Obedience To The Constitutions.

members of the Board , that the earlier precedents , if they had been before them , would have justified their proceedings , because they generally referred to a time when , under their esteemed Bro . Havers , the Board made certain valuable purchases for the benefit of the Craft . " Sir J . B .

Monckton prefaced tho above remarks by assuming " that lie was talking to men of legal and logical minds . " This is likely to have boon tho caso ; but our respected brother must forgive us if we point out that he himself was most unfortunate in his illustration of what is legal and logical .

A man who is thoroughly imbued with tho spirit of legality would never dream of setting at naught the requirements of the law . He who fortunately possesses a logical mind , could never have been so faithless to tho doctrines inculcated by Aristotle , Whateley , and others , as , in the first

instance , to affirm that certain cases which occurred in 1857 " wero supposed to be of a nature somewhat similar to the case now considered , " ancl then , in the very next sentence , to suggest that if those cases had been before the Board—which they do not appear to havo been—they

would have served as precedents . The logical mind would very properly be at the pains of pointing out that whether or not the 1857 cases may be supposed to be of a nature somewhat similar " to the case now considered , " and

whether or not they might have served as precedents and " justified these proceedings , " in the present instance they do not appear to have been taken into consideration , and what Sir J . B . Monckton ' s Board did was done of its own

motion . The course adopted in the recent purchase was an unprecedented violation of the letter and spirit of our Constitutions . The Board has been very properly indemnified for its misconduct , and the curtain has now fallen on what can only be considered as a most unfortunate

display of over-zeal on the part of that very Board which , having due regard to the important duties assigned to it , should be a model of legality and logic to the whole Craft . We attach greater importance to tbe circumstances of the case we have been considering , because they furnish

the second instance within less than a year of the illegal and illogical haste with which our governing bodies appear to be inoculated whenever they think there is an opportunity for the display of zeal . It is not so very long ago that the purchase of Lyncombe House was shown to have

been a most irregular proceeding , unwarranted by the laws of the Institution for which it was purchased . And t his month we have seen Grancl Lodge stepping forward for the purpose of vindicating the majesty of its own laws against its own Board of General Purposes . No one , we

imngi ne , will be surprised that the Committee of Inquiry should have reported that in their judgment it Avas " of the hig best importance that the laws of the Craft should be implicitly adhered to . " Yet it eannot but surprise the

members of the Craft that Sir J . B . Monckton , after a direct appeal to the " men of legal and logical minds , " whom he addressed in Grancl Lodge on the 1 st instant , should have taken exception to so mild a rebuke of his Board ' s illegal action on grounds so utterly illogical .

The Mother City Of American Freemasonry.—Iii.

THE MOTHER CITY OF AMERICAN FREEMASONRY . —III .

BT BRO . R . F . GOULD .

IN the FREEMASON ' S CHROXICLE , 20 th ult ., Bro . Hughan says : — " Was a Warrant ever granted by the G . L . of England or by the Prov . G . Master Coxe ? ( which means the same thing virtually ) . " But towards the close of his able article , our brother qualifies this observation b } ' some

remarks which bear in quite another direction . He says : — " Why should it not be accepted as fairly probable . . . . that 79 was for a short while located to Philadelphia , in response to tho petition of the brethren in thafc city , who , however , relinquished it for the charter given them by Bro . Coxe . "

My object herein is not , however , to comment on the discrepant conclusions of an eminent Masonic writer , which , I freely admit , reflect very accurately the confusion of language presented by the documentary evidence he has

sought to analyse , but rather at the outset of these remarks , to submit that the famous letter of 1754 from Bro . Bell , of Lancaster , to Bro . Cadwallader , of Philadelphia , citccl in the CHRONICLE of the 13 th and 20 th November , cx-

The Mother City Of American Freemasonry.—Iii.

hibits an amount of latent ambiguity , which there is no evidence forthcoming to remove . For convenience sake I will again set out the letter in question , premising , however , that the arrangement by paragraphs and the use of italics have been adopted by me to render my comments more intelligible .

[ Bro . H . Bell to Bro . T . Cadwallader , A . D . 1754 . ] ( a ) I was one of the originators of the first Masonio Lodge in Philadelphia . Once , in the fall of 1730 , we formed a design of obtaining a charter for a regular Lodge , ( b ) But before receiving it we heard that Daniel Coxe .... had been appointed by that Grand Lodge as Provincial Grand Master . . .

( c ) We therefore made application to him , and our request was granted . ( a ) Bro . Bell here states that a design was once formedthereby implying that it was not carried to fruition—of obtaining a charter for a regular Lodge ; the word " regular "

in this connection , further signifying that the Lodge or Lodges subsequently established by local dispensation were irregular Lodges , or , to say the least , inferior in the estimation of Philadelphians of that era—to Lodges constituted by the G . L . of England . I think this admission of Bro .

Bell , that no regular Lodge was formed in his time , is worthy the attention of our Boston brethren , and I recommend it , moreover , to the notice of " PHILADELPHOS " but as I am not directly concerned with this point I pass on to the next .

( b ) The expression " before receiving it" is a very ambiguous one , and may indicate that a Warrant was ultimately received from England .

( c ) The wording of this sentence is quite antagonistic to that which precedes it , and the expression " our request was granted" may be thus read—" our request was [ afc last ] granted . "

Having regard to Bro . Bell ' s letter , and the general features of the case , ifc seems to me that Bro . Hughan , so to speak , " blows both hot and cold " when he speaks of

warrants from England and from Daniel Coxe meaning the same thing ; and then adding , " that a charter from the G . L . of England might have been relinquished for one from tho Provincial G . M . "

lstly . I disbelieve altogether in the possibility of the London Warrant being changed for a Philadelphia one . 2 ndly . Daniel Coxe was in England , and present at G . Lodge , in 1731 , and , as I think , must have learnt

enough of the practice of G . L . in regard to Provincial and Colonial Lodges , to have ensured the continuance of the Philadelphian Lodge at No . 79 , if so placed in 1731 , as urged by Bro . Hughan . * [ See paragraph 4 , " Final Conclusions . " ]

Srdly . Except on the authority of paragraph b of Broi Bell's letter ( ante ) read disjunctively , all the evidence in the said letter bears against the theory of an English Warrant having been received . But whilst I dissent from much of the argument with

which Bro . Hughan supports his theory , I go almost , and perhaps quite as far as that erudite brother , in a belief that the entry in the Dublin Pocket Companion referring to Lodge No . 79 , was no invention of the compiler . In my

first article I put forward an hypothesis—I have no theories —that the Boston Lodge might have been first numbered 79 in error . If , however , my postulation meets with no assent , I can but say , that it is the most reasonable conjecture I am able to build up .

I think Bro . Hughan will agree that , save as regards the No . 79 , the Dublin Companion was a copy of the English Companion . The Constitutions of both " Moderns "

and " Ancients ' were similarly reprinted in Dublin . William Smith , the publisher of the London " Pocket Companion , " was thus alluded to in the minutes of Grand Lodge , under date of 24 th February 173 ± [ 17351 : —

[ Dr . Anderson ] ' reported that ono William Smith , said to bo a Mason , had , without his privity or consent , pyrated a considerable part of the Constitutions of Masonry aforesaid , to the prejudice of

the said Br . Anderson , it being his sole Property . Resolved , That every Masterand Warden present shall do all in his power to discoon . tonauce so unfair a Practise , and prevent the said Smith ' s Books beii » bought by any of the membera of their respective Lodges . "