To Our Readers.

TO OUR READERS .

The Freemason is a sixteen-page weekly newspaper , price 2 d . It is published every Friday morning , and contains the most important and useful information relating to Freemasonry in every degree . Annual subscription in the United Kingdom , Post free , 10 / . Brethren in foreign parts , wishing to have this newspaper sent them regularly from the office of publication , should , in sending their remittances , add to the 2 d . per week the postage on 20 Z . newspapers .

To Advertisers.

TO ADVERTISERS .

T . he Freemason has a large circulation in all parts of the Globe , its advantages as an advertising medium can therefore scarcely be overrated . For terms , position , & c , apply to GEORGE KENNING , 198 , Fleet-st .

Answers To Correspondents.

Answers to Correspondents .

All Communications , Advertisements , & c , intended for insertion in the Number of the following Saturday , must reach the Office not later than 12 o ' clock on Wednesday morning . Careful attention will be paid to all MSS . entrusted to the Editor , but he cannot undertake to return them unless accompanied by stamped directed covers .

1446 . —The name of the writer of this communication must be given in confidence to the editor , previous to its publication . The following communications stand over : — " Fair Play ; " " The Last Lodge of Benevolence ; " " Bro . Findel ; " " Coloured Lodges in America , " " Lupus , H . L . A . ; " " London Masonic Club ; " " The Girls'School . "

BOOKS RECEIVED . The City Diary , 1876 , Collingwood . Discrepancies of Freemasonry by Dr . Oliver . Hogg , & Co ., Grand Commandery Knights Templar of Nebraska . The "Graphic" Christmas Number . " Proceedings of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge for 1873 ; also for 1874 . " "A Letter from Jervis Hayden to Judge Simms . " " A Letter to Bro . Findel . "

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The Freemason , SATURDAY , DEC . 4 , 1875 .

Our Royal Grand Master's Visit To India.

OUR ROYAL GRAND MASTER'S VISIT TO INDIA .

Since leaving Madras His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has been to Beypore , and reached Colombo on the 1 st of December . He landed at 4 p . m . that day , and was very well received . He was much pleased with everything . He was to leave for Kandy on the 2 nd ; the next three days were to be quiet j and he was to go to Tuticorin on the 8 th .

Comparative Cost Of The Boys' School.

COMPARATIVE COST OF THE BOYS ' SCHOOL .

We print elsewhere a letter from Bro . C . Pegler , of Leeds , on this subject , and which , as it does not happily turn on the late personal controversy , we admit readily into our pages . We feel sure that our Boys' School will not suffer from any fair discussion , but rather gain in every way . "We

also deem it right to call attention to Bro . Peg-Ier ' s letter , because it is practically the revival of the question , which was settled so far back as 1869 , in the Province of West Yorkshire , to which Bro . Pegler belongs . Bro . Pegler has not read , or at any-rate remembered the special report

of the Charity Committee , October , 28 th , 1868 , which js signed A . F . A . Woodford and II . A . Nelson , and which specially dealt , and dealt exhaustively with the important question of "comparative ' cost . " Before then we notice Bro . C . Pegler ' s letter , we think it well to reproduce the passages

of that report which treated on the " comparative cost . " " As questions have arisen from time to time relative to the cost of the boys in the school , the committee think it right to say a few words on that head . The cost of the boys per head to the close of 1867 for actual domestic and

educational expenditure , including office expenses and the education of boys out of the school , amounted to £ 36 12 s . 2 | d ., including office expenses , rates and taxes , and all expenditure , to £ \ 6 15 s . Jd ., or £ 1 2 s . id . less than in 1866 . No doubt this seems at first sight a large amount ,

but on analysis it is susceptible of satisfactory explanation . The Freemasons' Boys' School is made up of very different classes of society , and requires therefore a higher standard alike in clothing , food , and education , than is given to the orphans of merely eleemosynary institutions ,

Comparative Cost Of The Boys' School.

or boys of any one particular class . It must alv / ays also be borne in mind that the object of the Boys' School is not to make our boys charity boys , or to reduce them to the level of a pauper institution , but to give them the same education they would have had had God spared the lives

of their parents , so as to fit them for the social position they were destined , humanly speaking , to fill . And we must always keep this before us when we consider the cost of the educatiou given in the Boys' School , or compare it with that of any other . A careful analysis of the

Boys School per head , with that of several of the London institutions of somewhat of a kindred nature , gives the following result : —The expenditure per head is in excess of such schools as the Commercial Travellers ' , Warehousemen and Clerks ' , British Orphan , City Freemens'

Orphan School , St . Anne ' s , London Orphan—but is equal to that of the Clergy Orphan , and less than that of the Royal Medical Benevolent . The much larger numbers in almost all the schools will in every case account for the difference in expenditure . For instance , the office expenses

in the Boys' are larger per head than all the other schools , simply because of the limited number of boys . Whereas in the London Orphan , with 145 girls and 290 boys , the office expenses are £ 3 12 s . 3 § d . per head , or in round numbers sSi , < 2 o- in the Commercial Travellers' with

125 boys and 60 girls , in all 191 , £ 7 7 s . j ; d . per head , in round numbers £ 1400 ; in the Clergy Orphan , with 14 girls and 9 6 boys , in all i 79 > £ 4 4 s . S ^ d ., in round numbers !& 7 S - C * tIr Boys' School is £ 9 is . iojd . per head , in all £ 909 9 s . od . for 104 boys . If the number of

boys could be increased to 150 , and eventually to 200 , this expenditure would not be increased in the aggregate , and would show a reduction per head of from four to five pounds ! As regards clothing , the expenditure of the boys is larger per head than all the charities mentioned .

