeeded so well that there was a per- 
petuity of communication between Charles- 
ton and the unseen world. 

But, before briefly reviewing the testi- 
mony in regard to the ceremonials of the 
New Palladium, it is well to consider what 
of necessity must be the character of the 
witnesses. Those who speak from hearsay 
may be thrown out of court, because we 
have the evidence of those from whom 
they gathered their story. It is manifest 
that the remaining witnesses may be divid- 
ed into two categories; first, those who 
claim to have been spies and deliberately 
committed perjury for the purpose of be- 
trayal, and, second, those who claim to be 
penitent sinners, and evidence their repent- 
ance by acknowledging violation of sol- 
emn vows in order to enhance the sale of 
their alleged confessions. These so called 
“exposures” are all published in cheap 
penny - dreadful style, the better they 
pleased the taste of the curious masses, 
and the more popular their works. 

Bearing these facts in mind, a rapid 
summary will suffice to give the character 
of these revelations. 

In 1891, Gabriel Jogand-Pages, over 
nom de plume of “Leo Taxil,” gives a 
ritual in detail, which upon examination 
proves to be a series of mutilated pass- 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


21 1 


ages from Eliphas Levi’s “Dogme et Rit- 
uel de la Haute Magie” pieced clumsily 
together to show the methods used in evo- 
cations of the elementary spirits. He 
claims to have obtained his information 
by the not very creditable proceeding of 
bribing an officer of Paladian Grand Coun- 
cil, and his ceremonials, other than those 
above noted, are disgusting combinations 
of obscenity, diabolism and sacrileges. 
As this witness was expelled from Masonry 
after receiving the first degree, it is to be 
feared that his exhaustive researches were 
a little biased by his hurt feelings. 

Following this writer, came a multitude 
who wrote “from personal experience,” 
and everybody in Paris had all the pass- 
words, signs and catechisms, or else thought 
they had, and it was evident that in the 
languid state of trade, a new infusion of 
horror was needed. 

A. M. Recoux essayed to do this, but 
did not quite succeed, and it was reserved 
for a Dr. Battaille, in November, 1891, to 
lead the ranks by the exactitude of his de- 
tail, and his exposure (published in an in- 
definite series of penny numbers, with sen- 
sational illustrations), sent thrills of hor- 
ror down the backs of the pious people of 
Paris. 

Considering the fact that a governing 
Order such as the Palladium is represented 
to be, conceived in secrecy, kept shrouded 
in silence, and supposed to hold a select 
membership carefully chosen from High 
Masonry, it seems remarkable in the his- 
tory which the learned and devout doctor 
gives of the career of Sig. Gaetano Car- 
buccio, that the Order should be so wide- 
spread and numerous, and also so readily 
accessible to profanes. 

According to the doctor, the above- 
named Italian was made a Mason in Na- 
ples by Giambattista Pessina, “most Illus- 
trious Sovereign Commander, Past Grand 
Master and Grand Hierophant of the An- 
tique and Oriental Rite of Memphis and 
Mizraim,” after which for 200 francs more 
he was allowed to enter the thirty-third 
grade of the sublime mystery, and then 
for a further modest subscription of fifteen 
francs annually, was made a Grand Com- 
mander of the Temple. He now became 
violently enthused, rushed among the oc- 
cult Masons, became Sublime Hermetic 
Philosopher, optimated with the Society 
of Rethurgists, took the veritable initia- 
tion of the Magi, and fraternized with the 
brethren of the “New Reformed Palladi- 


um.” Some time after this rush his busi- 
ness took him to Calcutta, where he found 
the Palladists in a flutter of excitement be- 
cause they had just received from China 
the skulls of three martyred missionaries, 
which were indispensable in a new magi- 
cal rite composed by Albert Pike. 

A seance was about to be held. The 
skulls were placed on a table, Adonai and 
His Christ were impressively cursed, Luci- 
fer was blessed and solemnly invoked. 
Nothing could be possibly more success- 
ful. Result, shock of earthquake, threat- 
ened demolition of buildings, confident ex- 
pectation of immediate entombment alive, 
burst of thunder, vivid lightning, and then 
an impressive silence, followed by the sud- 
den manifestation of a being in human 
form seated in the chair of the Grand 
Master. There is no space here for his 
description. He was a beautiful beardless 
Apollo, with a faint flush of inferno suf- 
fusing his entire skin, and wearing nothing 
in the world but a melancholy, nervous 
smile. Apparently unconscious of his not 
being in evening dress, he discoursed ami- 
ably to his children and then, his majesty 
walked around the room, greeting the 
brethren with a piercing look in the eye. 
Finally approaching an English visitor 
present, George Shekelton by name, he 
asked him to shake hands. Brother Shek- 
elton complied with a horrible yell; then 
there was an electric shock, followed by 
black darkness. The torches were lighted 
and Shekelton discovered dead. The 
brethren then sang an improvised anthem, 
the refrain being “Glory immortal to Shek- 
elton! He hath been chosen by our om- 
nipotent god!” 

It is impracticable, within proper limits, 
to repeat all the Doctor’s evidence; how 
he himself visits Pondicherry and under 
the guidance of Brother Ramassasipoun- 
otamly-pale-dobachi (without any diffi- 
culty in the little matter of language) saw 
a lot of fakir brethren enjoying life in an 
advanced state of putrefaction; witnessed 
Baalzebaub invoked by a sister Mason 
who plunged her arm into a tripod of 
burning coals, and inhaled with great de- 
light the delicious fragrance of the roast 
meat; helped sacrifice a white goat; and 
visited the seven Temples of Dappah, 
located among dead bodies, festering in 
the sun. How, subsequently, he was pres- 
ent at the initiation of a Mistress Templar, 
according to Palladian Rite, which took 
place in a Presbyterian “Chapel,” and in 


212 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


the course of which, the Master of Cere- 
monies picked up his own shadow and ar- 
ranged it on the wall in the shape of a 
demon which answered questions. 

It is to be regretted also that the evi- 
dence of Mistress Diana Vaughan must be 
omitted here. It is a pity because she 
was initiated into the Palladian Order, near 
here, at Charleston, S. C., and was thus 
enabled to defy the laws of gravitation, 
and even to skip out of sight with Lucifer 
himself, and return to the wonder-stricken 
Brethren in an hour or two in good order 
and well- conditioned. 

It seems surprising that such absolute 
rot as all this should obtain sufficient cre- 
dence of a character to warrant an intelli- 
gent man gravely to write in rebuttal a 
book of 325 pages. Yet we are assured 
that these Arabian Nights’ tales are taken 
up in all seriousness by men learned in 
the law, and by ecclesiastics high in the 
church, and by the latter made texts for 
homilies against Masonry. 

It may be, perhaps, for this reason, as 
well as from the delicate ironical vein 
which pervades it that the work affords 
exceedingly entertaining reading. 

It contains besides, considerable inci- 
dental information in regard to the mod- 
ern Rosicrucian Society of England, or- 
ganized for transcendental research, which 
society has been frequently referred to in 
the publications of the Lodge Quatuor 
Coronati. — Memphis Appeal. 

o 

Class Lodges. 


From the early part of last century, 
when Freemasonry put on its modern at- 
tire, down to a period not very remote 
from our own, it was an established prac- 
tice that every new Lodge should be 
“constituted” by the Grand Master or his 
Deputy. 

These proceedings were of the simplest 
character, and during the first half of the 
eighteenth century it was a common thing 
for the noble brethren presiding for the 
time being over the Society to perform the 
duty of constituting Lodges in person, in- 
stead of vicariously by their Deputies. 

Later still, the old practice fell into de- 
suetude, and instead of being “constitut- 
ed” in homely fashion by the Grand Mas- 
ter or his Deputy, the habit sprang up of 
all new Lodges within the London district 
being “consecrated” with much pomp and 
ceremony by the Grand Master. 


The recent proceedings, therefore, at 
Lincoln’s Inn, when the “Chancery Bar” 
Lodge was duly consecrated in the pres- 
ence of H. R. H., the Prince of Wales, 
“Most Worshipful Grand Master,” may be 
conveniently described as a blend of the 
old system with the new. 

This Lodge, as the name denotes, has 
been established for the association in Ma- 
sonic fellowship of gentlemen of the long 
robe who are, or have been, practitioners 
in the courts of equity as distinguished 
from those of common law. 

The founders of the new Lodge cannot, 
indeed, lay claim to having ushered into 
existence the first body of the kind, the 
membership of which is restricted to the 
higher branch of the legal profession. This 
distinction is enjoyed by the original mem- 
bers of the Northern Bar Lodge, an associ- 
ation formed in 1876 for the convenience 
of barristers practicing on what is called 
the common law side of the profession, 
and who at the same time have made choice 
of the Northern circuit. 

For the origin, however, of class Lodges 
or, to be more precise, of Masonic sodali- 
ties recruited from a single profession, or 
separate class of men, we must look back 
more than a century and a half. 

The first of these Fraternities would ap- 
pear to have been a military or regimental 
Lodge attached to the First foot, now the 
Royal Scots, in 1732, from which date 
army or traveling Lodges increased and 
multiplied at such a rate that about the 
third quarter of the last century no garri- 
son towns and few regiments of cavalry or 
infantry in Great Britain or France were 
without one. 

An English Masonic calendar for 1763 
gives under a separate heading, “Sea and 
Field Lodges,” meaning thereby the Ma- 
sonic brotherhoods actively at work in 
British men- o’ -war and the various arms of 
the sister service. 

At different times of the eighteenth cent- 
ury French Lodges were constituted in 
London, but all of them proved to be de- 
ficient in staying power, and one after an- 
other passed off the scene. The Pilgrim 
Lodge, however, founded in 1779 for, the 
promotion of good fellowship among Ger- 
mans residing in the metropolis, has been 
more fortunate, and the entire work is still 
carried carried on as it was happily begun, 
in the language of the fatherland. 

Of the other class Lodges in existence 
the Grand Stewards, dating from 1735 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


213 


and consisting of Freemasons who have 
served the office of Steward at the annual 
festival, can justly claim pride of place. 
After which comes the Royal Alpha, com- 
posed exclusively of councillors and friends 
of the Grand Master. 

Military or regimental Lodges, properly 
so-called, are fast dying out, but of sta- 
tionary Lodges which restrict their mem- 
bership to persons in either the land or sea 
sendee some examples may be presented. 
Thus the Royal Artillery can take their 
choice between the Ubique and the Ord- 
nance, while the honorable artillery com- 
pany of London find a Masonic home in 
the Fitzroy, at the headqarters of their 
corps. The Royal Naval College Lodge 
exists for the convenience of our “first 
line of defense,’ ’ and quite recently the 
distinguished admiral who is now serving 
his country as second in command in the 
Mediterranean, was Master of it. 

The reserve forces are represented by 
an infinity of Lodges, bearing the titles of 
the volunteer battalions with which they 
are connected. 

The medical profession can enjoy Ma- 
sonic fellowship in the Aesculapius, and 
the chemists in the Galen. Architects 
congregate in the Hiram, engineers in the 
Britannic, rowing men in the Argonauts, 
actors in the Asaph and Drury Lane, and 
the musical profession at large in the 
Chough, Orpheus, Guildhall, School of 
Music and other Lodges. 

In the United Lodge of Prudence mem- 
bers of the Stock Exchange are enabled 
“to meet on the level and part on the 
square.’’ The United Northern Counties 
afford a common meeting ground to Ma- 
sons from the Northern shires. Graduates 
of the University of London can resort to 
a Lodge of the same name. “Old West- 
minsters” are in a like position, and the 
former members of another great school 
substantially so, the only difference being 
that the Lodge of the hitter, instead of 
“Merchant Taylors” bears the time-hon- 
ored name of Sir Thomas White. 

The Israel, Scots, Savage Club, Anglo- 
American and Empire Lodges disclose 
their respective missions at a glance. La 
France is equally suggestive, and scarcely 
less so the Gallery — which would be noth- 
ing without reporters, or the Sir Walter 
Raleigh, where manufacturers and brokers, 
alike interested in the fragrant weed, seek 
a welcome solace (after the Lodge work) 
in the consumption of it. 


Total abstainers meet with Brethren of 
congenial tastes under the banner of King 
Solomon, though the propriety of naming 
a Masonic Lodge with a bias in the direc- 
tion of a temperance principle after the 
wise king, is a point upon which there 
may be some difference of opinion. In the 
case, however, of the gas industry, a hap- 
pier title has been selected, and those 
members of it who have fraternal yearn- 
ings can gratify them appropriately enough 
by the light of the Evening Star. 

Lastly, there is the Quatuor Coronati, 
with a notice of which I will bring the 
present article to a close. This Lodge, 
which derives its name from the four 
crowned martyrs, the legendary saints of 
the building trades, was established for the 
promotion of Masonic study and research. 
No members are admitted without a high 
literary, artistic or scientific qualification. 
An original paper is read at each meeting, 
which is followed by a discussion. The 
Lodge began its labors in January, 1886, 
and a year later instituted an outer or cor- 
respondence circle, consisting of subscrib- 
ers to its printed Transactions , which al- 
ready numbers more than 1,600 members, 
and is steadily increasing at about the rate 
of 300 additional subscribers in each year. 
— Bro R. E. Gould, in N Z. Craftsman. 

0 

• The Dignity of Freemasonry. 


Pride is commendable, provided it is 
tempered with wisdom. That is, wise 
pride is not to be despised. There is just 
pride of one’s ancestry, whose names run 
back in the centuries untarnished, noted 
for deeds of valor and unsullied honor; of 
our intimate friends, whose characters are 
above reproach and whose reputations are 
honorable; of our own lives, free from the 
imputation of wrong doing, and noted for 
righteousness. This sort of pride begets 
dignity. We hold ourselves aloof from 
the baser part of humanity, not from a feel- 
ing of superiority, but because we fear 
contact with evil. We recognize the fact 
that we are mingling with those whose 
tastes differ from ours, whose preferences 
are for the ways of sin, cannot benefit them, 
but must injure us. A pint of muddy wa- 
ter poured into a gallon of clean water will 
pollute it, but a pint of clean water poured 
into a gallon of muddy water will be lost 
in the polution. And so pride or dignity 
leads us to rather remain with the pure 
than mingle with the impure. 


214 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


There is a dignity about Masonry that 
ought to be observed. Masons are but 
men, but when they become Masons they 
add to their responsibility in the world. 
Masonry elevates, or should do so, every 
man who enters its mysteries. After a man 
has passed the threshold of the Lodge- 
room, he enters upon a new life — one that 
should make him a more dignified and bet- 
ter man. He voluntarily assumes the uni- 
form of virtue, and from the moment he 
wears the emblem of innocence he is mark- 
ed. The world has a right to expect that 
he will be a better citizen, a more consid- 
erate, truer friend, a man of probity, to 
follow whose example will be safe. 

In all the ceremonies incident to making 
a man a Mason, in all the lessons that are 
taught, in every lecture there is a marked 
dignity, and that man who fails to see the 
ennobling, elevating principle of the Insti- 
tution loses the true meaning of its exist- 
ence. Masonry, like the Church of God, 
draws its inspiration from the same divine 
source, and holds forth the same sublime 
teachings. Many, perhaps the majority 
of Masons, fail to recognize the real glory 
of the Institution. It is in no way the 
Church. It never pretended to be. It is 
in no way antagonistic to the Church, it is 
a helper. It would dignify manhood, and 
elevate man to a higher and purer plane of 
morality. Nowhere in all its multifarious 
avenues is there a spot where vice can 
creep in. Every road in Masonry leads to 
God and Truth. There are inexhaustible 
mines of divine wisdom in it, that are yet 
to be explored. Every one who searches 
in its recesses beholds something new, and 
every new thought is ennobling. 

It does not proscribe a man’s religious 
belief. The real essence of Masonic teach- 
ing is a belief in God, and a reverential 
service paid to His holy name, but the 
manner in which that service is to be ren- 
dered is left to each individual heart. The 
Christian, of every sect, the Jew, the Mo- 
hamedan may accept the principles of Ma- 
sonry and living by them, dignify their 
profession as Christian, Jew or Mohamme- 
dan. 

We ought to recognize the dignity of 
our position as Masons. The fact that a 
man .was connected with the Institution 
ought to be a passport into any respectable 
society. Membership in a Lodge ought to 
give a man an undoubted reputation for 
honesty and fair dealing. The reason such 
is not the case is, because we do not rec- 


ognize the dignity that attaches to mem- 
bership in the Institution. Men unite 
with it for mercenary purposes, and do not 
respect the principles of virtue that are in- 
culcated. Such men are not Masons, ex- 
cept in name. They do not possess the qual- 
ifications of heart or mind necessary to fit 
them for the dignity of Masonry. They 
have falsified their very first statements. 
They were not “prepared in heart” as they 
professed to be, for the revelations of Truth 
that were made to them. Alas, that there 
are so many in the Institution whose lives 
belie their professions, and whose actions 
destroy the dignity of the name they bear! 
The dignity of Masonry cannot be pre- 
served without a more careful selection of 
men for members — those who will dignify 
the Institution and the Institution will dig- 
tify. — W. J. Duncan , in N. Y. Dispatch. 

o 

Negro Masonry. 


John G. Jones, a colored lawyer of Chi- 
cago, stands upon the top round of the 
Masonic ladder of colored Masons, having 
taken the thirty-third and last degree in 
Masonry. He was at the session of the 
Supreme Council of the 33 0 of the A. A. 
S. Rite for the Southern and Western 
Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States 
of America, held at the Grand Orient in 
Washington, D. C., on October 21, 1895, 
elected Most Puissant Sovereign Grand 
Commander, and re-elected in October, 
1896. In Ancient Craft Masonry there is 
nothing which prevents a free-born colored 
man from receiving any of the Masonic 
degrees. Race prejudice would very gen- 
erally cause the colored candidate to be 
blackballed in a white Lodge; notwith- 
standing this, however, at least three col- 
ored brothers have been raised to the Mas- 
ter’s degree in white Lodges in Illinois. 
A colored man has been elected Master of 
a Lodge of white Masons in New Jersey. 

— Chicago Legal News. 

There, now, what are you going to do 
about it ? Nothing, we answer, except stand 
upon our rights as guaranteed us under 
the ancient landmarks of Masonry. It will 
indeed be an exceedingly cool day for 
Masonry when the Fraternity of this' sec- 
tion anywhere in the South will throw wide 
their portals for the reception of the col- 
ored brother, or even allow one of them to 
cross the threshold of a regular Lodge. It 
is all right enough for those who like it, 
but we are exceedingly glad to know that 


THn TRESTLE BOARD. 


215 


“we are not built that wav.” there is no 
accounting for taste, “as the old woman 
said when she kissed the cow,” but there 
is a sad want of respect and gentility when 
any Lodge of white Masons allows a negro 
to enter it, much less to make him their 
Master. This Lodge in New Jersey who 
thus degraded themselves is entitled to, 
and should receive, the utter contempt of 
all white Lodges. Indeed their name and 
number should be heralded throughout the 
confines of this country, and whenever a 
member thereof presumes to visit an- 
other Lodge, or in any way mix with 
the brethren, he should be told to pass on, 
and treated as a clandestine Mason. It is 
a very sad commentary upon the white 
blood of any Lodge to elect a negro Mas- 
ter, and they should be made to associate 
with and carry him to their homes. We 
are not opposed to negroes becoming Ma- 
sons provided they are regularly made in 
their own Lodges. There let them rest. 
It is the veriest rot in the world for some 
Masonic journals to be continually agitat- 
ing this question. If they are so fond of 
the negro they ought to be allowed to get 
out of their own Lodge and join one of his 
color. It is a question that cuts no caper 
in the Fraternity as a whole, because ev- 
ery Lodge is the judge of its own ma- 
terial . — Memphis Appeal 

o 

The Devil’s Half Acre. 


