TWO DROPPED OUT.

Two lodges surrendered their charters to the Grand Master, for good and sufficient reasons, we presume.

THE GREATEST OF ALL-CHARITY.

From the Grand Secretary's report we learn that the subordinate lodges have contributed during the past year the sum of $17,592.45, for the relief of their needy members, or their widows and orphans, and $5,146.59 have been contributed to the relief of masons not members of their respective lodges.

ATTENDED IN A BODY.

On motion of Brother DeWitt C. Cregier, the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge attended as a body of citizens at the unveiling of the Grant monument at Lincoln Park.

A BEAUTIFUL PRESENT.

Brother Charles A. Fisk, son of Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, whom the writer is glad to record as a personal and old army friend, presented to the Grand Lodge a gavel-the handle made of ironwood from Arizona, and the mallet of onyx, making one of the most beautiful, if not the most costly, of gavels.

The presentation was made to the Grand Lodge on behalf of the donor, by Brother John C. Smith, in his usual happy style, and was accepted by the Grand Master in a few appropriate remarks.

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.

The Grand Master of Idaho and the Grand Master of Minnesota, as also the Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Canada, and R. W. Brother David McLellan, Past Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Canada, and grand representative of the Grand Lodge of Illinois near the Grand Lodge of Canada, were received and welcomed by the Grand Master with the usual grand honors.

INVITATION ACCEPTED.

The Grand Lodge was invited to visit the Board of Trade

and the Illinois Masonic Orphans' Home, both of which invitations were accepted with thanks.

ANTIQUITY OF MASONRY.

Brother George W. Warvelle delivered an address before the Grand Lodge on the antiquity of masonry.

To say that it was a well written address, finely delivered and full of information, is simply to say what every one knows who knows the good brother who delivered it, and his ability in that direction. He covered the ground very fully and completely in a most entertaining manner notwithstanding, at the outset, he admitted his inability to do so. He overcame every difficulty, and made the address both entertaining and instructive.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The review of fifty-seven grand jurisdictions is from the pen of Joseph Robbins; Michigan for 1891 is among the number.

Verily, we should have known them to be "his writings and his doings," even without his signature. Brother Robbins has reason to be proud of the work he does in this line. Two hundred and ninety-six pages are quite a good many for any one man to write in the way of correspondence.

He is so well known now to the writers on correspondence, that they realize there is but one way to do one of his reviews justice, and that is to copy it complete.

OPENING.

We shall have to satisfy ourselves this time with only a very brief abstract of his opening, which we give as follows:

We have recently seen the statement that when the British evacuated New York there was left upon the altar in the lodge-room in that city an instrument from the Grand Lodge of England (Atholl) authorizing the New York lodges to organize an independent grand lodge. If there is anything in this beyond the fact-if indeed there is any historical value to the statement—that such a paper might have been left by a provincial grand master, it is the only instance we have ever heard of where any

"Grand Lodge of England" has ever given its preliminary consent to the formation of an independent grand lodge by lodges it had chartered, and we know of no instance in which it is claimed that such consent was given by the grand lodges of Scotland and Ireland. We run no risk in saying that no American grand lodge which has placed itself in this attitude towards the Grand Lodge of New Zealand can plead its own history in justification.

Of the proposition that the question of forming a new grand lodge in territory masonically unoccupied must wait the pleasure of a single lodge when perhaps a hundred other lodges are ready to organize, it is enough to say that it is simply a proposition to establish the rule of the minority and has nothing to commend it as either more just or more sensible than to insist that any one of twenty, fifty, or a hundred masons resident in a neighborhood destitute of lodge privileges, ought to be recognized as having the right to stop by his veto the formation of a new lodge whose creation is desired by the other forty-nine. In the domain of genuine masonry lodges like individual masons should meet upon the level. Minority rule, whether oligarchical or imperial, should be relegated wholly to the Holy Empire.