We give the boys two suits of good clothing a year , an extra pair of trousers , and linen and underclothing in great liberality . This is unusual in other schools , but has tended much to the health of the boys . As regards food— we give the boys of the best , and the consequence is an

infirmary always empty , and a school of healthy , active , and happy lads , of whom their medical man says , they are both a pleasure and a marvel . As it may interest the Provincial Grand Lodge to know what is the amount per head spent in food by the other charities , the committee append a

tabular statement , and if an average is taken of thsse eight schools it will appear to be £ 13 14 s . 6 d ., or £ 1 2 s . 4 j d . in excess of what is paid in the Boys' School— £ 12 12 s . 2 : Jd . per head . " u „ ., , . . Cost of Food Boys . Girls . Total . head .

London Orphan 145 290 425 £ 10 8 4 i Warehousemen & Clerks 76 36 112 120 20 Clergy Orphan 9 O 83 179 17 2 si Briiish Orphan 106 61 175 15 12 2 R . Medical Benevolent ... 200 — 200 19 3 " Commercial Travellers ... 125 06 191 10 10 7 i

St . Anne ' s 332 — 322 10 11 11 + Freemen ' s Orphan — — 127 13 5 ' )" Stich was the argument , fairly stated , in [ 868 , and we do not fancy that much change if any is required for 1875 , except a slight readjustment of figures more or less . It mig ht be very

interesting if Bro . Binckes could ascertain how far the published reports of , 874 of the institutions mentioned iii 1868 , still keep proportionally the same normal amount of expenditure per head . We believe that the position taken up by the West Yorkshire Charity Committee of 1868 ,

is a true representation of statistical facts , and the best answer to any hasty or fallacious assumptions . With regard to the institutions mentioned by Bro . C . Pegler , two remarks necessarily occur to all who have studied the great question involved in all its bearings for years .

With regard to the Provincial Schools cited , Bro . C . Pegler must add , as he himself knows well , at least 35 per cent for the different cost as between London and Provincial living , and as regards the London schools , it must be seen what is the actual class of boys educated therein ,

and what is the real system of education and maintenance before any satisfactory comparison can fairl y be made . In the Boys' School , the clothing and food are arranged on the advice of the medical officer , and we have yet to learn that they are either extravagant or unusual .

Comparative Cost Of The Boys' School.

Bro . Pegler says authoritatively that the cost per head is . £ 20 too much ; but we must beg to observe that he apparently has no ground for his statements , except his own personal opinion , He assumes that the expense is s £ ^ i per head . That involves the question of the extraordinary

expenditure ; but supposing even that he could reduce the items for food and clothing , which we greatly doubt , that is only a saving of £ 7 out of his £ 20 , which we venture to think a very questionable and arbitrary calculation . Even if you add special expenditure , the amount is only

raised to a little over s £ \ 7 , notagji , as Bro . Pegler has it . We may add that the actual number of boys is 177 , not 156 ; that without office expenses , the amount is £ 37 13 s . n \ d ., which has been reduced to £ 36 9 s . I id ., and with the office expenses , it will now be

£ 4 6 12 s . 1 id . Bro . Pegler includes the extraordinary expenditure ; we do not , as . it varies from year to year . We shall await Bro . Binckes ' s notice of the letter with much interest , and in the meantime we earnestly invite nil our brethren

to suspend their judgment , to hear carefully both sides , and above all , not to be hastily led away by questionable statements , or to endorse utterly untenable propositions—propositions very damaging , perhaps , to the present progress and future welfare of the Boys' School .

Lodge Reports.

LODGE REPORTS .

We are sometimes taken to task for our lodge reports , which no doubt take up much space , and seem at the best to have but little in them . We are told that we are making a mistake , that we are keeping out better matter , that the reading we thus supply is neither wholesome , interesting ;

nor intellectual . And no doubt a good deal may be said upon this topic , and we do not pretend to deny that there is not even more than a " scintilla" of truth , in such complaints and animadversions . But there is also another side to the question . The " Freemason " is purely a

Masonic journal , intended for Freemasons , and devoted to Freemasonry . Hence its staple must be Masonic intelligence , and Masonic intelligence alone . And by the word intelligence we do not understand merely the item of dail y or weekly news , in " rebus latomicis , " for they will not

supply a journal with more than a column , but we comprehend in the term all that appertains to lodge life , and work , and proceedings amongst us—the outer evidences of the inner teaching , of Freemasonry . And as the life of Freemasonry is made up of lodge work and lodge reports , it

is an inevitable necessity that we publish in our columns the accounts of the meetings and the speeches of our Order . Now , though it may be true that these meetings may be somewhat commonplace , and the speeches not A 1 either in tone or intellectual power , yet their report interests

some few subscribers , and it is this weekly resume of lodge work that finds a large and ever increasing circle of readers . And we will say this , in addition . We read most of the Masonic periodicals no , v " out , " and we do not find that the absence of lodge reports makes a journal

read better , or renders it more intellectual , or assures it a larger circle of readers . On the contrary , we have noted that those journals flourish most which give the truest records of present Masonic life amongst us in carefully compiled accounts of lodge work and refreshment hours ;

and that those journals which either neglect this subject , or reduce it to meaningless abbreviations , whatever their other excellences may be , invariably come to grief . We have considered the subject well over , and have determined to adhere to our old arrangements and system . That very

often lodge reports and speeches may be curtailed we apprehend is indubitable ; that repetitive and tautologous expressions may be judiciously excised we admit , that all references to the ritual may be expunged we freely concede ; but when we have said this we have said all . It is impossible to condense or shorten materially a lodge

report of Masonic speeches without taking out the spirit of the entire narrative , and so we prefer to let our brethren speak for themselves , except when common sense , or propriety , or constitutional law , happily seldom called into requisition , demand suppression or alteration . Some brethren might wishjfor a larger amount of what