The following story was told bv Dr. 
Rob Morris many years ago, which illus- 
trates the primitive age in which it was 
told: 

In the upper part of Louisiana, near the 
Arkansas side, there used to be one of the 
most God-defying set of people ever heard 
of. There was no Sabbath day amongst 
them, for they served their master, the 
devil, seven days a week with freedom, 
fervency and zeal. 

Horse racing, cock fighting, and the 
most cruel sports of. all kinds were their 
diversions. Fighting, gouging and mur- 
der were common enough. As for suoh a 
thing as legal restraint, the very idea was 
laughed at. Grand juries were compelled 
to wink at what they dared not present, 
circuit judges suffered the grossest infrac- 
tions of the law to pass unchecked under 
their very noses; sheriffs and constables 
were hail-fellows well met with the wick- 
edest of them. Such was Louisiana, near 
the Arkansas line, fifty years ago. 


The Methodist Conference had long 
looked eagerly at that region, for the nearer 
the devil is to getting a man, the more that 
church tries to save him. 

More than once their Bishop had sent 
an itinerant preacher there, but he was so 
glad to get away with a whole skin that 
he took care to say as little about what 
happened to him as possible. At last old 
Father Goolsbury offered to itinerate that 
field if the Bishop desired it, and the 
Bishop gladly jumped at the chance. Par- 
son G. was a man of great experience, par- 
ticularly in a department like this. He 
had itinerated clear around, from the Falls 
of Niagara to Red River, keeping right 
on the edge of civilization all the way, 
and he was the very man for the place. 
Nobody could preach oftener in a day than 
Father Goolsbury, or do it in ruder„places. 
Nobody could eat rougher, sleep harder, 
ride longer, swim bolder or laugh heartier 
than he. So he offered to go to North 
Louisiana, and the Bishop appointed him 
instanter. A collection was taken up to 
buy him a splendid horse, the only thing 
in the world, except sinners, the old man 
loved. The kind Sisters turned in and 
made him half a dozen shirts, a new' suit of 
clothes out-and-out was bought for him, 
and then with a joke and a prayer and a 
tear , and two stanzas of Lesley’s songs, 
the intrepid parson started. 

Now, there was a village in the very 
heart of this pandemonium, called by the 
proprietor, Tockville or some such name; 
but from the quality of the atmosphere, 
and the murderous brawls that continually 
occurred there, the country people had 
christened it “The Devil’s Half Acre, 
No traveler ever stopped there twice; no 
sober neighbor ever visited there on a pub- 
lic day; no respectable woman ever rodt 
through there at all. There was no church 
and no school -house in Tockville, but 
there was a score of grogshops, bowling 
alleys, gambling houses, etc., and ther<> 
was a racecourse hard by, w'hich, to many 
a poor fellow', had proved to be the en- 
trance to eternal death. 

At this very place, unpromising as it 
seemed, the old itinerant published his first 
appointment. He rightly thought that . if 
he could make the thing grind at Devil’s 
Half Acre it would grind anywhere; but if 
he thought to get an easy grist of it he 
made as great a mistake as if he had tun 
his shirt, for no sooner was his notice post- 
ed on the tavern door than it was torn 


216 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


down with a rage, and a popular order 
given to the daring minister to evacuate 
the village forthwith. Nothing daunted, 
however, he wrote out a second announce- 
ment, and declared that he would return 
the next Sabbath, and preach in the public 
square if he couldn’t get a house, for the 
Bishop had ordered him to preach and 
preach he would. 

Now, Father Goolsbury was not a man 
to face such a devil’s crew as the Tockvil- 
lers without some preparation. He had 
been ducked and whipped, and tarred and 
feathered too often in his ministerial ca- 
reer not to know where he stood, and when 
he made his appointment at the Devil’s 
Half Acre his whole plan was well ma- 
tured. It was nothing more or less than 
to make a Masonic affair ot it. 

Theiie was a Masonic Lodge in the ad- 
joining county, many of the members liv- 
ing near Tockville, and the old man set 
himself diligently to hunting them up. 
As fast as he found one he showed him 
the necessity for religion in that commun- 
ity; the many efforts that had been vainly 
made to introduce it; the danger to a 
brother Mason now, and other things 
equally pressing. His summons was an- 
swered in the same spirit in which it was 
made. So, when the Sabbath morning 
rolled around, the Rev. Jabez Goolsbury 
rode into the Devil’s Half Acre, accom- 
panied by sixty-three mounted Masons, 
well armed, and prepared either for peace 
or war. It was peace. The Tockville 
folks were overawed, and not a hand was 
raised against them. The sermon was a 
good one, and it was followed by an ex- 
hortation that would have done credit to 
the Bishop himself. At three o’clock a 
second sermon was delivered, and consid- 
erable feeling manifested among the audi- 
ence. At night a general calm was ap- 
parent, so promising, in fact, that the Ma- 
sons left their pistols at the tavern, and 
Parson Goolsbury was permitted to preach 
in one of the bowling alleys, in view of 
the bad cold he had caught. Never was 
there such a knocking down of pins in that 
alley before! The itinerant out preached 
all creation. It was a perfect pentecost. 
The hardest hearts wilted. Women scream- 
ed. Men groaned and fell on their faces. 
The Masons generally became convicted. 
In short, a revival was started that night, 
and it lasted two weeks. Then came the 
baptizing. Parson G. organized a church 
at Tockville, with more than eighty mem- 


bers, and named it the Plucked Bran< 
Church, and after he had got through bap I 
tizing the people he threw a handful of wa- 
ter into the air and said: “Devil’s Hall 
Acre, I baptize thee by the name of Jer- 
usalem,” and ever since that time it has 
been so styled. Rob. Morris, Jr. 

South Tunnell, Tenn. 

o 

Can You Prove Yourself? 


In a recent issue of the Masonic Record 
was related an incident that occurred re- 
cently in a certain Lodge in St. Paul, 
whereby, when the Lodge was being j 
purged, a visitor was unable to procure 
suitable avouchment, and he was about to 
be invited outside the Lodge room to un- | 
dergo an examination when he stated he 
was a member of that particular Lodge; 
upon which the Secietary consulted his 
records, and it was eventually proven that 
the brother’s statement was correct and he 
was entitled to a seat in the Lodge. It 
was an actual occurrence and a striking 
homily upon the necessity of brethren 
showing up occasionally at the meetings 
of their own Lodge, so that they need not 
be entirely forgotten by every member 
and placed in the unenviable and embar- 
rassing position in which this brother’s 
neglect of his Masonic duties had landed 
him. 

We will now relate an episode of a 
somewhat similar nature that occurred in 
St. Paul on the evening of January 28th 
last. A would-be visitor, claiming to hail 
from a Lodge in a small town twelve miles 
distant from Boston, put in an appearance 
and requested to be examined. He made 
the usual stereotyped excuse about being 
“a little rusty,” and before the examina- 
tion was completed, and he was invited to 
put on his coat and leave the building, the 
committee thoroughly agreed with him in 
all that he had said about being “rusty,” 
with the single exception of the adjective 
“little.” He was the rustiest visitor that 
it had ever been the ill fortune of the com- 
mittee to encounter. He was completely 
covered with the oxydized orange- yellow 
coating from the top of his cranium to the 
base of his pedal extremeties. He abso- 
lutely knew no more about Masonry than 
Butcher Weyler does of mercy to a fallen 
foe, or a mile post of sociability. He was 
so encased in the foul extraneous matter 
that were he composed of iron he would 
break into a thousand pieces if struck with 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


217 


a cambric needle. If there is one thing 
more than another that causes us to have 
“that tired feeling,” it is to have a visit- 
ing brother make the announcement that 
he is “rusty,” for there is scarcely any 
need of any one being in that condition in 
this era of Masonic enlightenment 

However, the committee propounded a 
few questions to our Bay State friend in 
order to ascertain if he really knew any- 
thing at all about Masonry. Upon b£ing 
asked if he was a Mason, he replied: “Oh, 
yes; I’ve been a Mason now for six years.” 
Of course, it was very pleasing to the com- 
mittee to meet one who had for such a 
length of time acted upon the square, so 
he was asked to state what the inducement 
was that prompted him to become a Mason, 
and his replv was: “So that I could have 
a good time with the boys.” We hope 
“the boys” made it real pleasant for him. 
The committee then inquired as to where 
he was made a Mason, and he furnished 

the explicit information that “ Lodge, 

No. — , twelve miles from Boston,” was 
the place, which was very considerate of 
him to go into such minute detail in his 
answers. 

The examining committee was so well 
pleased with the brother’s (?) ready an- 
swers to all of its interrogatories that, after 
a few more questions, which were all 
equally as well and promptly answered, it 
concluded, instead of pursuing the examin- 
ation further along the line of question 
and answer, to permit the gentleman to 
tell in his own words about anything that 
occurred during his initiation, passing and 
raising, but he w r as so absolutely ignorant 
of everthing pertaining to the subject, that 
in disgust the committee was compelled to 
put an end to the farce and invite Mr. 
Rusty to leave the premises. 

Now, this party may perhaps be a Ma- 
son, (in name at least), and then again he 
may not be one. But if he is one, he is a 
disgrace to the jurisdiction from which he 
hails — he is a wart on the name of Ma- 
sonry, and is not entitled to the slightest 
consideration. Any Mason who cares so 
little about the institution that he will not 
go to the trouble to post himself suffi- 
ciently to enable him to tell something, 
however little it may be. just so it is 
enough to satisfy the committee that he is 
not an impostor, should never endeavor to 
visit a Lodge where he cannot be vouched 
for. 

And right here we wish to add that the 


Lodge that made this individual a Mason 
(if he ever was made such) has done him 
a grievous wrong. It has not done the 
proper thing by him at all. Its conduct 
is as reprehensible as is that of a mer- 
chant who gives short weight in the 
commodity in which he deals. It took 
his money and in return gave him what? 
Nothing but the skeleton of the work, 
the rhine of the fruit, the seed of the 
grape. All Lodges are under certain 
obligations to their initiates, and that ob- 
ligation in part consists in actually seeing 
that they have a proper opportunity of 
becoming somewhat familiar with the 
work of the Order. We do not expect 
every Mason to have the ritual at his 
tongue’s end, neither do we hope to find 
all visiting brethren “bright” Crattsmen, 
but we have a right to expect every Mason 
to be so thoroughly taught the sublime 
truths promulgated by the Institution that 
all recollections of his journeyings toward 
the East in search of Masonic light will 
not be in a few short years eradicated from 
his memory. Any one who has ever been 
properly posted can in ten minutes time 
satisfy the most exacting committee as to 
his genuineness. 

We sincerely hope that no Minnesota 
Mason will ever cause it to be said of him 
that he knows no more of Masonry than a 
Sioux warrior does of kindergarten work; 
or the rudiments of teaching Sunday 
school . — Masonic Record. 

o 

Caricature in a Church. 


An extraordinary architectural discovery 
has just been made in London. It was a 
very common practice in bygone days -to 
adorn the exterior of a church, and especi- 
ally the tower, with curious and grotesque 
effigies which often served the useful pur- 
pose of acting as gargoyles or water spouts. 
Notre Dame in Paris, is, of course, the 
most famous example of this architectural 
custom. No two of these images are 
alike and to those students of architecture 
and folk lore who gain pleasure by look- 
ing at conceptions of the evil one in almost 
endless variety, Notre Dame is almost a 
Mecca. 

But London boasts a still more remark- 
able collection of church ornaments. St. 
Giles’, Camberwell, which is situated in 
one of the most thickly populated districts 
of the metropolis, is the oldest and most 
historic church in South London. When 


2l8 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


the church was erected, about a couple of Grand Old Man himself, but he cou 
centuries ago, the builders adorned the ex scarcely believe his eyes, for surely i 
terior of the tower with the heads of famous parson would allow such a figure to 1 
saints carved in stone, and prominent upon his church. It must be a mere coil 
among these was the head of St. Giles, cidence, thought the man. But lookin 
Even saints’ monuments are not exempt further along the tower the man saw ar 
from the weather. Wind and rain played other well-known face, but, oh, how dii 
around the heads of the images, and slowly ferently treated! There was nothing an 
but surely the features of the heads sue- gelic about this. The face was that cl 
cumbed to the onslaught. First the noses Lord Salisbury, and protruding from eacl 
went, then the chins, and finally the feat- side of his head were long, pointed ears) 
ures were unrecognizable, and the heads at like those of a fox terrier. The fore par | 
last had the appearance of being nothing of a dog’s body was also shown, and sup j 
but smooth stone balls. The church itself porting the large bearded head of the Tor}} 
was also falling into decay, and twelve or chief were puppie’s legs and paws. This! 
fifteen years ago the rector and curates de- did away entirely with the theory of coin-j 
cided that something must be done to save cidence, for the images were no passing! 
the fane from utter ruin. likenesses. They were splendid portraits, 

A meeting of parishoners and others in- such as Herkomer himself might not be 
terested in local religious work was con- ashamed of. 

vened, and many appeals were made to The explorer now decided to continue 
to the hearts and pockets of those present, his search, and among others discovered 
The result of the affair was that within a Lord Randolph Churchill, John Bright, 
comparatively short time a sufficient sum and Charles Bradlaugh. This last was 
was obtained to entirely renovate the sa- probably the most remarkable figure of 
cred building, at least so far as its exterior all. Protruding from the head of the 
was concerned. A clever architect and famous atheist were horns like those usu- 
sculptor was sought out, and although his ally portrayed upon the devil himself, and 
name was unknown, his work and business he was still further accommodated with 
record were considered sufficient recom- cloven hoofs. The sculptor was evidently 
mendation for the restoration of St. Giles’ a man of strong political feelings which 
to be put into his hands. How he carried were all in favor of the Liberals, but cer- 
out his task has only come to light now. tainly he had no love for infidelity, even 
Scaffolding was erected, mortar and stone when associated with Radicalism. John 
and bricks were carried up, and after some Bright’s face was a portrait pure and sim- 
months it was declared that no fear need pie. There was no caricature, and the 
be entertained, at least for a long time, of only peculiarity was a small skull cap up- 
the building’s falling to pieces, or of the on the head. Lord Randy was there, 
outer walls crumbling away. When the however, in all the glory of a huge mus- 
scaffolding was removed the rector went tache. He was decorated with a pair of 
to the sidewalk of the opposite houses and wings, but, unlike Gladstone’s, his are not 
gazed long and earnestly upon the work, those of an angel. They are a vampire’s. 
His pride was great, for the church could Another peculiarity is that he has his 
compare with any parish church in Lon- mouth wide open; and the sculptor appar- 
don. But that rector must have been ently wished to put upon record his lord- 
shortsighted, and so must the parishoners ship’s loquacity. 

of Camberwell, or they would have no- As soon as the explorer had recovered 
ticed a remarkable thing. from his amazement he went to the rector 

Not long ago a man was standing near and curate and invited their inspection, 
the church, and, looking up at the tower They came, and to their consternation 
abstractedly, when he received a shock, found the story true. There was only one 
He fancied almost that he had seen a thing to do, and that was to seek out the 
vision, for staring him in the face were the sculptor and discover whether the features 
unmistakable features of the Grand Old were purposely fashioned like the poli- 
Man, Gladstone. He looked like some ticians of the day, and why Liberals were 
celestial being, for, fixed to his shoulders angelized, while the Tories were as animals 
were angelic wings. After a time it of the lower orders. But in the years 
dawned upon the gazer that what he saw which had elapsed since the restoration of 
was simply an effigy in stone, and not the the church, the architect and sculptor had 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


219 


died, and not the least explanation of the 
remarkable affair could be obtained. It 
was decided that funds would not permit 
of another restoration, and so these extra- 
ordinary caricatures of living and dead 
politicians still remain on the tower of St. 
Giles’, Camberwell, and can be seen to-day 
by any passer-by. How such a thing 
could have passed unnoticed until after the 
death of the sculptor is a mystery. . 

— N. Y. Sim. 

o 

The Un-Masonic Tongue. 


Every Mason is taught to hear and obey 
the tongue of the Lodge. How excellent 
it would be if the brevity of its utterances 
had more imitators among the brethren. 
“Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips 
from speaking guile,” says the Psalmist. 
“Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue 
keepeth his soul from troubles.” 

No one enters the mysterious circle of 
the Fraternity except under the tongue of 
good Masonic report. In the earlier ritu- 
als of a century past, the tongue is called 
the key to the secrets of a Mason. As to 
how it should be used, one of the toasts 
that was given in the Lodge fully informs 
us. It ran in thiswise: “To that excel- 
lent key of a Mason’s tongue, which ought 
always to speak as well in the absence of a 
brother as in his presence; and when that 
cannot be done with honor, justice or pro- 
priety, that adopts the virtue of a Mason, 
which is silence.” 

“But,” says the Apostle James, “the 
tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly 
evil, full of deadly poison.” 

And this un-Masonic tongue! Have you 
ever felt its sting ? Has its poison ever 
entered into your soul? “There is that 
speaketh like the piercings of a sword,” 
said Solomon, and Jeremiah cried out, 
“And they will deceive every one his 
neighbor, and will not speak the truth; 
they have taught their tongue to speak 
lies, and weary themselves to commit in- 
iquity.” “Come,” say they, “and let us 
smite him with the tongue.” The un- 
Masonic tongue wags unceasingly. It 
speaks half truths that tend to deceive. 
Under the seal of secrecy it communicates 
that which not only affects a Brother Mas- 
ter Mason’s character, but deprives him of 
his Masonic right to his defense. When 
any one approaches you, intimating that 
he has something to communicate “on the 
square,” beware of him! He starts out in 


this way: “Some one has said something 
that he thinks you ought to know, but he 
does not want to be brought into a contro- 
versy.” Decline his confidence. If he 
tells you something affecting a brother, 
demand his proofs. Ask him if he is 
willing to confront the brother with his 
charges. Masons should stand breast to 
breast, and their loving arms should be 
ready in mutual support. It is un-Ma- 
sonic to breathe a suspicion or hint at a 
wrong motive; your absent brother’s char- 
acter is in your keeping. 

The un-Masonic tongue assails character 
as if it were a thing of little worth. Shake- 
speare says in his “Othello,” 

“Good name, in ma'i and woman, dear my lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals my purse, steals trash; *tis something, 
nothing; 

’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thou- 
sands; 

But he that filches from me my good name, 

Robs me of that which not enriches him, 

And makes me poor indeed.” 

In the language of Job, oh! that we 
might “be hid from the scourge of the 
tongue.” 

Is one a candidate for Masonic honors? 
The un-Masonic tongue attacks your char- 
acter and your motives. Detraction is 
made to do duty for intelligent and legiti- 
mate discussion. Fitness or unfitness, 
desirability or undesirability, these are 
proper subjects of inquiry. Nothing, how- 
ever, should be said that might not be said 
in the presence of the one under dis- 
cussion. 

Has one gone astray ? The un-Masonic 
tongue magnifies the wrong. Has a con- 
versation been overheard? The un-Ma- 
sonic tongue hastens to repeat it in garbled 
form to those supposed to be affected by 
it. The un-Masonic tongue speaks of Ma- 
sonic things in the presence of the pro- 
fane. The un-Masonic tongue cares noth- 
ing for cowans and eavesdroppers. Free- 
masonry asks no one to enter its portals. 
The un-Masonic tongue implies an invita- 
tion when it says to a profane, “You 
ought to be a Mason.” The un-Masonic 
tongue is a gossiper — a tale bearer. 

Bro. Mackey says: “While with candor 
and kindness we should admonish a brother 
of his faults, we should never revile his 
character behind his back, but rather, 
when attacked by others, support and de- 
fend it.” If, then, accepting the seal of 
secrecy, we listen to the defamation of a 
brother’s character, how shall we manage 
toYulfill this part of an important obliga- 
tion ? Be assured that a Brother Master 


22C 


THE TRESTLE BOARD . 