Another matter attracting our attention in the year's proceedings is the subject of electioneering for office in lodge and grand lodge. It is not rare to find the matter cropping out in the address of some one Grand Master in any year, but it is rare to find it cropping out in several during the same year as now happens, and in some unwonted places. If the evil has not shown itself everywhere to an extent which seemed to demand the interference or invite the animadversions of Grand Masters, no mistake can be made in calling general attention to it, because masons as a rule are active men who bear their part in all the affairs which concern the welfare of a self-governing people, and hence masonry is in danger of being modified-diluted, so to speak-by the reflected influences of other activities around it, creeping in insensibly through those who have a hand in both, until methods gain a foothold which, however proper they may be and inseparable as some of them are from the movements by which large masses of men find a consensus of opinion, endanger the harmony which is the strength and support of our fraternity. It is no sin to be ambitious of the honors of masonry, but under certain circumstances what ought to be honors ceases to be such. As one Grand Master forcibly puts it in these pages-substantially, for we do not quote his wordsit is an honor to be selected by one's brethren for a high position in the lodge or grand lodge; it is a matter of quite another color when a brother selects the place he wants and then makes a campaign for it in which all the arts and methods of the politician are employed. The only electioneering that is proper in a masonic body is such a discharge of whatever

duty falls to a brother as will demonstrate that he has prepared himself to perform creditably whatever duty may fall to him. If he possesses peculiar fitness for any place he will be under no necessity of making a canvass either of the jurisdiction of his lodge or of his grand jurisdiction in order that the brethren may find it out. Although it is unquestionably true that the Ancient Charges, in saying that masonry is firmly resolved against all politics as what never yet conduced to the welfare of the lodge, and never will, referred to the politics which divide parties in the state, yet it is equally true of Masonic politics. The lodge or Grand Lodge that is infected with this evil is to just that extent dislocated from its normal relations to the fraternity. It is not merely the prescription of law, but the wisdom of the ages which the old charges utter when they say that all preferment is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only, and whatever tends to change this and to ground preferment upon the adventitious aids which confer notoriety only, is a departure from the grand design. So general has been the agreement upon this subject that we have never encountered a dissenting voice among masonic writers, no contention except to see who should enforce most aptly the axiomatic doctrine that "electioneering for office is unmasonic," and that it is a duty which every masonic body owes to itself and to the fraternity to see that whoever resorts to it should find himself at the foot of the poll.

MICHIGAN.

Of our proceedings, he says:

Henry Chamberlin, the representative of Illinois, was one of the seventeen Past Grand Masters present at the opening of the Grand Lodge. Immediately after the opening, the Grand Master (John S. Cross) whose well-chiselled face belies his name-if we may trust the lines of the fine steel portrait which forms the frontispiece of the Michigan volume, stated that having accepted an invitation to dedicate the Michigan Masonic Home, he had chosen that time for the pleasant duty. At the conclusion of the dedication ceremonies Past Grand Master Hugh McCurdy-he of the melifluous tongue-delivered an eloquent address that fitted the occasion as not all occasional addresses do, after which the Grand Lodge rested until the evening.

'TWAS EVER THUS.

Referring to the number of decisions made by Grand Master Cross, Brother Robbins thinks that the publication of the Michigan "Blue Book" did not relieve the Grand Master of the duty of answering questions on points of law, because there will always be a large proportion of Masters

who either will not read or cannot interpret the published law.

DECISIONS, PRO AND CON.

Of the thirty-seven decisions submitted, he says they were, as a whole, wonderfully brief and well stated.

Brother Cross decided that except in case of death, the Grand Master has no power to grant a dispensation for the election of a Junior Warden while Worshipful Master and Senior Warden remain.

Brother Robbins says of that decision:

Illinois has decided that the Grand Master cannot properly grant a dispensation to elect a master in contravention of the right and duty of succession attaching to the senior and junior wardens respectively, but we see no reason why he should not grant one for the election of a junior warden if the convenience of the lodge required it, because nobody's right of succession would be affected thereby.

PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS.

With reference to the decision where Grand Master Cross decided that a person who is dwarfed in size and afflicted with a hunchback is not a suitable candidate for masonry, although otherwise qualified, Brother "Robbins says he thinks the degree of the infirmity (hunchback) would be the question to be considered-is it masonically disabling? Of course, there is no regulation height or shortThat is what the Grand Master meant in his decision. The candidate was very much below size and very much disfigured.

ness.

The question was brought before the Grand Master, and as the applicant was very much under-sized and hunchback, decided the question as he did. The fact that he was undersized would not make him ineligible, but his size, being due to his hunchback, made him ineligible.

SHOULD BE SATISFIED.

Brother Robbins ought to be satisfied with our report if it is made interesting by generous scissors. Of course,