Mason’s character, even when the truth is 
spoken, is not a legitimate subject for Ma- 
sonic secrecy. When you obligated your- 
self that a brother’s secrets, delivered to 
you as such, you would keep as you would 
your own, you obligated yourself solely to 
the keeping secret such matters as could 
pertain alone to the one communicating 
them. Were this not so, the two obliga- 
tions would be in conflict. Freemasonry 
does not impose the impossible. 

The un-Masonic tongue implies an un- 
Masonic ear. It does not wag to unwill- 
ing ears, but to those eager or at least 
willing to hear. If “wickedness be sweet 
in his mouth though he hide it under his 
tongue,” so also is it sweet to the willing 
hearer. Close your ears, Oh, Brother! to 
the un-Masonic tongue. “Remember, 
also, that around [the] altar you have sol- 
emnly and repeatedly promised to befriend 
and relieve every brother who shall need 
your assistance; that you have promised to 
remind him, in the most tender manner, of 
his failings; and aid in his reformation; to 
vindicate his character when wrongfully 
traduced; and to suggest in his behalf the 
most candid, favorable and palliating cir- 
cumstances, even when his conduct is justly 
reprehensible. If you faithfully observe 
these duties, the world will observe how 
Freemasons love one another, in obedi- 
ence to the will of God.” — Keystone. 

o 

The Superanuated Brother. 


It is true that in these days of munifi- 
cent gifts to the many charitable institu- 
tions of the land, that of a Home for old 
Masons is entirely lost sight of. Not that 
it is unworthy of our charity, but it is 
because the occupants would be men in- 
stead of women and children. As a mat- 
ter of fact, there is not a Masonic institu- 
tion of this kind throughout this broad 
land of ours. Large cities have their 
“homes for old men” as well as for “old 
women and orphans,” but we of the Fra- 
ternity have no place where we can main- 
tain and support the old brother who can 
no longer care for himself. He must 
either go to the almshouse or eke out a 
miserable existence by the few pennies he 
can gather daily from the charitably dis- 
posed members of the Fraternity, and when 
he wears his welcome out in one city gets 
to another as best he can. And so he goes 
from pillar to post, tossed about by the 
rough waves of adversity until his old 


bark strikes the breakers of death and — 
he is at rest. 

The life of an impecunious old man re- 
minds us very much of an old broken- 
down horse, who, after having worn his 
life out in the service of his master, falls 
from exhaustion under an up hill pull, is 
released from his load and turned out 
upon the grass to die as a mark of ap- 
preciation for his past services. Better 
consign him to the soap vat, by a well- 
directed bullet, than to let him blindly 
hobble about with the buzzards almost 
roosting on his hip joints, while they are 
waiting for his poor old carcass to tumble 
into a ditch and there become their prey. 

The only difference between an old man 
and an old horse is, that one is a human 
being and thereby “created a little higher 
than the animals,” which makes him sus- 
ceptible of a higher life and better treat- 
ment. It may be that in his young life he 
was a leader in his class, educated and 
raised a gentleman, and when the time 
came for him to bid adieu to his loved 
ones at home and “strike out for himself,” 
he was the recipient of a father’s blessing 
and a mother’s kiss. Every venture he 
made was a success, and the first score of 
his life closes with a handsome competency 
for one so young. 

Full of energy and push he begins the 
second score, or manhood of life. He en- 
ters mercantile life on a large scale; he 
marries and begins to multiply his family, 
and finally becomes a Master Mason. He 
now feels the responsibilities of life in 
earnest. But as the “Lord fits the back 
for the burden,” so also does he apply 
himself with double diligence and moves 
on to greater things. He takes interest in 
public matters; he giyes largely of his 
means to the upbuilding of his town or 
city; he is a leader in all public enter- 
prises; he stands high in his church, and 
with his wife and growing family con- 
tributes largely to its support. His inter- 
est in the Fraternity increases, and the 
charity side of his ledger shows that he 
does the full measure of his duty. He 
becomes Master of his Lodge and is uni- 
versally beloved by the entire Craft of 
his section. Thus does he close the sec- 
ond score of his life amid sunshine and 
flowers. 

He enters the third score in all the 
prime of vigorous manhood, bnt scarcely 
has he crossed the threshold before re- 
verses, thick and fast overtake him. He 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


221 


sees his fortune gradually but surely fad- 
ing away before him; he tries to avert it, 
but of no avail. Sickness and death fall 
upon his loved ones; he buries one after 
another of his children, and finally his 
wife. He tries to rally, but the hoar frosts 
of time has stiffened his limbs, blighted 
his hopes and paralyzed his energies. His 
credit is gone and his place is filled by 
others. But amid all this devastion and 
ruin of himself and fortune, he has ever 
been true to himself, true to his friends and 
true to his God. Surely “the ways of 
Providence are past finding out.’’ 

Worn out with fatigue, bowed down by 
trouble, and almost disgusted with life, 
he enters his fourth score of years with the 
record of a blighted life as his only legacy. 
He feels like the old horse, he has been 
turned out to die. but just when that happy 
consummation will come he does not know. 
To hasten it would be to violate God’s 
law, and thereby overthrow the good rec- 
ord of his past life. Too proud to beg, 
and too honest to do wrong, in his dire 
extremity he turns to his Lodge, feeling 
fully assured that the good he has done in 
bygone days, “like bread cast upon the 
waters,’’ will return to him. And so it 
does. But, like all old men who live long 
enough, he enters his second childhood. 
He imagines that he has lived too- long 
and worn his welcome out with his Lodge, 
and in a moment of desperation decides 
to become a Masonic tramp. Kind heart- 
ed transportation men carry him from 
place to place; he works the relief boards 
in large cities and individual brothers in 
small towns. He keeps this up until his 
health fails and he is landed in some 
charitable hospital, where he survives only 
long enough to give his name, place, name 
and number of his Lodge, and then, un- 
attended by friends or loved ones — he dies. 
A telegram from the Master of his Lodge 
gives him a decent burial, a handful of the 
Craft say, “Alas! my brother!” the clods 
close over him and he is gone — “unhonor- 
ed and unsung.” 

This is no overdrawn picture, but is of 
daily occurrence in large cities. And why 
is it so ? Simply because there is no Home, 
either State or National, where the>e old 
brothers can go and be cared for. It is as 
much charity to provide for them as it is 
for others. In the days of their pros- 
perity they gave largely, of their time and 
means to the Fraternity and esteemed it a 
great privilege to assist the poor. What 


a noble charity it would be to provide a 
Home where these old brothers could spend 
the evening of their lives without feeling 
themselves paupers. Let it be understood 
to be their Home, which they helped to 
build and maintain in their prosperous 
days, and that they are now drawing the 
interest only on the principal invested 
by them, and their feeling of dependence 
in a large measure will be dispelled, and 
they can hold up their heads and look 
their brothers in the face with a much bet- 
ter grace than they could if asking alms. 

It does seem to us that some large-heart- 
ed brother, who has enough of this world’s 
goods, and to spare, would gladly endow 
an institution of this kind, or at least put 
on foot, by a large subscription, a move- 
ment looking to this end. It might be 
possible that there are enough wealthy 
Masons in the United States to get to- 
gether and found a “National Masonic 
Home for old Men.” 

The brethren who are able have given 
largely to our Widow and Orphan Asy- 
lums, and now that we have these God- 
given institutions pretty well in hand, let’s 
think of the old men. Aside from a Na- 
tional institution of this kind we would be 
glad to see every State have such a Home. 
We believe that we have enough philan- 
thropic wealthy brethren here in our midst 
to start the enterprise, and we are fully sat- 
isfied that if once it is completed its main- 
tenance is assured. It is surprising be- 
yond measure to know what a great inter- 
est there is among the old men of our city 
concerning this matter. Who will start 
it, and thereby build unto himself a monu- 
ment more lasting than marble, as endur- 
ing as time and fadingonly with memory ? 
Protect and care for the old man by a well- 
directed charity, and sweet will be your 
reward, and happy will be your life in the 
“sweet bye-and-bye.’’ 

— Bro. Bun F. Price. 

o 

The Mysterious Lodger. 


“You say he never sleeps here, Mrs. 
Allen?” said young Mr. McCandless, who 
had lodged and boarded with that worthy 
woman for seven years, and was much 
esteemed by her for his knowledge of the 
world. 

“Well, I never find the bed disturbed, 
although the counterpane is sometimes 
soiled by his muddy boots in the morn- 
ing,” replied the landlady, smoothing the 


222 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


wrinkles out of her apron with her podgy 
hand. 

“Ahem, that is curious,” mused Mc- 
Candless, removing his glasses and wiping 
them with his handkerchief. 

“And he never spends the whole night 
here,” pursued she. 

“You don’t mean to say he leaves be- 
fore daylight ?” 

“That’s just what I do mean to say, 
and I can’t make up my mind that he’s a 
respectable man,” said the landlady se- 
verely. 

“Just tell me when he comes and when 
he goes, and all you know about him, 
Mrs. Allen.” 

“Well, let me see. About a month ago 
— shall I describe him ? ’ 

“Yes, yes, go on; omit nothing.” 

“He’s a slim young man with a very 
thin face — a hatchet face, I should call it 
— very small, piercing, black eyes, and 
just a bit of a dark mustache.” 

“Then he is rather a mysterious looking 
man?” put in McCandless, compressing 
his lips. 

“He is, indeed,”’ returned the landlady, 
“but not half as mysterious as his do- 
ings.” 

“And how was he dressed?” 

McCandless had taken out an envelope, 
and was busily making notes on the back 
of it. 

“His clothes were shabby,” said the 
landlady, “and he always carried a rough 
oak stick. Well, as I was saying, about 
a month ago he rang the door bell one af- 
ternoon, and I went to the door. He was 
pale and worried and — ” 

“Sort of a hunted look?” queried Mc- 
Candless. 

“That is just what I thought,” cried 
Mrs. Allen. 

“There may be something in this,” said 
her lodger darkly; “but go on Mrs. Al- 
len.” 

“Where was I? Oh, yes, he asked in 
a low broken voice if I had a room to let. 
The side room on the top floor was the 
only one vacant, and I told him so with 
misgivings, for I didn’t think he was good 
pay. He asked me the rent, and I said 
$2 a week. Looking up and down the 
street in a queer way, he said he’d take it.” 

“Did he appear to think he might be 
followed?” asked McCandless, wiping the 
perspiration from his brow, for he had 
been trying to take down Mrs. Allen’s 
statement in long-hand. 


“I don’t know what he thought, but he 
seemed to be nervous and uneasy. Well, 
I took the $2, which he offered me, and 
asked him when he wanted to move in, 
and where his trunk was He stammered 
out that he had no trunk, but would it 
matter so long as he paid in advance? I 
said I didn’t care, if he paid me regu- 
larly.” 

“Don’t you think you ought to have 
asked him for references, Mrs. Allen?” 

“I never expect references for hall bed- 
rooms, Mr. McCandless, especially when 
they’re on the top floor.” 

McCandless coughed uncomfortably and 
his landlady went on: 

“When I asked him how soon he was 
coming, he said he would be here the same 
night, upon which I gave him a latchkey 
on the usual condition — payment of a quar- 
ter. Just as he was going down the steps 
I inquired his name and he turned red and 
mumbled something.” 

“By George! Mrs. Allen, it looks pe- 
culiar. I have a theory. But you insist- 
ed upon knowing his name, of course ?” 

“Yes, I put the question again, and he 
said I might call him Peterson.” 

“Plainly a nom de guerre. I mean a 
fictitious name. When did you see him 
again ?” 

“That’s the surprising part of it,” said 
Mrs. Allen, who was now all of a flutter 
with excitement. “I didn’t see him for 
three days, and then he came after dark, 
passing me in the hall without so much as 
a ‘How d’ ye do ?’ That night, it must 
have been two in the morning, I heard a 
foot on the stairs and opened my bed-room 
door to look out. Who should I see but 
Mr. Peterson going down. Then I heard 
the front door slam.” 

“Was he carrying anything out ?” de- 
manded McCandless. 

“Oh, you may be sure I thought of 
that. No, he had nothing in his hand 
but the oak stick which he always carries.” 

McCandless looked disappointed, and 
the landlady continued her story: 

“He came the next night and departed 
just as mysteriously, but the queer thing 
about it was, that he always banged the 
door when he went away.” 

“Hem! I don’t know that that was 
anything more than low cunning, Mrs. Al- 
len. He may have wanted to give some- 
body, the police, for instance — the idea 
that he had a right to come and go un- 
molested. Now, I think that was a more 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


223 


suspicious circumstance than if he had 
closed the door after him noiselessly.” 

The landlady looked at McCandless 
with admiration written on every feature. 

‘‘Well, you have a head full of ideas, 
Mr. McCandless. Nobody could fool you. ’ ' 

‘‘You flatter, Mrs. Allen,” said her 
lodger, flushing with pleasure, ‘‘but I may 
say to you that some of my best friends 
are connected with the Central Office, and 
they tell me that I ought to be one of them. 
I come to my detective talents naturally, 
for my father was a park policeman.” 

‘‘Have you ever seen Peterson carry 
anything up stairs?” 

‘‘I have,” returned, Mrs. Allen impress- 
ively.” 

‘‘State what it was.” 

‘‘I cannot, except to say that it was a 
bundle which he held tightly under his 
left arm.” 

McCandless wag perplexed. 

‘‘Did you ever find anything in Peter- 
son’s room on any morning following his 
occupancy of it?” he said, after a pause 
for reflection. 

‘‘Nothing; absolutely nothing. ” 

‘‘This is one of the most singular cases 
I ever heard of,” said McCandless de- 
cidedly. 

‘‘What do you think of it?” ventured 
the landlady. 

‘‘Think of it? I think Peterson is a 
suspicious character who will bear watch- 
ing. He may be a counterfeiter, a forger, 
a fugitive from justice.” 

Mrs. Allen was distressed and fright- 
ened. 

‘‘What am I going to do about it ?” she 
asked. 

‘‘Leave everything to me,” said Mc- 
Candless reassuringly. ‘‘I will make it 
my business to clear up this mystery. 
Peterson shall be kept under surveillance.” 

Several days passed during which Mc- 
Candless was very taciUirn at his meals, 
*■ and went to and fro in a brown study. 

When interrogated by Mrs. Allen he 
merely said: ‘‘I may have something for 
you in a day or two.” 

Sure enough, on Saturday morning Mc- 
Candless asked with a non-commital air 
to see Mrs. Allen in the parlor. 

‘‘By the way,” he began in a thick 
voice, ‘‘I will see that you have a check 
for my account in the course of a few days, 
but I wanted to talk to you about a much 
more important matter. I think I have 
run Peterson to earth.” 


McCandless said this in a grave, con- 
fidential tone. 

“You don’t say so, Mr. McCandless. 
What have you found out about him ?” 

For answer McCandless drew from his 
pocket a thick paper, which he slowly un- 
folded, showing a poster printed in very 
black ink with a cut of a man’s face at the 
top. 

“Read it, Mrs. Allen,” Urged her 
lodger huskily. 

This is what the landlady read: “Look 
for Thomas Gallagher, alias David Mof- 
fett, alias Morton, alias Geohegan. Want- 
ed for highway robbery. Height 5 feet 8; 
weight, 147 pounds. Spare face, dark 
eyes, small mustache. When last seen 
wore a brown slouch hat, dark coat, mix- 
ed trousers, and gaiters. One thousand 
dollars reward will be paid to any one giv- 
ing evidence which shall lead to his con- 
viction. Thomas Binns, Chief of Police.” 

“Now, I want to ‘ask you, Mrs. Allen, 
whom that picture resembles?” 

The landlady studied it hard. 

“Does it not bear a strong resemblance 
to Peterson, Mrs. Allen?” 

“That’s what I was thinking myself, 
Mr. McCandless. I can’t swear to it, 
but it looks a good deal like Mr. Peter- 
son. ’ ’ 

“When I think of the way he hides 
himself in your house, Mrs. Allen, comes 
in the night and goes in the night, I could 
almost swear Peterson is Thomas Galla- 
gher. But I won’t rest until I prove it, 
and I’m going on his trail to-night.” 

The following morning Mr. McCandless 
came down to the breakfast table red-eyed 
from the want of sleep, but in high spirits. 

“Could I see you in the parlor, Mrs. 
Allen ?” he whispered as he slipped away 
from the table. 

The landlady excused herself as soon as 
she could, and made her way up stairs 
with all the speed her embonpoint would 
permit. She tingled with curiosity to her 
fingertips. 

“I have made a great discovery,” Mc- 
Candless burst out as soon as she had shut 
the door behind her. 

“Yes, yes ?” 

“Peterson is living a double life, and 
he is probably the man Chief Binn is look- 
ing for. The reward is almost within our 
grasp.” 

“How do you know? What have you 
found out?” said the landlady, her gen- 
erous bosom heaving in her excitement. 


224 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


McCandless spoke rapidly, evidently 
carried away by his discovery. 

“Last night Peterson left the house at 
two o’clock, and I followed him wearing 
gums. He walked at a quick pace to- 
ward Washington Square — so fast, in fact, 
that I had difficulty in keeping him in 
sight. Crossing the square, he entered a 
house near Sixth Avenue with a latchkey. 
There was one lighted window on the sec- 
ond floor of the house. In a moment I 
saw his shadow on the curtain. I could 
identify him by his slouch hat and by his 
figure. A woman came and stood beside 
him. Suddenly there was the cry of an 
infant, loud and shrill. The woman dis- 
appeared. Her shadow fell on the curtain 
again, and she had in her arms a child. 
She held it out to Peterson. He removed 
his slouch hat and took the child. For an 
hour he carried it to and fro in the room. 
At length its cries ceased, the woman took 
it. Peterson began to undress, and the 
light went out.” 

McCandless stopped from sheer want of 
breath. 

“But what has all this got to do with 
the reward?” asked Mrs. Allen, with a 
woman’s doubts. 

“Give me time. One minute,” said 
McCandless. “There is plenty of evi- 
dence. I marked the house with a piece 
of chalk. This morning I was round there 
early and pumped the colored servant, who 
was sweeping the sidewalk. She told me 
that the occupant of the second floor front 
was named Andrews. From her descrip- 
tion there could be no doubt he was identi- 
cal with Peterson. I asked her about his 
habits, and she said that he was often ab- 
sent until the small hours of the morning. 
The woman was his wife, and they had an 
infant two months old. They had been in 
the house about five weeks, which would 
correspond with the time Peterson has oc- 
cupied your hall bed-room on the top 
floor.” 

McCandless looked at Mrs. Allen tri- 
umphantly. 

“What do you think of that for detect- 
ive work ?” he said. 

“You were right,” returned |the land- 
lady admiringly. “Peterson is a suspi- 
cious character, probably a criminal, as you 
supposed.” 

“He is the very man the police are 
looking for. Of that I am convinced,” 
said McCandless. “Just read that from 
the Morning Post." 


Mrs. Allen put on her spectacles and 
read aloud as follows: 

“The police have reason to believe that 
Thomas Gallagher, alias David Moffett, 
alias Morton, alias Geoghegan, who is 
wanted for highway robbery, and for whose 
apprehension a reward of $1,000 has been 
offered, is in hiding in this city. They 
hope to trace him through his young wife 
and child who are living somewhere on the 
West side.” 

“Can there be any doubt of it, Mrs. 
Allen ? I am going to communicate with 
my friends at the Central Office at once. 
The reward is as good as secured, and 
when we get it, Mrs. Allen, I’m going to 
put a question to you.” 

The buxom landlady blushed and cast 
down her eyes. 

“You’re a gay deceiver, Mr. McCand- 
less, she said. 

That night McCandless let Burke and 
Roache, of the Central Office, into the 
house at ten o’clock, and concealed them 
in the basement. Peterson had not come, 
although it was one of the nights when he 
was accustomed to visit the house. Mc- 
Candless was oh tender hooks, fearing his 
prey had escaped them. About eleven 
o’clock the rattle of a latch key was heard 
in the front door. A click, and it opened. 
McCandless looking through the parlor 
portieres recognized Peterson. At the end 
of half an hour McCandless and the of- 
ficers mounted noiselessly to the top floor.. 
There was the sound of a voice in Peter- 
son’s room, sad and labored, as of some 
one in deep affliction. They listened in- 
tently. 

“Remorse burdens my spirit,” they 
heard the voice say. “Hardened as I am 
in crime, I have some conscience left. 
Perhaps it is the still small voice which 
tells me I am not a lost soul. Oh, could 
I but atone for this last damning crime by 
giving myself up to the officers of justice! 

I would gladly do so if the act would not* 
involve others. Oh, my God, how shall 
I attain to that peace which passeth all un- 
derstanding ?” 

Then the voice fell and silence follow- 
ed, so profound that McCandless could 
hear his heart thumping. He whispered 
hoarsely to Burke and Roache: “It is your 
man; break in the door.” 

“I guess we’re safe,” said Roache to 
Burke.” 

“It’s a go, if you say so,” said Burke. 

Roache, a heavily built man, without 


THE TRESTLE BOARD . 


225 


another word threw his shoulder against 
the door, the lock gave way and the Cent- 
ral Office men rushed in with levelled pis- 
tols, McCandless at their backs with a 
sword cane. 

“The game’s up,” cried McCandless, 
dramatically. 

A pallid and very much scared young 
man rose from a chair at a table covered 
with sheets of paper. He was in his shirt 
sleeves, and his hair was touzled. 

“What is the meaning of this intru- 
sion?” he demanded. “Do you want to 
kill me?” 

“No, only to lock you up,” said Roache. 

“My God, gentlemen, it’s a mistake.” 

“There’s no mistake about it,” shrieked 
McCandless ; “ your name’s not Peterson, 
and you know it.” 

The young man looked confused and 
was silent. 

Burke made a rush at him, overturning 
the table and sending a bottle of ink spill- 
ing in all directions. In a twinkle he had 
a pair of handcuffs on Peterson’s wrists. 

“ We must go round and take the woman 
for a witness,” said Roche. 

They pushed and half carried Peterson 
down the stairs to the street ; Peterson was 
hurried along across Washington Square, 
protesting that it was a mistake and that 
he could explain. 

“This is the place,” said McCandless, 
ascending the steps of a house on the cor- 
ner of Sixth Avenue. He pulled fiercely 
at the bell, and when the door was opened, 
McCandless led the way up to the second 
floor, Burke and Roche hustling Peterson 
up before them. 

“ Knock at the lady’s door,” suggested 
Burke, politely. 

McCandless knocked. 

A young woman in a dressing gown ap- 
peared on the threshold. When she caught 
sight of Peterson in the grasp of the two 
officers of the law, with his hands bound 
together in front of him, she uttered a cry 
of fright. 

“Oh, Henry, what have you done? What 
is the meaning of this?” 

“It is an outrage, a police outrage,” 
shrieked Peterson. 

“Ha ! ha ! that’s an old story,” said 
Burke and Roche simultaneously. 

“ I was arrested on suspicion of some- 
thing round in the other room,” said Pet- 
erson. “ Tell them about it. They won’t 
believe me.” 

A light broke on the young woman. 


“This is surely a mistake,” she said 
sweetly. “I am Mrs. Andrews, and that 
is my husband Henry, who is a writer of 
plays. We have a baby as you see. There 
he is in the crib. My husband found he 
could not write at home, the baby cried so 
much ; so he hired a room somewhere else, 
and there he went several nights each week 
to write in peace, coming home when he 
was tired.” 

“That is what I was doing when those 
scoundrels arrested me,” said Peterson in- 
dignantly. 

“ What was that you were saying about 
remorse burdening your spirit before we 
broke in?” demanded Roche suspiciously. 

“ I was reading from my play, ‘ The 
Atonement of Blood,’ ” answered the young 
man. 

“ Oh, look here, this won’t do,” broke 
in McCandless. “ Why did you tell Mrs. 
Allen your name was Peterson ?” 

‘ ‘ My name is Henry Peterson Andrews, ’ ’ 
said the young dramatist, “ and I gave her 
my middle name because it was as good a 
one for her as any other, since I didn’t 
want to live in her room or explain to her 
why I rented it.” 

“ Henry wouldn’t be a dramatist if he 
wasn’t a little mysterious,” said the young 
woman, with a charming smile. 

Burke unlocked the handcuffs from Pet- 
erson’s wrists. 

“ Any one can see that this lady isn’t 
a crook’s wife or this gentleman a crook,” 
said the detective. “ McCandless, I think 
you’re an ass. Come, Roche, let’s be go- 
ing. Madam, for my side partner and 
myself I want to say that we’ve been vic- 
timized, and hope you’ll overlook our zeal. 
We’re awfully ashamed of ourselves, Mr. 
Andrews. If you’ll forgive and forget 
we’ll be your everlasting friends. Don’t 
report us at the Central Office or we’ll be 
ruined.” 

“ I w'on’tdo that,” said Peterson grimly. 
“ I’ll do better. I’ll put it in a play.” 

Burke and Roche shook hands and 
bowed themselves out. McCandless stum- 
bled after them, sheep-faced and shrunken. 
o 

The Boy Was Better. 


Their meeting was an ominous one. 
Smith entered Bock’s office with erect 
carriage and uncompromising hair. His 
“Good morning, sir,” had a crisp and 
chilling sound. 


226 


THE TRESTLE BOARD 


“Good morning, sir,” echoed Bock. 
Neither offered to shake hands. 

“ I understand that you have refused to 
sanction the marriage of your daughter to 
my son,” said Smith, going straight to 
business. 

“Yes sir.” 

“Why?” 

“ I don’t care to enter into explana- 
tions.” 

“Oh, those are your tactics, hey?” 
snorted Smith. ‘ ‘ Don’t you like my fami- 
ly, Mr. Bock.” 

“I’m prejudiced in favor of my own.” 

“ That’s something. You admit preju- 
dice. Did you ever hear of any of my 
ancestors being hung or committing arson, 
robbery or treason ?” 

“ Really, Mr. Smith, I have never been 
sufficiently interested to investigate, and 
the presumed extent of your family con- 
nections would make the task an appalling 
one. ’ ’ 

“ You have known me for twenty years. 
Have I not lived a reputable life and 
amassed a fortune by honorable means?” 

“ Admit it. I don’t understand that 
you are desirous of marrying into my 
family.” 

“No, thank the Lord.” 

‘ ‘ Amen, ’ ’ cut in Bock. ‘ ‘ But candidly, 
I don’t like your son.” 

“ Your daughter does.” 

“I’m the one you’re trying to convert, 
Mr. Smith. The boy seems to lead an 
aimless life. He is utterly lacking in 
conversational ability. When he’s out in 
society his feet get tangled up and he 
doesn’t know what to do with his hands. 
If he has brains, he keeps the fact a pro- 
found secret.” 

“ Bob doesn’t blow his own trumpet or 
issue any notices that he intends setting 
the harbor afire. But he is a hard student 
and already has two electrical inventions 
that will make him a snug fortune. He 
does not shine in society, because afflicted 
with hereditary bashfulness. I was the 
same way.” 

Here Bock interrupted with a sneer, 
and Smith turned on a stronger current. 
“ But when you say that boy doesn’t know 
what to do with his hands you simply 
make an ass of yourself. 

“ Explain yourself, sir.” 

“ Bob is just about as clever with his 
hands as any of the amateur boxers.” 

This was touching Bock in his weakest 
spot. Hadn’t he been one of the cracks 


in college, and hadn’t he enjoyed an occa- 
sional round or two with some friends ever 
since ? 

“ Perhaps your son’s ability in that di- 
rection is also inherited,” he said insinu- 
atingly and with a glitter in his eye. 

“ I have always managed to take care of 
myself.” 

“We’re about the same age and weight, 
Mr. Smith. I keep a couple of pairs of 
gloves here just for the amusement of the 
clerks. Suppose we take a little whirl to 
cool off and get better acquainted.” 

“ Oh, that would be foolish in two old 
codgers like us, especially when we have 
no love for each other. ’ ’ 

Bock felt disappointed and used the prod. 

“Very well, Mr. Smith, but if the boy 
inherits your discretion I’m puzzled to 
know how he got his reputation as a 
sparrer. ’ ’ 

“Bring out the mitts !” roared Smith, 
“You’ve made your insinuation. Now 
we’ll see how you take your medicine. 
I’ll just throw these things on a chair,” 
as he stripped down to his shirt and made 
a belt of his suspenders. 

“ Lock the door,” said Bock to his 
private secretary, and soon the two men, 
with children old enough to marry, con- 
fronted each other. They fiddled and 
danced and for a few seconds, when Bock 
let go with his right and soaked Smith in 
the ear. 

“ Good eye !” yelled the Secretary. 

“ It’ll be a bad eye before I get through,” 
growled Smith, who looked dangerous, 
while Bock wore an aggravating smile of 
confidence. He trusted to the same tactics 
again, but this time Smith threw his head 
aside, and, as Bock came with the force of 
his blow, met him with a straight jab from 
the left that threw his head back between 
his shoulder blades, sent in a horrible 
smash with the right and knocked Bock 
under a table eight feet away. He crawled 
out the other side, got to his feet in a very 
uncertain manner, leaned on the table and 
looked daggers. 

“I’ll send you to the hospital for that, 
Smith. I’m something better than a raw 
hand at hard hitting myself,” and Bock 
stroked the ‘ 4 good eye ’ ’ that was now very 
bad. 

44 Oh, you couldn’t knock down a man’s 
suit of clothes if you were an auctioneer,” 
retorted Smith, who wanted more of the 
game and knew how to get it. 

44 I’ll show you !” whooped Bock, who 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


227 


made a rush and worked like a windmill. 
But this time he got it in the nose and 
went down so hard that the Secretary 
groaned. Bock was badly punished, and 
Smith suggested calling it a draw. 

“ Never a draw !” shouted Bock. “ I 
knew there was a yellow streak in you, 
Smith.” 

“ I’ll make you think it’s a streak of 
lightning before we’re through.” 

“ Oh, you blow too much !” 

“ So does Corbett. Get to work !” 

This time Bock was wary, and Smith 
took the aggressive. He feinted at the 
stomach with his left, and as Bock doubled 
up set his jaw to rattling with the artist’s 
favorite. 

When Bock was resusitated, he feebly 
inquired, ‘‘Smith, is the boy as good as 
you are ?” 

“ Better.” 

‘‘Say, Smith, don’t you mention our 
little friendly sport. Send him up. I’ve 
relented.” And when Bob called she told 
him how shockingly ‘ ‘ dear papa ” had been 
wounded by the explosion of a bottle of 
fire extinguishing fluid. 

— N. Y. Sunday World. 

o 

Defects of the Postal System. 


“ Go, my son,” said the great Chan- 
cellor Oxenstiern to his son, who was set- 
ting out on the grand tour of Europe, “Go, 
and see with what little wisdom the king- 
doms of the world are governed.” It is 
true to-day, as then, and of republics no 
less than monarchies. We need not take 
time to refer to Carnegie and the iron 
armor matter, as to which the government 
was shown to have paid $520 per ton for 
steel armor which the same establishment 
was furnishing at the same time to the 
Russian government, laid down in Russia, 
at $247 per ton. There are many similar 
incidents, though smaller perhaps, in the 
amount of the frauds, to be found in other 
departments of the govtrnment. The ob- 
ject of this article, however, is not to ex- 
pose frauds — it seems an endless and a 
bootless undertaking — but to point out 
some of the maladministration of that 
great department of the government which 
comes nearest the citizen and visits him 
more frequently than any other, the tax 
collector not excepted, and whose agents 
constantly go in and out among us, and 
whose tolls are a daily tax upon our pock- 
ets — the postoffice department. 


The growth of this department is more 
phenomenal than that of the republic itself. 
Starting with seventy-five post-masters and 
an annual expenditure of $37,000 under 
Washington, it had grown in 1886 so as 
to report 53,000 postmasters and $44,000,- 
000 of expenditures, and this with a con- 
stantly decreasing rate of charges, which 
by that date had come down to three cents 
for the carriage of one- half- ounce letters 
anywhere in the republic. The ten years 
since 1886 have seen postage reduced to 
two cents for one ounce letters, and the 
postoffice department increased to nearly 
75,000 post- masters and $92,000,000 ex- 
penditures. What it will be even ten years 
hence, if the proposed reduction of letter 
postage to one cent shall be made, and es- 
pecially if telegraph or telephone offices 
shall be established by the government, 
with low rates, at every postoffice in the 
land, in town and country, no man can 
estimate. 

In the main, the subordinates of the 
postoffice do their work efficiently and 
honestly. There is no department or or- 
ganization working a large force of men, 
scattered widely apart, which can show a 
smaller percentage of defalcations or fewer 
derelictions in duty. There is no com- 
plaint of the working staff, of the vast 
mass of men who do the drudgery and the 
labor of the great machine which is so 
material to the comfort and convenience 
of the republic. If there had been short- 
comings in them, there would have been 
reform long since. Where the depart- 
ment immediately touches the people it is 
usually regular and irreproachable. Yet 
there are vast defects, criminal shortcom- 
ings, which, stupendous in amount of 
losses, prevent betterments and ameliora- 
tions in the service rendered the public. 
It is of these that this article wishes to 
treat. 

The two gravest defects in the admin- 
istration of the postoffice department are 
the enormous overcharges paid to the rail- 
way service, amounting to fully $15,000,- 
000 annual loss to the government, and the 
prevention by corporate influences of the 
adoption of the telegraph and telephone 
as a postoffice betterment and facility, al- 
though they have been adopted by the 
postoffice department in ninety-five per 
cent, of all the postoffices in the other 
civilized governments of the world. 

And first, the overcharges paid the rail- 
ways for mail service are such as to stag- 


228 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


ger belief. According to the Postmaster- 
General’s reports, the government pays 
eight cents per pound for the transporta- 
tion of mail matter, in addition to paying 
rentals of the postal cars, while the express 
companies, who make large profits, are 
charged one cent per pound and less for 
the same service. And not only this, but 
while the average life of a postal car is 
twenty years, the government pays on an 
average 200 per cent, on the cost of a 
postal car as yearly rental, in addition to 
paying eight times the charge per pound 
paid by express companies for hauling the 
car. 

To get down to details, Postmaster- 
General Bissell’s report for 1894, page 
53, and Wilson’s for 1895, page 31, show 
that the average price for carrying the 
mail was eight cents per pound, and this 
for an average distance of 448 miles. The 
Texas and Southern Pacific Railroad car- 
ries caps, boots, cassimeres and hardware 
for eight-tenths of a cent per pound, from 
New Orleans to San Francisco, 2,500 
miles, five times the average haul of the 
mail for which eight cents a pound is 
paid ; i <?., the government pays fifty times 
as much. On an investigation before the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, George 
R. Blanchard testified that the express 
companies carried milk to New York, a 
distance of 396 miles, at a charge of one- 
sixth of a cent per pound, returning the 
cans free, and that the distance could be 
increased to 1,000 miles, and there would 
still be a profit at one sixth of a cent ; 
while the government pays for transporta- 
tion of mails, over the same lines, eight 
cents for an average of 448 miles, besides 
paying for the annual rental of the cars 
largely more than 200 per cent, on their 
cost. Joseph H. Choate, who appeared 
for the railroads at the same investigation, 
testified that, at a rate of one-third of a 
cent per pound on forty quart cans of 
milk, there would be a profit of 200 to 
300 per cent. 

The amount paid the railroads for the 
rental of the postal cars is $3,600,000 an- 
nually — a sum more than enough to build 
outright nearly double the number of postal 
cars in use, costing $3,500 to $4,000 each. 
These the government could build for less 
than $2,000,000, and the average life being 
twenty years, it follows that, at the present 
rental of $3,600,000, the government is 
paying $72,000,000 for property it could 
acquire for $2,000,000. On the Pennsyl- 


vania railroad the government pays an- 
nually $7,327 per car for the rent of sixty- 
nine cars, which could each be bought 
outright for less than half the money ; 
thus over 200 per cent, is paid by the gov- 
ernment as rental of postal cars which it 
should own. On the New York Central 
the government does worse, and actually 
pays $8,500 each for annual rental of 
postal cars which can be bought for $3,500 
or less, nearly 250 per cent, interest. In 
this way $3,600,000 a year is spent for 
rentals ; whereas, if the government would 
build the 500 cars at, say, $3,500 each — a 
full estimate — the outlay would be $1 , 750, - 
000, being less than half the annual rental. 
Three per cent, interest on this sum would 
be only $52,500 per annum. The life of 
a car being twenty years, the annual de- 
preciation would be $87,500, and the re- 
pairs added would not make the entire an- 
nual cost exceed $200,000, instead of the 
present $3,600,000. 

Besides the annual $3,600,000 for rental 
of postal cars, the sum appropriated to 
railroads for hauling the mails is $29,000,- 
000, an amount which many deem fully 
$15,000,000 in excess of a fair and moder- 
ate charge. Not only this, but it is in 
evidence that in the month set apart for 
the quadrennial weighing of the mails, 
many railroads, if not all, are in the habit 
of shipping vast numbers of sacks of con- 
gressional mail, books and pamphlets to 
points on their lines, and then reshipping 
them again and again, to swell the gross 
weight on which they are to receive pay 
for the next four years ; and so common 
is the habit that, when some were caught 
redhanded, the excuse of their officers was 
“They all do it,’’ and the department was 
not powerful enough to have any punish- 
ment meted out to the confessed offenders. 
So well known are these abuses, that when 
Senator Butler offered an amendment to 
the postal appropriations bill that the gov- 
ernment should not pay for the annual 
rental of any postal car more than ten per 
cent, of its value (double pay, if the life 
of a postal car is twenty years), nor more 
for the transportation of mails than ex- 
press companies pay per pound for like 
service, the Senators did not dare to go on 
record upon the motion, and protected 
themselves by refusing an “aye and nay” 
vote upon it. 

In the discussion in the Senate, in Feb- 
ruary, 1897, Senator Vilas, formerly Post- 
master-General, concurred in the substance 


THE TRESTLE BOARD . 


229 


of the above statements and the necessity 
of greater reductions. He stated that the 
rate for railway mail had been hurriedly 
tacked on to an appropriation bill in 1873; 
that the rate was exorbitant then, and 
though railroad charges generally had 
been reduced forty per cent. , their charges 
to the government, which were extrava- 
gant even in 1873, had not been reduced 
at all. Senator Gorman, who has never 
been suspected of being on unfriendly 
terms with great corporations, made the 
following frank statement : 

I do not impute to the men who are in the postoffice 
department, or those who preceded them, a want of ability 
or courage to act ; but the fact is, Mr. President, that the 
great power of those corporations, who control everything, 
who are powerful enough to dictate policies and make and 
unmake public men, is so omnipotent that no executive 
officer has been found in the last twelve years, except in 
the single instance and to the extent I have indicated, who 
has attempted to reduce the compensation for mail trans- 
portation. 

Were the government to build and own 
its own postal cars, and merely pay the 
railroad companies for hauling them, as 
the millionaires have their private palace 
cars hauled, over $15,000,000 a year would 
be readily saved out of the present yearly 
expenditures of the postoffice. With this 
done, not only would there be no annual 
deficit as now, and not only could letter 
postage be reduced to one cent and postal 
cards to one-half cent, but even the postage 
on books and newspapers and pamphlets 
could probably be somewhat reduced. 
There could be no further attempt, by a 
“Loud bill,” to stop the circulation of 
free silver and anti-monopoly literature, 
under the pretext of a necessity to increase 
postal rates to prevent a deficit. The way 
to prevent a deficit is for the government 
to own its own postal cars and pay the 
railroads the same rates only for hauling 
them that others pay. 

Xhe second great deficit in the postal 
service is that the swift mail service — the 
electric mail — is illegally turned over to 
private companies, who operate it at “the 
highest figure the traffic will bear,” and 
furnish offices only at the points which 
will pay handsomely, thus giving the 
smallest possible benefit to the great mass 
of the people, and the largest possible 
profit to the multi-millionaires who have 
confiscated the lightning to their sole 
profit. This is done illegally, as the con- 
stitution places the postoffice in the ex- 
clusive control of Congress, and no one 
but the government has a right to operate 
this best part of the mail service. What 
would be our condition if the steam mail 


service had been turned over to private 
companies as the electric has been ? 

In practically every country except the 
United States and Canada the telegraph 
and telephone are a part of the mail ser- 
vice. The average rate for telegrams in 
Europe is ten cents for twenty words, and 
the average cost of telegrams is thirteen 
cents each. The average charge for tele- 
grams in this country is thirty-one cents 
each. Then, too, in other countries the 
postoffice department has a telegraph or 
telephone at nearly every postoffice in the 
country, as well as in the town. It should 
be so here. It would go far to destroy 
the isolation of farm life, and would en- 
able those living in the country to procure 
the service of physicians in less than half 
the time, and with far less expense than 
sending a messenger. The market prices 
in towns could be known each day, and 
whether it would be well to carry in prod- 
uce or not. Then many a useless trip to 
the railroad station for freight that has not 
come, or to the county town as witness in 
a case that has been postponed, could be 
avoided. Then, too, by increasing the 
number of postoffices, most of the advan- 
tages of country free delivery could be 
had, as messages requiring dispatch could 
be telephoned. — Hon. Walter Clark , As- 
sociate Justice of the Supreme Court of 
N. C. 

o 

We believe the funds of a Lodge should 
be held as charged to relieve its members 
in distress and should be sacredly guarded 
accordingly, and we see no reason to shirk 
that primary responsibility if a member 
falls into distress away from home. Such 
an one may have claim upon individual 
Masons, but he has none at all upon any 
lodge but his own. If the funds of a 
lodge are properly chargeable to the relief 
of its members, those who contribute to 
those funds ought to be regarded as hav- 
ing some claim superior to those who have 
not so contributed. Though most Grand 
Lodges have refused to assent to the Wis- 
consin resolutions, we believe they are 
sound ai d correct in principle and will 
yet be accepted when Masonry gets its 
eyes wide open. Wouldn’t it concern a 
Grand Lodge if one of its subordinates al- 
lowed a “decayed member” to be sent to 
the poor house instead of contributing to 
his relief? There is some ultimate re- 
sponsibility upon Grand Lodges. 

— Cornelius Hedges , Montana. 


230 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 

A National Masonic and Family Magazine. 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE 

TRESTLE BOARD ASSOCIATION. 


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How to Remit.— Send Cashier’s Check, Express Or- 
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Alvin Plummer, Advertising Manager. 

408 California St., San Francisco, Caliiornia. 


The Fruits of Non-Affiliation. 

When, years ago, the Craft of New 
York was burdened with debt, when a 
heavy mortgage rested upon the temple, 
and the Home seemed like a dream, like 
a far-off and uncertain vision, some al- 
leged Masons, some luke warm brethren, 
tired of the burden, tired of the good 
cause, grew weary of well-doing and re- 
fused to help the brethren carry the bur- 
den and carry on the good work to the ut- 
most completion; refused to assist in the 
struggle and left their lodges, left their 
brethren to struggle on alone, and go on 
with the work in hand with the object 
then, as now, uppermost in the minds of 
the brethren; that is, a solid material foun- 
dation for the Home and a paid-up struc- 
ture yielding a revenue to maintain this 
Home. While this often disgusted and 
disheartened the honest toiler, it had, like 
all dark clouds, its silver lining; it left the 
sturdy, true Masons at work in the quar- 
ries, and shut out the traitor from the hon- 
est and unselfish patriotic worker. 

It is different now. We own outright 
(all paid for) a magnificent structure yield- 
ing a handsome revenue; we own a Home 
in Utica, with its broad and fertile acres, 
all finished and furnished, paid for and in 
full operation, with additions being con- 
stantly made thereto; the trustees have a 
handsome sum of money in bank, waiting 
for a profitable investment, and ready, if 
needed, to make still more and more im- 
provements to the fine structure in Utica; 
and, besides being very prosperous, Ma- 
sonry is also very popular and fashionable 
just now; hence, some of those alleged 
Masons are trying to “sneak” back into 
the ranks — the ranks they deserted when 
there was work to do — and they now want 
to share the fruits and labors of others. 


Almost every lodge in the metropolitan 
district, and doubtless all lodges through- 
out the State, have similar experiences of 
just such “coffee-coolers” who want to 
come back now in their declining years 
and enjoy the prosperity of the Craft of 
to day. 

It is the duty of every Master and of 
every member to protect his lodge and the 
fraternity at large from these selfish ma- 
rauders, who, with an effrontery only 
equalled by their unbounded selfishness,, 
come, or try to come, sneaking back now, 
and, holding up the old and long since 
exploded fallacy, “Once a Mason always 
a Mason,” try to claim all the rights and 
privileges of the worker, of the toiler and 
of those who remained steadfast and true 
through all the struggles, privations and 
sacrifices. 

Watch them, and permit none to re- 
enter our portals, and be equal unto you. 
We may make an occasional mistake in 
allowing a stranger — a profane — to come 
among us, but make no mistake in allow- 
ing the deserter, the unaffiliate, to come 
sneaking back now, since there has been 
so much accomplished for the good of the 
Craft — work in which he took no part and 
should not be entitled to any of its results. 

Fortunately, the strict rules of our trus- 
tees and the watchful care of these faithful 
servants of the Craft have drawn a cordon 
of safety and protection around those wha 
have borne the heat and burden of the day, 
and who are first entitled to all the privi- 
leges of the Home, and who must be first,, 
and who are first considered by the trustee^. 
The deserter in no country and in no gov- 
ernment receives any reward. He may be 
forgiven and taken back into the fold, but 
not at the expense or sacrifice of the true 
and faithful soldier who successfully stood 
his ground and fought his battles till vic- 
tory crowed his honest efforts. 

Always, however, be discriminating and 
charitable toward the honest brother, who 
for good and sufficient reasons, aye, “for 
ample reasons,” remained away, and is 
now anxious to take hold again and help 
the Craft as of old, and is desirous to be 
again among us, among his brethren of the 
Craft, and do his share of good work with- 
in his lodge. There are some of these, 
too, only few, and they should receive 
due consideration and charitable brotherly 
treatment. — N. Y. Dispatch. 

For cold-bloooded uncharitableness the 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


231 


foregoing “takes the cake.” Our brother 
must have the dyspepsia. As if ashamed 
of his screed, in the closing paragraph, he 
relents a little and does not include all the 
non-affiliates under the ban of his con- 
tempt, which excuses about ninety-nine 
per cent of that class. None should take 
up a burden they cannot bear. The Craft 
of New York did so when they built their 
magnificent Temple, and thousands of breth- 
ren were overburdened in consequence 
and became non-affiliates. Through the 
splendid work of Grand Master Law- 
rence and the heroic effort of the Craft, 
the immense debt and interest thereon 
was paid. The history of that work is 
patent to the Masonic Fraternity. But 
was it all — every dollar — paid by the 
Craft, or did the public lend its aid ? And 
if the Craft paid the whole of it, is it a 
cause for virtual expulsion of those who 
aided in the past and as long as they were 
able in carrying that immense debt? And 
what are the rights and privileges of a 
non-affiliated brother if he succeeds in 
passing the gauntlet of the secret ballot ? 
Why is our brother so suspicious? Are 
any of them in want of assistance, or the 
privileges of the Home? If so, it is for 
such as these that the great charities of 
Masonry are for. It is for those who have 
dropped by the wayside, whether it is 
within six days, or six months, or six years. 
Some brethren, with stouter hearts, can 
carry a burden six years, and even more, 
before laying it down. Should such be 
excluded from our care, love and protec- 
tion, and only those who have recently, 
and perhaps mercenarily, called for the 
rights and benefits be permitted to enjoy 
the privileges of the Home ? The sweep- 
ing denunciations of non-affiliates should 
be stopped. 

o 

Physical Qualifications. 


The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge 
of Ohio says the landmark of physical 
qualifications “ought to cease” being “of 
no possible or conceiveable use,” and “it 
is positively injurious to the Fraternity.” 
He further says: “To be compelled to tell 
a worthy man, as good as any in the 
Lodge, that according to our peculiar cus- 
toms, for which we give no rational ex- 
cuse, we cannot admit him, is humiliating 
to every Master. ” Again hear him: “Which 
part of a man hears an orphan’s cry or a 
widow s appeal, or is touched by the dis- 


tress of the poor? If it be his stiff knee 
or missing finger, then legislate for legs and 
hands. If it be his head and his heart and 
not his shape, let us care for them, and 
look to acts, words and moral uprightness, 
and mental perfection, instead of toes, fin- 
gers and flexible joints.” 

The Grand Master of South Carolina is 
of the opinion that “our (his) Grand Lodge 
has gone so far on this question of physi- 
cal qualification that I think it is time we 
should amend our constitution. I have had 
to rule out men with one eye, the loss of 
the first joint of the little finger of the left 
hand, a little toe of the left foot, the first 
joint of two or three toes of the left foot. 
We learn to subdue the passions, act upon 
the square, keep a tongue of good report, 
maintain secrecy and practice charity. 
Can we not do all these things with one 
eye ? What have the fingers and toes of 
the left foot to do with subduing our pas- 
sions, acting upon the square, keeping a 
tongue of good report and practicing 
charity ?” 

Past Grand Master Cornelius Hedges of 
Montana says: “Such a thing as a physi- 
cal disqualification, according to Brother 
Hughan, is unknown in England, and can- 
didates are received only on their moral 
and mental qualifications.” He then asks 
the question, “Isn’t it more likely that 
physical perfection is not a landmark than 
that English Masons knowingly violate it ?” 
o 

Grand Chapter R. A. M. of Cali- 
fornia. 

The Grand Chapter R. A. M. of Cali- 
fornia held its 42c! annual convocation at 
Masonic Temple, San Francisco, on April 
20th and 2 1 st, M. E. Comp. Thomas Flint, 
Sr., G. H. P., presiding. Nearly 400 dele- 
gates were in attendance. From the reports 
of the various officers the order appears to 
be highly prosperous. Its membership is 
5,343, a gain of 165 during the year. The 
funds of the Grand Chapter amount to 
about $33,000, of which $34,000 is in- 
vested and $4,000 in the treasury. The 
following officers were installed for the 
ensuing year: 

Wm, Frank Pierce ot Oakland, G. H. P.; Eli Tucker 
Blackmer, San Diego, D. G. H. P.; Florin L. Jones. Pasa- 
dena, G. K.; Edward R. Hedges, Stockton, G. S.; Frank- 
lin H. Day, San Francisco, G. Treasurer; Thomas H. 
Caswell, San Francisco, G. Secretary; Chas. E. Stone, 
Marysville, G. Chap.; Thos. H. Caswell, San Francisco, 
G'. Lecturer; Samuel H. Wagner. San Jose, G. C. H.; 
Lewis C. Wittemeyer, Martinez, G R. A. C.: Samuel D. 
Mayer, San Francisco, G. Organist; James 'Oglesby, San 
Francisco, G. Guard. 


332 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


Grand Council of R. and S. M. of 
California. 

The Grand Council of R. & S. M. of 
California held its 37th annual assembly 
at San Francisco, April 19th, M. I. 
Comp. William H. Davis, Grand Master, 
presiding. The address of the Grand Mas- 
ter and the reports of the Grand Treasurer, 
Grand Recorder and Finance Committee 
showed an increase of membership and a 
good degree of prosperity and healthy im- 
provement in the finances. The following 
officers for the ensuing year were installed: 

Henry ^scroft, San Francisco, Grand Master: Robert 
Ash, San Francisco, D. G. M.; August Wackerbarth, Los 
Angeles, G. P. C. W.: Franklin H. Day, San Francisco, G. 
Treasurer; Thomas H. Caswell, San Francisco, G. Recor- 
der; Thomas Kyle, San Francisco, G. Chaplain; Alex. J. 
Gardiner, Sacramento, G. C. of G.; Jacob H. Neff, Auburn, 
G. C. of C.; George Penlington, San Francisco, G. Lec- 
turer; Wm. B. Scarborough, Los Angeles, G. Steward; 
Samuel D. Mayer, San Francisco, G. Organist; James 
Oglesby, San Francisco, G. Sentinel. 

O 

Grand Commandery K. T. of Cali- 
fornia. 


The Grand Commandery held its 39th an- 
nual conclave at San Francisco April 22d 
and 23d, R. E. Sir Trowbridge H. Ward, 
Grand Commander, presiding. Thirty- 
six Commanderies were represented. The 
annual, reports show the jurisdiction 
to be in a highly prosperous condition, 
with 3,069 members, 2,700 of whom have 
full uniform; total assets, $97,394.29; lia- 
bilities, $13,156.40; net assets, $84,- 
237.89, outstanding, $12,634.90. The 
usual routine business was transacted. 
The Grand Commandery accepted the 
tender of an escort from California Com- 
mandery, No. 1 to the Triennial Conclave 
to be held at Pittsburg, Pa., in 1898. 
The following officers were installed for 
the ensuing year: 

George D. Metcalf of Oakland, Grand Commander; 
Robert M, Powers, San Diego, D. G. C.; John F. Merrill, 
San Francisco, G. Gen’o.; Frederick M. Miller, Fresno, 
G. C^G.; Charles E. Stone, Marysville. G. Prelate; George 
B. McKee, San Francisco, G. S. W.; William Frank Pierce, 
Oakland, G. J, W.; Edward Coleman, San Francisco, G. 
Treasurer; Thomas H. Caswell, San Francisco, G. Recor- 
der; Wm. D. Knights, Sacramento, G. St. B.; George Sinsa- 
baugh, Los Angeles, G. Sw. B.; John B. de Jarnett, Colusa, 
G. Warder; Samuel D. Mayer, San Francisco, G. Organist; 
James Oglesby, San Francisco, G. Sentinel. 

o — : 

Grand Bodies of Maine. 


The Grand Lodge of Maine held its 
annual communication at Portland, com- 
mencing May 4th, A. B. Farnham, Grand 
Master, presiding. Ten P. G. M. were 
present. The report on returns showed : 
Number of lodges, 192; initiates, 746; 
affiliated, 118; reinstated, 59; reunited, 


160; died, 339. Number of members, 
22,085, an increase of 132. The follow- 
ing officers were elected : 

Joseph A. Locke of Portland, G. M.; Winfield S. Choate, 
Augusta, D. G. M.; Alfred S. Kimball, Norway, G. S. W.; 
Enoch O. Greenleaf, Farmington, G. J. W.; Marquis F. 
King, Portland, G. Treas.; Stephen Berry, Portland, G. 

Sec’y- 

The Grand Chapter R. A. M. of Maine 
held its annual convocation at Portland, 
commencing May 4th, Henry S. Webster, 
G. H. P., presiding. Forty-eight Chap- 
ters were represented; twelve P. G. H. P. 
were present. Returns showed 56 Chap- 
ters, 6,024 members; a gain of 127 during 
the year; 342 candidates and 98 deaths. 
The following officers were elected: 

Albro E. Chase, Portland, G. H. P.; Winfield S. Hinck- 
ley, Lisbon, D. G. H. P.; Fred’k W. Pla.isted, Augusta, 
G. K.; Howard D. Smith, Norway, G. S.; Leander W. 
Forbes, Portland, G. Treas.; Stephen Berry, Portland, 
G. Sec’y. 

The Grand Council R. & S. M. of 
Maine held its annual assembly at Port- 
land, May 5th, Hugh R. Chaplin, Grand 
Master, presiding. The returns show 16 
Councils, 2,341 members, 18 r candidates 
and 23 deaths. The following officers 
were elected: 

Oliver A, Cobb, Westbrook, Grand Master; Frank E. 
Sleeper, Sabattus, D. G. M.; James E. Blanchard, Augus- 
ta, G. P. C. of W.; Leander W. Forbes, Portland, G. 
Treas.; Stephen Berry, Portland, G. Recorder. 

The Grand Commandery K. T. of 
Maine held its annual conclave at Port- 
land, May 6th, Albro E. Chase, Grand 
Commander, presiding. Eighteen Com- 
manderies were represented and twelve P. 
G. C. were present. Returns show 19 Com- 
manderies, 3,153 members, 174 Knighted 
and 51 deaths. The following officers were 
elected: 

Fritz H. Twitchell, Bath, G. C.; Frank E. Sleeper, Sa- 
battus, D. G. C.; Herbert Harris, East Machias, G Geno.; 
Albert M. Spear, Gardiner, G. C. G.; E. H. Vose, Calais, 
G. Prelate; C. J. Farrington, Portland, G. S. W.; G. P. 
Lombard, Belfast, G. J. W.; L. W. Forbes, Portland, G. 
Treas.; Stephen Berry, Portland, G. SecV; H. A. Duncan, 
Bath, G. St. B.; J. F. Hall, Rockland, G. Sw. B.; F. W- 
Plaisted, Augusta, G. Warder; Warren O. Carney, Port- 
land, G. C. Guard. 

The Maine Council of Deliberation of 
the Scottish Rite has re-elected Brother 
Marquis F. King of Portland as Com- 
mander- in- Chief. 

o 

Correspondence of The Trestle Board. 

The Misuse of the White Ball. 


In the April number of The Trestle 
Board is an article on the “Use and 
Abuse of the Secret Ballot,” by Brother 
James B. Merritt. I have read the article 
carefully, and while satisfied that in writ- 
ing the address our brother was actuated 
solely by Masonic motives, yet I am as 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


233 


fully satisfied that he has taken a wrong 
stand; that the trend of his argument is 
not in accordance with the teachings of 
Masonry, and if followed will tend to 
cause a laxity in the use of the ballot 
detrimental to the Fraternity. It is true 
that our brother admonishes us that if we 
know an applicant is unworthy from any 
cause we should cast a blackball, and also 
adds the further truth that though a good 
man may be rejected, he can apply again ; 
while if one who is unworthy is admitted, 
it is almost impossible to rid the Lodge 
and Masonry of him. But the tenor of 
his address is to the effect that it is the 
blackball that is injuring Masonry, and 
not the white : that we are rejecting too 
many good men, and not that we are ad- 
mitting too many applicants useless as 
material and dangerous to the welfare of 
the Craft. 

In the article it is stated, “the profane 
has the same right to become a Mason as 
you have to forbid him.” As strongly as 
the affirmative of the above proposition is 
stated, I desire to assert the negative. No 
profane, though he be endowed with all 
the possible virtues that can be attributed 
to the most perfect man, has any claim 
upon Masonry. He has no rights that he 
can present and say, “By reason of these 
I claim an entrance into your Fraternity.” 
The making a man a Mason is not the 
acknowledgment of a right inherent in 
him to be made a Mason, but is in the 
nature of a favor granted by those who are, 
and should be, as free to refuse the same 
as to confer it ; otherwise Masonry is not 
the independent fraternity that we claim 
it is, but is held and restrained by powers 
outside of itself. Furthermore, this abso- 
lute right of a Mason to refuse or accept 
is inherent in every individual Mason to 
use as he may deem proper. Nothing can 
be found in the annals of Masonry, in its 
landmarks, statutes or Tegulations, or its 
history, written or legendary, that will 
warrant the assumption that a profane has 
any right to admission into its mysteries. 
He has simply a right to ask that a certain 
favor be granted him, and the individual 
Mason answers such request as best satis- 
fies himself; and, in so doing, whether his 
answer be in the affirmative or negative, 
he is not infringing upon any right of the 
applicant, but is only exercising a right 
Masonically born in him. 

While upholding strongly this indi- 
vidual Masonic right, and believing that 


it should not be in the slightest degree 
abridged, I do not advocate its use for 
malicious purposes, nor do I believe that 
to any extent it is so used. The statement 
that “two thirds of the rejections are caused 
by unworthy motives,” I cannot accept as 
“given by those well qualified to judge,” 
but, on the contrary, as given by persons 
who have hastily, and without due inquiry 
into the facts, given judgment. Were it 
true that only one third of the blackballs 
cast were cast from worthy motives, then 
it were well that a fraternity containing 
so little of true manhood, so false to its 
own teachings, should be abolished, and 
the name of Mason be a synonym of dis- 
grace instead of integrity and worth. 

It is undoubtedly true that at the pres- 
ent time one of the uses of the blackball 
is to protect the brother in the perform- 
ance of his duty. But how did that ne- 
cessity arise, and why does the necessity 
continue ? The reason given is, that un- 
worthy men got into Masonry and revealed 
the transactions of the Lodge. But these 
men who have proven themselves as “un- 
worthy of the name of Mason” got into 
Masonry, and are getting into Masonry, 
not by reason of the blackball being cast 
too often, but because we do not use it 
often enough. The danger to Masonry, 
at the present time, is not so much in the 
abuse of the blackball as in the misuse of 
the white, and it is far better for the Craft 
that ten good men should be rejected from 
mistaken motives than that one man, un- 
worthy to be made a Mason, should be 
admitted. 

It is true that good material is some- 
times rejected from umvorthy motives, but 
the number so rejected is by no means as 
great as some would wish us to believe. 
The average Mason is fair-minded, and 
the very fact that he has the power to pre- 
vent the admission of the applicant into 
Masonry makes him careful in the use of 
his prerogative. We are too apt to im- 
pute unworthy motives to our brother in 
his exercise of this prerogative, and fail to 
extend to him the same trust in his hon- 
esty of purpose that we claim for ourselves. 
As Masons, we are constructing a Spiritual 
Temple as truly as our ancient brethren 
were constructing a temporal building, 
and the living stones that enter into its 
construction should be without blemish 
and the timbers sound. There will be no 
lack of material brought up for inspection, 
and though much that is sound and suit- 


234 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


able may be rejected, the Temple will not 
suffer nor the workmen be forced to re- 
main inactive because of rejected key- 
stones thrown over in the rubbish. 

Many of the rules that govern in Com- 
mon Law will not apply to Masonry. A 
candidate should not be considered worthy 
until he is proved unworthy; but, on the 
contrary, his worthiness must be proved 
before he is acceptable. Negative quali- 
ties should never elect. It is not enough 
to warrant the casting of the Whitehall, 
that you know nothing against the appli- 
cant, but you should be reasonably certain 
that his admission will add strength to the 
Fraternity, for a building is not strength- 
ened by the number of its timbers, but 
only by those that bear their due propor- 
tion of the strain. It is therelore infinite- 
ly more important that you should be care- 
ful in the casting of the Whitehall than the 
black for reasons already stated. Your 
paramount duty, as a Mason, is to protect 
the Craft from the intrusion of improper 
persons. While you should not be unjust 
to any one, if any doubt arises in your 
mind as to the advisability of admitting 
the candidate, the benefit of that doubt 
should be given to the Craft to which you 
are bound by the most sacred ties. 

Too little stress is placed upon the effect 
of the Whitehall. As Masons we are too 
apt to be bound by the walls of our lodge 
room; to consider the small sphere of our 
own activity a large portion of Masonry; 
and, in so doing, we fail to realize the far- 
reaching effect of a clear ballot. Masonry 
is not in any sense a society, in the modern 
application of the word, but a family, a 
brotherhood in the full meaning of the 
term. It existed before lodge organization 
was known, and in those days a man was 
made a Mason, not a member of a lodge, 
but admitted a brother into this grand 
Masonic family. The world was his lodge 
room, and in every country he met his 
brother. As Masonry increased in num- 
bers the desire for mutual counsel arose, 
and lodge organization followed as a nat- 
ural result. But what was true then is 
true now. By a clear ballot you make 
the candidate a member of your local 
lodge, and bind the brothers of your own 
lodge to him by the strongest ties. That 
of itself is of enough importance to call 
for serious reflection before assenting to 
his admission; but were that all, none but 
your own members could call in question 
the suitability of the material accepted. 


Far more important has been your ac- 
tion; you have made a Mason, and you 
have admitted him into a brotherhood of 
which your lodge is but a very small por- 
tion — a brotherhood co-extensive with civ- 
ilization. You have invested him with 
rights, the importance of which none but 
Masons can appreciate. You have placed 
upon the brethren of the Craft at large, 
wherever Masonry exists, obligations 
towards this newly made Mason “ which 
can never be repudiated or laid aside.” 
Is it not true then that when you stand be- 
fore the altar the interests of Masonry 
ahould be considered, not those of the 
candidate ; and your hesitancy should 
arise, not on the question as to whether 
you should cast the blackball, but whether 
you are justified in casting the white. 

W. T. Boardman, 

P. G. M. of Montana. 

o 

Elections in Commanderies of Cali- 
fornia. 


Golden Gate Commandery, No. 16, at 
San Francisco, held its 16th annual meet- 
ing on May 3d. The reports show a mem- 
bership of 295, a net gain of 30 in the 
year. Thirteen members died during the 
year. The following officers were elected: 

Jonathan M. Peel, Commander; Chas. L. Patton Geno.; 
J. C. Campbell, C. G.; Robert Ash, Prelate; H. J. Saddler, 
Treas.; Wm. T. Fonda, Rec.; John Gilson, Sr. W.; S. L. 
Lent, Jr. W.; Thos. Kirkpatrick, St. B.; Christian Helwig, 
Sw, B.; Harvey D. Loveland, Warder; Sam’l J. Hendy, 
Chas. V. Manna, Reuben B. Hale, Guards; Wm. H. Smith, 
Sentinel. 

Nevada Commandery, No. 6 — Frank Aver, Commander; 
Chas. H. Eddy, Geno.; W. J. Rogers, C. G.; David E. 
Morgan, Prelate; D. E. Matteson, S. W.; John Werry, J. 
W.; John T. Morgan, Treas.; I.J. Rolfe, Recorder; Henry 
Fuller, St. B.; F. J. Thomas, Sw. B ; Thos. Ingram, War- 
der; A. Tam. Sentinel; Fred Tellam, Wm. Floyd, Geo. C. 
Shaw, Guards. 

Los Angeles Commandery, No. 9 — George Sinsabaugh, 
Commander; William Downie, Geno.; C. W. Pendleton, C. 
G.; Arthur Brookman, Prelate; James A. Foshay, S. W.; 
C. G. Worden, J. W.; W. C. Durgin, Treasurer; W. B. 
Scarborough, Recorder. 

Marysville Commandery, No. 7— M. E. Sanborn, Com- 
mander; Sam. Ewell, Geno.; Joseph Peters, C. G.; W. T. 
Henn, Prelate; W. F. Peacock, S. W.; B. R. Boorman, J. 
W.; D. E. Knight, Treas.; J. F. Eastman, Recorder. 

Sacramento Commandery, No. 2— T. W. Heintzelman, 

E. C.; E. W. Hale, Geno.; T. Scott, C. G.; J. W. Rock, 
Prelate; T. B. Reid, S. W.; L. C. Shindler, J. W.; A. A. 
Van Voorhies, Treasurer; A A. Redington, Recorder; L. 

F. Breuner, St. B.; W. A. Gett, Sw. B.; W. W. Douglas, 
Warder; C. E. Scheunert, R. A. Alexander, J. E. Thomp- 
son, Guards; M. R. Beard, Organist; R. C. Irvine, Musical 
Director; W. H. Davis, Sentinel. 

Santa Ana Commandery, No. 36— W. M. Garnet, C.; 
Dr. Wood, Geno.; C. D. Ball, C. G.; R. S. A. Wade, Pre- 
late: J. H. Hall, S. W.; J. de Yoe, J. W.; I. D. Mills, Treas.; 
J. P. Greeley, Recorder. 

Pasadena Commandery, No. 31 — E. E. Gaylord, C.; Chas. 
J. Willett, Geno.; William Sibley. C. G.; L. S Porter, Pre- 
late; O. O. Freeman, S. W.; C. Hartwell, /. W.; S. Wash- 
burn, Treas.; R. Williams, Recorder. 

San Luis Obispo Commandery, No. 27 — Benjamin Brooks, 
C.; John Whicher, Geno.; Walter Bray, C. G.; Dr. J. H. 
Seaton, Prelate; Jos. Lind, S. W.; F. A. Dorn, J. W.; P. B. 
Frelumo, Treas.; R. P. Sutliffe, Recorder. 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


2 35 


San Die^o Comtnandery, No. 25— John B. Wooten, C.; 
Thomas M. Shaw, Geno.: Albert F. Dill, C. G.; Charles C. 
Kellam, Prelate; Stephen H. Olmsted, S. W.: W-UiamJ. 
Mossholder, J. \\\; William A. Begole, Treas.; John P. 
Burt, Recorder. 

O 

Editorial Chips. 


The corner-stone of the new Masonic 
Temple of Mission Lodge, No. 169, on 
Mission street, between Twenty- second and 
Twenty-third streets, San Francisco, was 
laid on April 24th by the Grand Lodge of 
California, M. VV. William T. Lucas, 
Grand Master, presiding. The procession 
was escorted by California and Golden 
Gate Commanderies from the present 
Lodge room to the location. The oration 
was delivered by Brother William H. 
Cobb, the Senior Warden of Mission 
Lodge. The copper receptacle placed in 
the corner stone contained the following 
articles: Constitution and regulations of 
the Grand Lodge, F. and A. M. of Cali- 
fornia; proceedings of the Most Worship- 
ful Grand Lodge, F. and A. M. of Cali- 
fornia, October, A. L., 5,896; by-laws, 
list of members and history of Mission 
Lodge, No. 169, F. and A. M.; original 
by-laws of Mission Lodge, No. 169, F. 
and A. M., A. L., 5,863; invitation, lay- 
ing of corner-stone; list of officers of Mis- 
sion Lodge, No. 169, F. and A. M., A. L., 
5,897; list of directors of Mission Lodge 
Masonic Hall Association, A. D., 1897; 
list of officers and members of Mission 
Chapter, U. D., O. E. S., A. D., 1897; cur- 
rent coins of the United States, A. D., 
1897; business card of Hermann & Swain, 
architects of building; copies of daily pa- 
pers; front elevation of building; copies of 
Trestle Board, April, 1887, and March, 
1897. 


Our correspondent, Brother Boardman 
of Montana, denies that the profane have 
any rights in Masonry. We have always 
understood that Masonry was a universal 
institution, that in every country and ev- 
ery clime Masons were to be found, and 
that there was no exclusion of race, sect 
or color. In fact, every man who applies 
is asked by what right he applies, and he 
invariably answers that he is a man and of 
good reputation and well recommended. 
Every lodge admits the validity of such a 
man’s claims to recognition and should 
admit him, but occasionally such men 
have a blackball intervene between his de- 
sires and his rights. The object of Masonry 
is one universally desired and prayed for 


by all good men, and all good men, by 
virtue of their being such, are entitled to 
the privilege of assisting in the great and 
good work of brotherly love, relief and 
truth. Hence, none such should be ex- 
cluded through the caprice of the black- 
ball. As Masonry is a progressive science, 
why should it not improve in the methods 
of adding to its membership. If bad men 
are too often seeking membership, why 
not abolish the reception of petitions as a 
practice, and substitute the selection of 
material for the membership, and then 
bad men cannot possibly get in. Beside 
this, Masonic honors would be more high- 
ly esteemed by good men because they 
were unsought and tendered without so- 
licitation. We believe every good man 
has an inherent right to become a Mason, 
and the obstructive methods of the Craft 
is alone the reason why all good men are 
not members, and its membership is not 
counted by millions instead of thousands. 
We are not so exclusive that we cannot 
largely increase our membership with 
plenty of good men, neither do we think 
we are so very much better men than mil- 
lions of the profane. 

The funeral services of the late Brother 
Clay Webster Taylor, Past Grand Master, 
were held in Masonic Temple, San Fran- 
cisco, May 6th, and were conducted by 
the Grand Lodge of California, Brother 
William T. Lucas, Grand Master, presid- 
ing. An eloquent eulogy was pronounced 
by Brother Henry E. Highton. The in- 
terment took place at Cypress Lawn Ceme- 
tery. 

The Methodist Book Concern, supported 
by one of the great Christian sects which 
protests against the iniquities and creed of 
the semi pagan Romish “church,” has 
been charged with employing a large 
number of its natural enemies. There 
would seem to be some reason in an es- 
tablishment supported partially by Ro- 
manists giving employment to some of its 
patrons, but the Methodist Book Concern 
is blacklisted by that “church,” and is 
sustained wholly by Methodist people. 
This is the inconsistency of people. They 
will not encourage their own, or even 
patronize their best friend^ sometimes. 
The Grand Lodge and Grand Chapter of 
California and the Grand Lodge of Ari- 
zona each have, for years, had their print- 
ing done by a Romanist to the exclusion 


236 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


of more than half a dozen printers who 
were Masons in good standing in their own 
Bodies. Masons in business will refuse 
to advertise in The Trestle Board and 
other Masonic periodicals, and will bestow 
their patronage on Romanist journals, 
with even smaller circulation, and no hope 
for any return therefrom, for Papists en- 
courage and patronize their own always. 
Their priests would not help them through 
purgatory if they disregarded their instruc- 
tions, and they dare not disobey. Yet 
most Masons do not think of this, and give 
the cold shoulder to their own brethren. 

There comes to us a complaint that a 
Mason who is foreman of a large mine in 
Bisbee, Arizona, employing four hundred 
men, who passes by his brethren in giving 
employment to men, for there are thou- 
sands of Masons in mining as in other oc- 
cupations. This is all wrong and as much 
a violation of obligations as the disregard 
of any other tie. , 


The Grand Lodge of Washington, with 
a common inconsistency, declares that it 
considers “that each Mason is bound to 
contribute to the relief of distressed worthy 
brothers so far as his necessities require 
and the donor’s ability permits” ; “that the 
gift must be that of pure charity, for the 
love of the brethren and for mankind, and 
without hope of fee or reward.'’ Why 
does its constituents suspend brethren for 
the non-payment of an arbitrary assess- 
ment of an equal amount on the poor 
brother as well as the rich unless a remis- 
sion is asked by the unfortunate or im- 
pecunious brother, while it is a Masonic 
principle and strongly enjoined that an in- 
digent brother should not know from 
whence the relief comes. The principles 
of Masonry are often reiterated, and none 
can plead ignorance thereof. Why should 
Masons forget them ? 

“The Tyler has no faith in the oft- 
claimed connection of Freemasonry with 
the Eleusinian, the Orphic and other in- 
numerable mysteries practiced by the 
brethren in every age. To confound 
Masonry with these idolatrous rites is to 
stigmatize it with infidelity, if not atheism, 
and charge it with renouncing every 
Scriptural doyctrine contained in revealed 
truth.” Our brother has forgotten about 
the legend of our first Grand Master, King 
Solomon, who was a Jew, and by the 
standard of the Tyler would be considered 


unfit to be a Mason. Masonry is a pro- 
gressive science, and The Trestle Board 
does not perceive why it could not have 
progressed from the Eleusinian and Orphic 
fraternities as well as that Christianity has 
progressed from Judaism and paganism. 
Infidelity, in a liberal sense, is not neces- 
sarily atheism or heresy. 

An esteemed brother, writing us from 
another city, commenting on Brother James 
B. Merritt’s article on “The Abuse of the 
Blackball,” in our April number, says: 
“Masons want to be impressed on the use 
and abuse of it. God knows the abuse is 
very glaring in this city. I often feel 
heartsore when the result is announced 
cloudy to men whom mostly every mem- 
ber knows is good.” We assure our 
brother that, under the peculiar proneness 
of human nature, there is no certain rem- 
edy for the evil except to abolish the se- 
cret ballot and substitute the more frank 
and manly method of open deliberation 
and consideration of all propositions for 
initiation and membership. In an experi- 
ence of nearly two score years in Masonry, 
we never knew an instance where we were 
not thus willing to express our judgment 
openly. The only way to disarm a tiger 
is to extract its teeth and claws. 

Brother Benjamin Dean, P. G. M , of 
the Grand Encampment of Knights Tem- 
plar of the United States, died at South 
Boston, Mass., on April 9th, aged nearly 
73 years. He was born in Clitheroe, Lan- 
cashire, England, April 24, 1824, and 
came to this country when a boy. He 
was made a Mason in St. John’s Lodge, 
Boston, in 1854, and filled many positions 
in grand and constituent bodies. He was 
Grand Master of the Grand Encampment 
from 1880 to 1883, and presided at the 
Conclave in San Francisco. He was of a 
genial nature, welcoming friends with a 
smile, and sympathetic. 

Our esteemed Brother Price, editor of 
the Memphis Appeal , whom we have often 
quoted, and approvingly, seems hardly 
yet reconciled to accept as a finality the 
revered President Lincoln’s Emancipation 
Proclamation, or the amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States neces- 
sarily made to conform thereto. We do 
not know the landmark of Masonry which 
excludes a man of any race or color. If 
there is no such landmark, then our 


THE TRESTLE BOARD 


237 


brother would violate a landmark if he 
should exclude a worthy colored brother 
from his Lodge except for “irregularity” 
of affiliation. Would he wait to ascertain 
his regularity in case of distress or immi- 
nent peril before responding to his appeal 
as a Mason ? We wot not. He would be 
quite as culpable in violating his obliga- 
tion, and some unknown ancient land- 
mark — as the old woman who kissed 
her cow was in bad taste. We do not 
profess to much gentility, as our Southern 
brother would make us believe he pos- 
sesses, and now we know we have not, if 
this is his test. One may kiss a dog or 
cat without losing caste, but to sit on one 
side of a Lodge-room in which might hap- 
pen to be a man with curly hair and very 
dark skin is evidence of less gentility and 
good breeding, and to elect a negro as 
Master is the unpaidonable sin. 

The Grand Master of Louisiana is asked 
the question: “Is a bastard eligible for 
initiation?” He answers: “He is not. In 
the 4th of the ancient Charges which this 
Grand Lodge looks upon as ‘a declaration 
of Landmarks,’ 77 — 1856, still in force 
and never can be changed, 29 — 1881; it is 
said that the candidate ‘should be descend- 
ed of honest parents,’ and this seems to 
have been founded upon an older regula- 
tion, in which the w’ords used are: ‘and no 
bastard.’ ” — Mackey’s Jurisprudence, page 
5 °* 

From the foregoing it would seem that 
a new form of application for candidates 
is necessary to cover this point, and as it 
is a delicate subject to interrogate one upon, 
it can be accomplished in a roundabout 
way, something like the following ques- 
tions being interpolated in the usual ap- 
plication: “Date of your parents marri- 
age?” “Date of your birth?” By a 
comparison of dates his legitimacy could 
be established. 

Several years ago this question was 
mooted in another Grand Lodge wdth 
nearly the same response. We mentioned 
in connection the fact that one of these un- 
fortunate individuals had filled the station 
of United States Senator, and also as Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, with great honor 
and credit to himself and the nation, and 
that his father had been a Grand Master of 
a sister Jurisdiction, and ever acknowl- 
edged and honored the son, as did also the 
son his father. The son was not a Mason, 
whether for the reason above or some 


other we do not know, but Masonry would 
not have been disgraced by his connection 
with it. There are Landmarks, and there 
are Landmarks, but there are none which 
if they are wrongly placed cannot and 
should not be pulled up and moved. Ma- 
sonic Landmarks have been set up, and 
have been pulled up again by the ablest 
Masons of our own and past generations, 
and this one deserves attention. Injustice, 
a child is not to blame for the sins of par- 
ents, though he may be punished and suf- 
fer for those sins. But, is it equity ? We 
believe a man should be estimated by his 
own character, and not that of his ances- 
tors. Otherwise our Saviour, whom we 
all revere, might not be accepted because 
of questionable circumstances attending 
his birth. Masonry is a progressive sci- 
ence, and should pull up all such foolish 
Landmarks, and substitute reason and com- 
mon sense therefor. 


When one’s logic is bad its author will 
make use of slurring charges. In reply 
to such we make no response. With the 
“constantly inconsistent manner of mix- 
ing things so common with The Trestle 
Board,” so says Bro. Dr. John D. Vin- 
cil, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge 
of Missouri, w’e stated that “a Lodge in 
Missour^ declines to reimburse a Lodge in 
New York city for the support of the 
widow of a deceased member of the Mis- 
souri Lodge, but is willing to pay her ex- 
penses to Missouri and provide for her the 
balance of her life in the Masonic Home, 
if she will return to Missouri,” and that 
“for some reason, perhaps friends or rela- 
tives she prefers to remain in New York.” 
We gathered the statement from some 
printed Masonic authority, which we do 
not now remember, and believed to be 
facts, and only stated them to enforce the 
necessity of adopting the Wisconsin Plan 
of reimbursement among Lodges, and to 
go further and establish a National Relief 
Board or Body. We did not mention any 
particular Lodges — only that it was in 
Missouri and New York jurisdictions. 
Bro. Vincil, we presume , is opposed to 
any National Symbolic Body. He gives 
us the facts and names of the Missouri 
Body, which we properly withheld as well 
as a more particular reference to the widow 
alluded to. No good effect would have 
resulted from a more particular mention, 
as we thought. Bro. Vincil corrects us 
in his sometimes caustic language, and 


238 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


says the Missouri Lodge, the Grand Lodge 
of Missouri and other Masonic Bodies 
have for years contributed to the support 
of this aged widow, and for years “have 
sedulously sought by every kind of appeal, 
by letters and by her friends, to induce 
her to come back to St. Louis, and enter 
our (their) Masonic Home,” and as an in- 
ducement offered to bring her in a palace 
car, pay all expenses, and give her every 
comfort she might desire in our (their) 
Home of Love. Every offer has been per- 
sistently refused. No Lodge in New York 
city has ever been asked to support a 
widow of a deceased member of the Mis- 
souri Lodge.” We refrain from mention- 
ing the number of the Lodge, or name of 
the widow, and stand corrected. But we 
ask Bro. Vincil whether it would not be 
better to have a National fund to draw from 
and allow the widow to remain in New 
York if she wishes to. 


The Stanford Masonic Association is be- 
ing formed at Stanford University, at 
which there are about twenty Masons 
among the students and faculty. At the 
preliminary meeting S. G. Bailey was 
elected Chairman and G. W. Garrett tem- 
porary Secretary. Others present were: 
J. F. West, George F. Maddock, F. J. 
Polley, S. P. Elias, J. H. Coverly, ? W. A. 
Pritchard, M. A. Tucker, W. A. tannon 
and W. J. Thompson. 


King Solomon’s Lodge, No. 260, have 
formed a Building Association with the fol- 
lowing officers and directors: Gustav Gun- 
sendorfer, President; G. R. Fletcher, Vice- 
President; William Filmer, Treasurer; 
Harry Baehr, Secretary, A. H. Kayton, J. 
H. Goldman, L. Schilling, A. M. Blade 
and G. W. Whitman. The Association 
proposes to build a Temple on Devisadero 
street, between Ellis and Eddy. The cor- 
ner-stone will be laid July 4th. The build- 
ing will cost $25,000. 


Equal arbitrary assessments are contrary 
to the ancient landmarks of Masonry, be- 
cause it is not in accordance with the ob- 
ligations assumed by every brother to con- 
tribute as far as they can without serious 
injury to himself and those dependent upon 
him. The principle of assessing an equal 
amount on the poor and the rich brother 
is contrary to all the principles of equity, 
and particularly Masonic justice. We 
may extend this remark further, by say- 


ing that equal assessments on poor and 
wealthy Lodges are contrary to the prin- 
ciples of equity, and the Grand Lodge can- 
not expect all to pay alike. Therefore the 
invitation to pay an equal arbitrary sum 
for every member of all Lodges should not 
be expected, and might be distressing 
some Lodge or its membership, and pre- 
vent them from caring for their own wid- 
ows and orphans at home. 

The annual meeting of the Past-Masters’ 
Association of San Francisco was held at 
Masonic Temple, on Feb. 27th. The fol- 
lowing officers were elected: John J. Sto- 
fen, President, Excelsior Lodge, No. 1 66; 
W. W. Moore, First Vice-President, Mis- 
sion Lodge, No. 169; Louis F. Dunand, 
Second Vice-President, Doric Lodge, No. 
2 [6; James Patterson, Treasurer, Golden 
Gate Lodge, No. 30; Ludwig Schumacher, 
Secretary, Hermann Lodge, No. 127; 
Charles H. Bryan, Marshal, Excelsior 
Lodge, No. 166; David M. Richards, 
Tyler, Mount Moriah Lodge, No. 44. 

Brother L. E. Heil, the editor of the 
Texas .Freemason , has recently made a 
six weeks’ trip in Mexico. He says: “In 
regard to the status of Masonic matters in 
our sister republic, after a careful investi- 
gation of the men composing the several 
Masonic organizations of that country and 
the methods employed by them, I can un- 
hesitatingly say that, in my opinion, the 
Grand Lodge of Texas made no mistake 
in establishing fraternal relations with the 
Grand Dieta Simbolica of Mexico.” 


The several Masonic Bodies were well 
entertained in San Francisco during the 
annual meetings with meetings of various 
local bodies, but the principal event was 
the exhibition drill held at the Pavilion at 
the close of the week for the benefit of the ' 
Masonic Home, at which California Com- 
mandery, No. 1, San Jose Commandery, 
No. 10, Oakland Commandery, No. 11, 
and Golden Gate Commandery, No. 16, 
participated. There was a concert pre- 
ceding the drill, and the occasion was 
closed with dancing. 

The Grand Lodge of Utah is not in 
favor of the “mutual or co-operative plan 
of charity’ ’ as proposed by the Grand 
Lodge of Wisconsin and agreed to by the 
Grand Lodges of California, Idaho, and 
perhaps others. As Masonic charity is an 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


239 


individual duty entirely, we wonder that set upon them by the colored members, 
the Grand Lodge of Utah is in favor of are worthy.” The last sentence is a little 
the “mutual or co-operative plan of char- ambiguous, but, we suppose, the writer 
ity” as is dispensed in the association of intended to express at least a conservative 
brethren in bodies called Lodges. view of the race. 


At a recent meeting of the Liquor League 
of Ohio one of the officers delivered an 
address in which he gave utterance to the 
following remarkable language: “The suc- 
cess of our business is dependent largely 
upon the creation of appetite for drink. 
Men who drink liquors, like others, will 
die, and, if there is no new appetite created, 
our counters will be empty, as will be our 
coffers. After men are grown and their 
habits are formed they rarely ever change 
in this regard. It will be needful, there- 
fore, that missionary work be done among 
the boys; and I make the suggestion, gen- 
tlemen, that nickels expended in treats to 
the boys now will return in dollars to your 
tills after the appetite has been formed ! 
Above all things create appetite !” 

Masonry is religion divested of sec- 
tarianism. Sectarianism may have some 
of the attributes of religion, but can never 
become universal. Masonry claims to be 
adapted to every man’s needs, and there- 
fore can become universal, for all sects 
agree to its principles and teachings. It 
only remains for Masonry to open its doors 
to admit every good and worthy man, and, 
as in every good cause, seek them out and 
invite them to aid and assist in the great 
work of its purpose, and it will become 
universal. 


No sensible man should, or ever does, 
get angry because a publisher duns him 
for his money. A dun is not an impeach- 
ment of a subscriber’s integrity, but is 
simply the result of a publisher’s necessi- 
ties. 


The Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge 
of New Jersey, in a personal letter to the 
editor of the Kansas Freeman , says: “We 
have a Lodge in New Jersey made up 
largely in its membership of colored breth- 
ren. The Lodge is located at Newark; its 
number is 116 and its name Alpha. The 
warrant was originally granted to white 
brethren, but, in course of time, petitions 
were received from those of the opposite 
color, and, being found worthy, were 
elected to the honors of Masonry. Very 
few, however, according to the estimate 


An instance, perhaps of frequent oc- 
currence, illustrating the practical work of 
Masonry, in comparison with the scores of 
other fraternal organizations, came to our 
notice recently. A brother who was once 
wealthy, and what is termed a “jiner,” 
living in a Western State, and who had 
filled many positions of honor in many, if 
not all, of the various bodies of which he 
was a member, became impecunious in his 
old age. As a consequence he became de- 
linquent in his dues. He had lost his 
standing in all the bodies, and is now the 
beneficiary alone of the Masonic fraternity. 
Brethren who are anxions to become a 
“jiner” should take notice of such facts, 
afid govern themselves accordingly. 

The Masonic Advocate is of the opinion 
that there is an opening for a “good Ma- 
sonic journal” in California. We think 
the same. That’s the reason Brother 
Lloyd started the Freemason , and why we 
prefer California to publish The Trestle 
Board in. We are of the opinion that 
there is a better chance in Indiana for a 
“good Masonic journal,” one that will 
not advocate on the side of legal respon- 
sibility against moral obligation when 
Grand Lodge is asked to make restitution 
where a widow and orphans are defrauded 
of their inheritance. If we were to seek 
another location, we should select Indiana 
as good ground to cultivate. 

Oak Leaf Chapter, O. E. S. of Oakland, 
Cal., celebrated its 25th anniversary April 
23d, at Masonic Temple, with abanquet and 
toasts, about 400 being present. Only 6 
of the 25 original charter members ar.e 
living and were present, and were each 
presented with souvenir silver spoons. 

Easter services were very generally at- 
tended in California by the Commanderies 
of Knights Templar. California Com- 
mandery attended at Trinity church and 
Golden Gate Commandery at the First 
Congregational church with full ranks. 

Has somebody been rejected in yo ~ 
Lodge ? Then, please remember that it is 
a fraternity secret. 


240 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


Any man, who, being able, will dimit 
from his Lodge to avoid paying his pro- 
portion of the just debts of the Fraternity, 
may have been initiated, passed and raised, 
but he was never made a Mason. 

— Masonic Advocate . 

What of a Grand Lodge, which, being 
able, will revoke the charter of a Lodge, 
and by such action becoming “morally 
though not legally” particeps criminis in 
avoiding the payment of a just debt to 
the widow and orphans of a brother for 
the life insurance money loaned the Lodge 
to build a Masonic Temple? We refer to 
the Paige case at Lafayette, Indiana, be- 
fore fully stated on our pages. 


The Scottish Rite Bodies of Oakland, 
Cal., installed their officers in their new 
Temple, May 4th, Brother Charles F. 
Crocker, Grand Master, performing that 
ceremony, as follows: 

Oakland Lodge of Perfection, No. 12 — D. E. Fortin, 
Master; John Williams, S. W.; A. L. Smith, J. W.; G. B. 
Daniels, Treasurer; R. W. Meek, M. of C ; Robert Greig, 
S. E.; A. A. Wrede, J. E.; George S. Pierce, C. G. 

Gethsemane Chapter. No. 5— John Williams, M.; D E. 
Fortin, S. W.: J. B. Merritt, Orator; G. B. Daniels, Treas- 
urer; E. H. Morgan, M. of C.; A. H. Merritt, S. E.; G. S. 
Pierce, J. E.; E. B. Smith, C. G. 

De Molay Council, No. 2 — D. E. Fortin, Commander; 
John Williams, 1st Lieutenant; E. H. Morgan, 2nd Lieu- 
tenant; W. J. Reed, Chancellor; J. B. Merritt, Orator; G. B. 
Daniels, Treasurer; Webb N Pearce, Turcopilier; A. L. 
Smith, 1st Deacon; A. H. Merritt, 2nd Deacon; C. K. 
Smith, Guard. 


At the 43d annual conclave of the 
Grand Commandery K. T. of Texas, held 
at Houston, April 21st, the following offi- 
cers were installed: 

L. T. Noyes, G. Commander; A. A. Johnston, D. G. C.; 
P. T. Morey, G. Geno.; A. R. doward, G. C. G ; J. C. Car- 
penter, G. Prelate; F. M. Gilbough, G. S. W.; J. F. Zurn, 
G. J. W.; Robt, M. Elgin, G. Treasurer; J. C. Kidd, G. 
Recorder; W. W. Bell, G. St. Bearer; Edwin Chamberlain, 
G. Sw. Bearer; T. F. Harwood, G. Warder; Will E. Race, 
G. C. of G. 

Standing r ommittees: Returns — J. C. Kidd, R. S. Chas. 
Hammond, J. M. Murch, J. P. Regan and J. Q. Tabor. 

Finance— L. T. Fuller, A. V. Lane, W. E. Hall, J. L. 
Patrick. 

Grievances and Appeals— D. C. Proctor, E. J. Fry, Jno. 
McDonald. 

Jurisprudence— H. B. Stoddard, J. F. Miller, Jas. Garitty, 
L. M. Knepfly, L. M. Openheimer, F. B. Sexton. 

Correspondence — Robt. M. Elgin, N. W. Hunter, R. O. 
Rounsavall, W. V. R. Watson. 

Printing— J. C. Kidd, Robt. M. Elgin, J.S. Wilson. 
Necrology— J. F. Miller, D. R. Gurley, T, F. Harwood. 
J. F. Brinkerhoff. 

Templar History— J. C. Kidd. 


The officers of Trinity Commandery, 
No. 7, at Augusta, Maine, were installed 
April 1 6th by Sir John W. Ballon, P. G. C., 
as follows: 

James E. Kingsley, Commander; Albert T. Murphy, 
Geno.; Jos. E. Badger, C. G.; Frank L. Staples, Prelate; 
Manning S. Campbell, S. W.; Winfield S. Choate, J. W.; 
Treby Johnson, Treasurer; James E. Blanchard, Recorder; 
Wm. G. Boothby, St. B.; Lorenzo D. Merchant, Sw. B.; 
Greenwood G. Flagg, Warder; Charles W. Jones, Chas. 
H. Cunningham and Louis L. Dolliver, Guards; Wm. T. 
Jones, Sentinel. 


The Scottish Rite Chapters of Rose 
Croix 1 8°, on the Pacific Coast, observed 
the ceremonies of Maundy-Thursday and 
Easter Sunday accompanied with the 
“Mystic Banquet.” 


In the Northern Jurisdiction of the Scot- 
tish Rite $100.00 is charged for the 33 0 , 
while in the Southern Jurisdiction a fee of 
$180 is charged. 


Pure and undefiled religion before God 
(and man) is this: “To visit the fatherless 
and the widow in their affliction, and to 
keep oneself unspotted before the world.” 

Preston Lodge, No. 281, of Louisville, 
Ky., has resolved to discontinue the cus- 
tom of celebrating St. John’s Day in June, 
and will in the future make a free-will of- 
fering to the Masonic Home in lieu thereof. 
The Lodge has 520 members and dis- 
bursed $1,703 in relief in 1896. 


The fifth annual session of the Grand 
Chapter, O. E. S. of Colorado will be held 
June 2d, at the Masonic Temple in Denver. 


The Lodges are generally displaying the 
National flag in their meetings throughout 
California. 


A new Lodge in Bridgeport, Cal., is 
proposed to be established. 


Mission Lodge, No. 169, was chartered 
32 years ago with 13 members. It now 
has over 350 members. 


The Grand Chapter O. E. S. of Oregon 
will meet at Portland June 14th. 

7 ° 

Chips from Other Quarries. 


In Maine the proportion of non-affiliates 
is so small as not to attract notice, and al- 
though they cannot claim Lodge privi- 
leges they are generally welcomed. Yet, 
we notice, thev generally keep away. One 
class of non-affiliates is composed of those 
who find no interest in Masonry. Severe 
legislation against them is ineffective, be- 
cause they have already renounced it. But, 
frequently, under mild legislation which 
always beckons to them, they return to 
their allegiance and become valuable mem- 
bers. Another class drop out from some 
fancied grievance. Severe legislation only 
embitters them, while mildness often brings 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


241 


them back in time. A third class find the 
burden heavy at some time, but are glad 
to return when circumstances are better. 
A few may dimit from selfishness, but this 
class is too small to be regarded. To prove 
that it is so, we call attention to the fact 
that one suspended from membership for 
non-payment of dues may remain out for 
ten or twenty years, and then reinstate 
himself by paying the amount due when 
suspended, (perhaps only for two years), 
saving the dues for all the intervening 
time, and thus reinstating himself when he 
feels age or ill health coming on. Yet we 
have never seen a case where this seemed 
to have been taken advantage of, except- 
ing where some acute person had advanced 
the money to reinstate a hopeless invalid 
for the purpose of shifting the burden of 
his support back upon the neglected Lodge. 

The lesson is that men will not submit 
to be bullied. Let it be understood that 
if a Mason wishes to go out he can go 
freely. If he elects to support a part and 
not the whole, allow him to do so. Let 
him understand that, while he cannot 
claim the privileges he has renounced, he 
is still near and dear, and he will still be a 
moral support, and a distinct advantage to 
the Fraternity. — Com. on Cor., Grand 
Commandery of Maine. 

The regulations of the Grand Lodge of 
Connecticut provide that lodges are per- 
mitted to receive and act upon applications 
for affiliation unaccompanied by a demit, 
provided, however, that such action if fa- 
vorable, should not take effect until the 
demit of the applicant shall have been de- 
posited with the secretary of the lodge. 
This regulation of the Grand Lodge was 
adopted, in order to expedite affiliation, 
so that the lodge could act without waiting 
for a formal demit. Has the brother a 
demit from the first lodge? if not, he is 
still a member and entitled to it, if not 
under charges of Masonic censure, or if 
his withdrawal would not materially re- 
duce its membership. If he has a demit, 
then he is an unaffiliate Mason, unless the 
action of the lodge in permitting a new 
ballot and thereby rejecting him was un- 
lawful. — G. L. of Com. 


«► 

tend Lodge, and so poor he could not pay 
his dues. Here is the Grand Master’s 
answer: 

“It will cost your members about one 
and a quarter cents a year each to pay the 
good old brother’s dues. Carry him on 
until he reaches the brink of the river, ^nd 
God will carry him safely over; you will 
all feel better by even having given the 
good old brother even a cent and a quarter 
a piece for a short time. Bury his remains 
with Masonic honors when he dies, and in 
the sweet bye-and-bye, when his hearing 
is restored to him in the celestial lodge 
above, where he can hear the voices of the 
angelic hosts, may he never hear that 
you asked the Grand Master the question 
‘What shall we do with him?’ Go, learn 
again the early-taught lessons in Mason- 
ry of brotherly love and relief.” 

— Masonic Constellation. 


Mr. T. S. Parvin and his son Mr. F. 
Parvin, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are at the 
Iturbide, City of Mexico. T. S. Parvin, 
is eighty years of age, yet this is his fourth 
visit to the republic in the last fifteen 
years. The last time he was here was in 
March, 1895. He has been longer a Free- 
mason than any man living in the United 
States, having joined the Order on his 
twenty-first birthday. He has reached the 
33 0 , and stands high in the esteem of his 
brethren. Probably no man is better known 
in Masonry than he. His son, Frederick 
O. Parvin, will enter the employ of the 
Guggenheims at San Luis Potosi, where 
another son holds a responsible position. 

— Two Republics, of Mexico. 

An exchange says that a venerable -and 
level-headed deacon, who had united with 
an Order, was asked by one of his church 
members why he belonged to such an or- 
ganization as that one, and his reply was, 
that it had such an admirable system for 
the benefit of their Fellows that he hoped 
ultimately to engraft it into his own church. 
And such an adoption of benevolence and 
charity would not hurt the church either, 
but would make it nearer what its profes- 
sions claim for it. “And the greatest of 
these is charity.” 


The Master of a Lodge wrote to ask the The prohibition law of Maine is en- 
Grand Master of Tennessee what the Lodge forced — not sweepingly, not as it ought to 
should do with an old brother who had be, not as it can be, but still it is enforced 
always been a zealous Mason, but lately better than I ever believed possible. I 
had become so deaf he could not often at- would not see the prohibitory law taken 


24 2 


THE TRESTLE BOARD 


from the Maine statutes for any consider- 
ation under Heaven. I have heard it said 
that the Maine law was a farce and a scan- 
dal. I declare that accusation to be a lie; 
I do, with all my soul, and I am ashamed 
of the men who utter it. — Rev. H. B. 
Rose , Universalist, Auburn , Me. 


The Catholic press seems to be in great 
glee over the election to the Presidency of 
Chili, in the. person of Don Frederico Er- 
razuriz. They assert that “it was a coali- 
tion of the better elements of the Repub- 
lic against the Socialistic and Freemasonic 
radicals.” They go farther and quote the 
oath of office taken by the new President, 
from which we excerpt: “I, Frederick Er- 
razuriz, swear by God, by our Lord and 
by the Holy Gospels, that I will discharge 
faithfully the duty of President of the Re- 
public, that I will conserve and protect the 
Catholic Apostolic Roman Religion.'" At 
the conclusion departure was taken to the 
Cathedral, where the religious part of the 
ceremony was carried out. 

— Masonic Constellation. 


Nothing- better could happen to the 
young man who has the right kind of grit, 
than to be thrown on the world and his 
own resources. A well to do judge once 
gave his son a thousand dollars, and told 
him to go to college and graduate. The 
son returned at the end of the first year, 
his money all gone, and with several ex- 
travagant habits. At the close of the 
vacation the judge said to his son: “Well, 
William, are you going to college this 
year?” “I have no money, father.” 
“But I gave you a thousand dollars to 
graduate on.” “It is all gone, father.” 
“Very well, my son; it is all I could give 
you; you can’t stay here; you must now 
pay your own way in the world.” A new 
light broke in upon the vision of the 
young man. He accommodated himself 
to the situation; again left home, made his 
way through college, graduated at the 
head of his class, studied law, became 
governor of the State of New York, en- 
tered the Cabinet of the President of the 
United States, and has made a record that 
will not soon die, for he was none other 
than Wm. H. Seward. — 7 he Cube. 


A suspended Mason is deprived of the 
privileges of Masonry, and should there- 
fore not be chargeable with dues, it mat- 
ters not how and why he was suspended, 


during the time which the suspension is 
operative. — Grand Lodge of Georgia. 

It is said that Prof. John Stuart Blackie 
often told “on himself” this anecdote, 
which seems to indicate that personalities 
are not agreable, even to those who deserve 
criticism. 

This genial old professor used to form a 
very picturesque feature in the Edinburgh 
streets. He was a wiry old patriarch, 
with handsome features and hair falling in 
ringlets about his shoulders; no one who 
had seen him could possibly forget him. 

One day he was accosted by a very dirty 
little bootblack with his — “Shine your 
boots, sir?” 

The professor was impressed by the 
filthiness of the boy’s face. 

“I don’t want a shine, my lad,” said 
he. “But if you’ll go and wash your face, 
I’ll give you sixpence.” 

“ A’ richt, sir,” was the dad’s reply. 
Then he went over to a neighboring foun- 
tain and made his ablutions. Returning 
he held out his hands for the money. 

“Well, my lad,” said the professor, 
“you have earned your sixpence. Here 
it is.” 

“I dinna want it, auld chap,” returned 
the boy, with a lordly air. “Ye can keep 
it and get ver hair cut !” 

— Youth' s Companion . 

o 

Literary Notes. 

Fifty Years of Masonry in Califomia r 

Part I, from the press of Geo. Spaulding & Co., San Fran- 
cisco, is on our table. It is in quarto form, printed in the 
most elegant style of the typographic art on coated papei 
of heavy weight, beautifully illustrated with steel engrav- 
ings, and bound in handsome illustrated paper cover. The 
entile work will contain about 800 pages and 200 illustra- 
tions. The editor is Bro. Edwin A. Sherman, whose name 
is a sufficient guarantee of its value It will be completed 
in twenty parts and issued monthly at $t each, to be paid 
for on delivery. We commend it to the kind consideration 
of the Craft in California. 

We have received printed copies of the 

Proceedings of the following Grand Bodies, for which the 
Secretaries have our thanks: Grand Lodges of Louisiana, 
Mississipi; Grand Chapters, R. A. M. of Louisiana, Penn- 
sylvania; Grand Councils R. &. S. M. of Maryland, Louisi- 
ana, Michigan; Grand Commanderies, K. T. of Louisiana, 
Pennsylvania. Also to Bro. Marquis F. King, of Portland, 
Maine, for favors. 

O 

Deaths. 

In San Francisco, April 24th, Thomas B. Simpson, a na- 
tive of Montreal, Canada, a member of Pacific Lodge, No. 
I3f , aged 55 years. 

I11 San Francisco, April 28th, Henry! R. Meyers, a native 
of Pennsylvania, a member of Mt. Moriah Lodge, No. 44, 
aged 66 years, 2 months, 27 days. 

In San Francisco, May 1st. Hon. Clay Webster Taylor, a 
native of Michigan, P. G. M. of Grand Lodge of Cali- 
fornia. aged 52 years, 7 months 20 days. 

In San Francisco, May 4th, Gardner C. Bowen, a native 
of New York, a member of Areata Lodge, No. 106, aged 71 
years. His funeral was attended by Pacific Lodge, No. 
136. 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


Premiums for 1897. 

We will send The Trestle Board 
one year to any subscriber who will send 
us four new names and $4.00 at one re- 
mittance. 


Masonic Bodies in San Francisco. 


LODGES. 

No. Name. Time. Place. 

1 . California ist Thursday Masonic Temple 

17 . Parfaite Union . . . ist Friday . . “ 

22 . Occidental ist Monday . “ 

30 . Golden Gate . . . .ist Tuesday . 

44 . Mount Moriah . . .ist Wednesday “ 

i2o . Fidelity ist Thursday. “ 

127 . Hermann ist Monday 

136 . Pacific ist Tuesday 121 Eddy 

139 . Crockett ist Wednesday 121 Eddy St. 

144 . Oriental ist Tuesday . Masonic Temple 

166 . Excelsior ist Wednesday “ “ 

169 . Mission ist “ Valencia & 16th 

212 . So. San Francisco . ist Thursday. South S. F. 

216 . Doric ist “ 121 Eddy St. 

219 . Speranza Italiana . 2d Friday . . Masonic Temple 

260 . King Solomon’s . . ist Monday . Geary & Steiner 

ROYAL ARCH CHAPTERS. 

i . San Francisco . ist & 3d Monday . Masonic Temple 
5 . California . . . . ist & 3d Tuesday . “ 4 


COUNCIL ROYAL & SELECT MASTERS. 

2 . California ... ist Wednesday. . . Masonic Temple 

COMMANDERIES OF KNIGHTS TEMPLAR. 

i . California . . . Friday ...... Masonic Temple 

16 . Golden Gate . . ist & 3d Monday . 625 Sutter St. 

LODGE OF PERFECTION, 14°, SCOTTISH RITE. 

6 . Yerba Buena . . . Friday Masonic Temple 

CHAPTER OF ROSE CROIX, l8°. ' 

4 . Yerba Buena ... At Call Masonic Temple 

COUNCIL OF KNIGHTS OF KADOSH, 3O 0 . 

I . Godfrey de St. Omar . . At Call . . Masonic Temple 

GRAND CONSISTORY, S. P. R. S., 32 0 . 

California At Call Masonic Temple 

MYSTIC SHRINE. 

Islam Temple .... 2d Wednesday . . 625 Sutter St. 

CHAPTERS OF THE EASTERN STAR. 

i . Golden Gate . . ist & 3d Thursday . . 629 Sutter St. 
124 Harmony. . . . ist & 3d Friday. . . 32 O’FarrelSt. 

27 . Ivy ist & 3d Tuesday . . 625 Sutter St. 

99 . Beulah, 2d&4th Monsday. Corinthian Hall, So. S. F. 

GROUP OF GOOD SAMARITANS, 
i . San Francisco ... ist Saturday . . 625 Sutter St. 

MASONIC VETERANS ASSOCIATION. 

Pacific Coast . . 2d Thursday . 5-6, cor. Bush & Kearny 
Past Master’s Association, Last Saturday each mo. 


Masonic Bodies in Boston. 


LODGES. 

Grand Lodge meets on second Wednesday in March. 
June, Sept.. Dec., and Dec. 27, at Masonic Hall, iS 
Boylston street, cor. Washington. 

Aberdour, 2d Tuesday, Masonic Hall, 18 Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

Adelphi, 3d Tuesday, 3:2 W. Broadway, South Boston. 

Amicable, 1st Thu., 6S5 Mass. Ave., Cambridgeport. 

Baalbec, ist Tu., Meridian, cor. Eutaw, East Boston. 

Bethesda, ist Tu., 337 Washington st., Brighton. 

Beth-horon, 2d Tu., Brookline. 

Charity, 1st Mon., I. O. O. F. Hall, North Cambridge. 

Columbian, ist Th., Masonic Hall, 18 Boylston street, 
cor. Washington. 

Eliot, 3d Wed., Green st., opp. depot, Jamaica Plain. 

Faith, 2d Fri., Thompson Square, Charlestown. 

Gate of the Temple, 4th Tu., 372 W. Broad’y,S. Boston. 

Germania, 4th Mon., Masonic Hall, 18 Boylston street, 
cor. Washington. 

Hammatt, 4th Tu., Meridian, cor, Eutaw, E. Boston. 

Henry Price, 4th Wed., Thompson Sq., Charlestown. 

Tohn Abbot, ist Tu., Gilman Sq., Somerville. 

Joseph Warren. 4th Tu., Masonic Hall, iS Boylsion st’, 
cor. Washington. 

Joseph^Webb, 1st Wed., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

King Solomon, 2d Tu., Thompson Sq., Charlestown. 

La Fayette, 2d Mon., 2307 Washington st., Roxbury. 

Lodge of Eleusis, 3d Th., Masonic Hall, iS Bovlston 
street, cor. Washington. 

Lodge of St. Andrew, 2d Th., Masonic Hall, 18 Boyl- 
ston street, cor. Washington. 


Massachusetts, 3d Monday, Masonic Hall, 18 Boylston 
street, cor. Washington. 

Mizpah, 2d Mon., *85 Mass. Ave., Cambridgeport. 

Mt. Lebanon, 2d Mon., Masonic Hall, iS Bo> Iston st., 
cor. Washington. 

Mt. Olivet, 3d Th., 6 z s Mass. Ave., Cambridgeport. 

Mt. Tabor, 3d Th., Meridian, cor. Eutaw, E. Boston. 

Prospect, 2d Mon., Roslindale. 

Putnam ; 3d Mon., E. Cambridge, Cambridge and 3d sts. 

Rabboni, 2d Tu., Masonic Hall, Hancock st., Dorchester 

Revere, ist Tu., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston street, cor. 
Washington. 

Robert Lash, *th Wed., Masonic Hall, Chelsea. 

St.John’s, ist Mon., Masonic Hall, is Boylston street, 
cor. Washington. 

St. Paul’s, ist Tu., 372 West Broadway, South Boston. 

Soley, 3d Mon., Gilman So., Somerville. 

Star of Bethlehem, 3d Wea., Masonic Hall, Chelsea. 

Temple, ist Th., Meridian, cor. Eutaw, E. Boston. 

Union, 2d Tu., Hancock st., near Upham’s Cor., Dor- 
chester. 

Cambridge, No. 42, ist Wed., 6S5 Massachusetts Ave., 
Cambridgeport. 

Cceur de Lion, No. 34, 3d Tu.. Thompson Sq., Charles- 
town . 

De Molav, No. 7, 4th Wed., Maso lie Hall, iS Bo> Iston 
street, cor. Washington. 

Joseph Warren, No. 26, ist Mon., 2307 Washington st., 
Roxbury. 

Palestine, No. 10, 2d Wed., 6S5 Masonic Hall, Chelsea. 

St. Bernard, No. 12, 2d Wed., Masonic Hall, iS Bo\l- 
ston street, cor. Washington. 

St. Omer, No. 2r, 3d Mon. 372 W. Broadway, S. Boston. 

Wm. Parkman, No. 2S, 2d Th.. Meridian/cor. Eutaw, 
E. Boston. 

ROYAL ARCH CHAPTF.RS. 

Grand Chapter, Tu. preceding 2d Wed, of March, 
June, Sept, and Dec., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

Cambridge, 2d Fri., 6S5 Mass. Ave., Cambrideport. 

Dorchester, 4th Mon., Hancock st., near Upham’s 
Corner, Dorchester. 

Mt. Vernon, 3d Th., 2307 Washington st., Roxbury. 

St. Andrew’s, ist Wed., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

St.John’s, 4th Moil., Meridian, nr. Eutaw, E. Boston. 

St. Matthew’s, 2d Mon., 372 W. Broadway, S. Boston. 

St. Paul’s, 3d Tu. Masonic Hall, iS Boylston street, cor. 
Washington. 

Shekinah, ist Wed., Masonic Hall, Chelsea. 

Signet, 2d Th., Thompson Sq., Charlestown. 

Somerville, 3d Th., Gilman Sq., Somerville. 

COUNCILS ROYAL AND SELECT MASTERS. 

Grand Council, 2d Wed. in Dec., Masonic Hall, 18 Boyl- 
ston street, cor. Washingtoh. 

Boston, last Th., Masonic Hall, 18 Boylston street, cor. 
Washington. 

East Boston, 2d Tu., Meridian, cor. Eutaw, E. Boston. 

Orient, yd Wed., Gilman Sq., Somerville. 

Napthali, 4th Fri., Masonic Hall, Chelsea. 

Roxbury. 4th Mon., 2307 Washington st.. Roxbury. 

COMMANDERIES KNIGHTS TEMPLAR. 

Grand Commandery, May and Oct., Masonic Hall. iS 
Boylston street, cor. Washington. 

Boston, No. 2, 3d Wed., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

SCOTTISH RITE. 

Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. 14 0 , ist Fri. in 
Feb., April, Oct. and Dec., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston 
street, cor. Washington. 

Giles F. Yates Council, Princes of Jerusalem, 1 6°, 2d 
Fri, in Feb., April, Oct. and Dec., Masonic Hall, iS 
Boylston street, cor. Washington. 

Mt. Olivet Chapter, Rose Croix, 1S 0 . 3d Fri, in Feb. 
April, Oct. and Dec. .Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

Massachusetts Consistory, 32 0 , 4th Fri. in Feb , April, 
Oct. and Dec., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston street, cor. 
Washington. 

MYSTIC SHRINE. 

Aleppo (irregularly), Music Hall. 

EASTERN STAR. 

Vesta, No. 10, ist and 3d Fri., 11 City Sq., Charlestown. 

Queen Esther, No, 16, ist and 3d T burs., Dudley, cor. 
Washington. 

Keystone, No. iS, 2d and 4th Tu., 730 Washington. 

Signet, No. 22, ist and 3d Tues., Cambridgeport. 

Mystic, No. 34, ist and 3d Monday, Meridian, cor. Eu- 
taw, E. Boston. 

Ruth, 2d and 4th M011., 2S0 Broadway. Chelsea* 

Washington. 2d Th., 2307 Washington st., Roxbury. 

Winslow Lewis, 2d Fri., Masonic Hall, iS Boylston st., 
cor. Washington. 

Winthrop, 2d Til., Masonic Hall, Winthrop. 

Zetland, 2d Wed., Masonic Hall, 18 Bo> Iston street, 
cor. Washington. 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


California Safe Deposit and Trust Company. 

Corner California and. Montgomery Streets. 

Capital fully paid, - $1,000,00000 

Transacts a general Banking business and allows interest on deposits payable on demand or after notice. 
Acts as Executor, Administrator and Trustee under wills or in any other trust capa ity. Wills drawn by the 
Company’s Attorneys and are taken care of without charge. 

SAFE DEPOSIT BOXES to rent at prices from $5 per annum upward according to size, and valuables of all 
kinds are stored at low rates. 

DIRECTORS— J. D. Fry, Henry Williams, I. G. Wickersham, Jacob C. Johnson, James Treadwell, F. W. 
Lougee, Henry F. Portmann, R. B. Wallace, R. D. Fry, A. D. Sharon and J. Dalzell Brown. 

OFFICERS— J. D. Fry, President; Henry Williams, Vice President; R. D. Fry, Second Vice President; 
J. Dalzell Brown, Secretary and Treasurer; E. E. Shotwell, Ass’t Sec’y; Gunnison, Booth & Bartnett, Attorneys. 

The German Savings and Loan Society. 

526 California Street, San Francisco. 

Guaranteed Capital and Surplus, ... 1,840,201 66 

Capital actually paid up in Cash, .... $1,000,000.00 

Deposits December 31, 1896, .... 27,730,247.45 

OFFICERS — President, B. A. Becker; 1st Vice President, Daniel Meyer; 2d Vice President, H. Horstmann 
Cashier, A. H. R. Schmidt; Assistant Cashier, Wi liam Herrmann; Secretary, George Tourny; Assistant Secre- 
tary, A. H. Muller; Attorney, W. S. Goodfellow. 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS— B. A. Becker, Daniel Meyer, H. Horstmann, Ign. Steinhart, N. Van Bergen, Emil 
Rohte, H. B. Russ, D. N. Walter and N. Ohlandt. 


CARRIERS WANTED. 

Several Freemasons or their Sons can 
find one days work each month in San 
Francisco delivering The Trestle Board 
to subscribers. Apply at 408 California 
Street, Room 1. 


VENTILATED 

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Indispensible for those who face the light. Lighte r 
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for 25, 50, and 75 cents; wholesale price-lists on appli- 
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thousands of thoughtful people 
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THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


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AGENTS WANTED. 

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GEORGE GOODMAN, 

Patentee and Manufacturer of 

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The Original Swain’s Bakery. 

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SWAIN BROTHERS. 

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BADGES, INVITATIONS, 



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Rates of Fare, which include a berth and meals 
on Ocean Steamers, are lower by this than any other 
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Ticket Office, 4 New Montgomery St., 
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GOODALL, PERKINS & CO., 
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io Market Street, San Francisco. 


BLAKE, MOFFITT & TOWNE, 

Importers and Dealers in 

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Stock, Straw and Binder’s Board, 
Manufacturers of Patent Machine Made Paper Bags 
512 to 516 Sacramento St., San Francisco. 

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Established 1850. Telephone No. 43. 

N. GRAY & CO., 

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Embalming a Specialty. SAN FRANCISCO. 


THE TRESTLE BOARD. 






Small Attendance. 


If you are having small attendance at 
your Lodge meetings, a wise proceeding 
may be to make the work a trifle more 
realistic by properly costuming those 
participating in it. 

Shakespeare is not adapted to ordin- 
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THE TRESTLE BOARD. 


HORACE M. CAKE. 
Proprietor. 



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