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NOTICE . 77 . e Subscription to THE FREEMASON is now 10 s . per annum , post-free , payable tn advance .

Vol . I ., bound in cloth 4 s . 6 d . Vol . IL , ditto 7 s . 6 d . Vol . s III ., IV ., V . and VI each 15 s . od . Reading Cases to hold 52 numbers ... 2 s . 6 d . Ditto ditto 4 do . ... is . 6 d .

United States of America . THE FXSEMASON is delivered free in any part of the United States for 12 s . per annum , payable in advance . The Freemason is published on Saturday Mornings in time for the earlv trains .

The price of thc Freemason is Twopence per week ; annual suhscripricn , 10 s . ( payable in advance . ) All communications , letters , & c , to be addressed to the Editor , 19 S , Fleet-street , E . C . the Editor-will pay careful attention to allMSS . entrusted tohrm , but cannot undertake to return them unless accompanied by postage tamps .

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NOTICE . Many complaints having been received of the difficulty experienced in procuring the Freemason in the City , the publisher begs to append the following list , being a selected few of the appointed agents : — Abbott , Wm ., Great Tower-street . Bates . Pilevim-strcet . Ludirate-Hill .

Born , IL , 115 , London Wall . Dawson , Win ., 121 , Cannon-street . Gilbert , Jas ., 18 , Gracechurch-street . Guest , Wm ., 54 , Paternoster-row . Phillpott Bros ., 65 , King William-street . Pottle , R ., 14 , Royal Exchange .

Births, Marriages And Deaths.

Births , Marriages and Deaths .

DEATH . SAUNDERS . —Feb . 3 , at Elliott-street , Liverpool , Eliza , aged 40 , the beloved wife of Bro . D . Saunders , Pembroke Lodge , No . 1299 , after a short illness . Mrs . Saunders had itrng been identified , with her husband , manager of the

New Star Music Hall , as an artiste of rare merit , a lady of the most benevolent disposition , and one whom the whole profession and public deeply regretted . Great sympathy is felt in Liverpool for Bro . Saunders , who has been for nine years identified with Masonry in Liverpool .

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 6 o ' clock on Wednesday evening . All Communications should be sent to 198 , Fleet Street .

Can a lodge adjourn ?•—T . T . [ No . ] The Scotch lodges give more than one degree , I see , the same night , or next night ' Can such a thing be done in England ?—H . [ Certainly not . Thc Scotch do so , and a most mistaken course it is . In our humble opinion it is one of the main reasons for the unsatisfactory condition of Scottish F'retmasonry . Another is thc facility ; of initiation

and cheapness of admission fees , and a third , and last , the want of enforcement usually of annual subscriptions from members of lodges . ] ERRATA . —In the report of Chapter Commercial , No . 79 , jiage 55 , for Comp . John Morris , read Munro . Bro . Adlard ' s Advertisement : —for " Pockets for jewels , 7 s . 6 d . each , extra , " read Od . extra . IN Bro . Bincke ' s letter on

Masonic Chanties , for 8 , 000 half-crowns producing £ 800 , read " £ 1 , 000 . " The following communications stand over : — Craft Lodges : —Hartington , 1055 ; Priory , 1000 ; Royal Standard , 1298 ; Talbot , 1323 ; Perfect Ashlar , n 78 ; St . Botolph ' s , 58 S ; St . Cuthberga , 622 ; Underley , 1074 ;

Aldershot Camp , 1331 . Royal Cumberland , Bath ; Chapter : —Mount Sion , 22 . Mark Lodges : —Era , 176 . Langley , 28 ; Mr . Baker ' s letter . Masonic Balls at Coventry , Bootle , and Barrow-in-Furness . Scotland : — Star , 219 ; Athole , 413 . Captain Chatterton's appeal is unsuitcd to our columns , which are devoted to purely Masonic subjects .

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TheFreemason, S ATURDAY , F EBRUARY 13 , i 8 j < .

Our Royal Brother, Prince Leopold.

OUR ROYAL BROTHER , PRINCE LEOPOLD .

The whole Masonic fraternity will deeply rejoice , to use Mr . Disraeli ' s appropriate words , that "sorrow has not disturbed" the "Royal hearth . " Some few days ago it was impossible ,

but that all loyal Englishmen , and , not the least loyal , Freemasons , would feel deejil y anxious ,. as the daily " bulletins " seemed to point to weakness and to danger , in the state of our Royal Brother , Prince Leopold . The thoughts of us

Our Royal Brother, Prince Leopold.

all wonld inevitably turn to that gracious lady , who was again sharing in the common lot of mortals , suffering , anxiety , and illness . We who can carry our thoughts back personally to the Queen ' s Coronation , thirty-seven years ago , will agree that the bright promise of that

auspicious day has been indeed fulfilled in the goodly "regime" of subsequent years . No more peaceful , or prosperous , or beneficent reign has ever been accorded to a beloved Sovereign , or a loyal people , and we can rejoice to think today , all of us , that under the wise laws and

constitutional monarchy of our fathers , the English throne and the English people have , as it were , become more and more united in themselves , more cemented and grounded in mutual love and sympathy , and have exhibited , amid the anxiety of some nations , and the trials of others , a

spectacle of permanency and yet of progress , deeply gratifying to every patriotic Englishman . And much of this we owe to the personal character of the Sovereign , and the happy influences of the Royal Family . Mr . Martin ' s charming work has lately given us riitnpses into the true secret

and the prevailing cause of all our national happiness , contentment , unity , and advance , when , as Mr . Locker sings , in one of his pleasant lays , " ourdear Queen Victoria was reigning . " We see now , without one doubt or question , how good and how admirable , in their true spirit of

unselfish patriotism , were all the counsels and all the views of the lamented Prince Consort . We discern how that famil y life , and home life , which have so marked the simple court of our Sovereign , have not only tended to encourage and preserve a love for domestic life and

pursuits amongst ourselves in somewhat sensational days , but have tdded lustre to the diadem , and given strength to the throne . There was an example ever before our eyes , distinct , undoubted , easily to be appreciated , and

we have all , we believe , long since realized , how deep and sure those master builders laid the foundation of our free English Constitution , who made the throne the centre of unity , and of authority , and of loyal devotion to our great English people . Thus there never has been a time when a whole

nation was , as it were , so bound up in the happiness and welfare of their rulers as now . A whole people sorrowed 'With the ( Sueen when she lost the husband of her youth * nd of her affection . A whole people stood all but paralyzed when life and death were contending , so to say , with the

hope of many millions , our august brother , the Prince of Wales . A whole people has rejoiced in those marriages which have united the fair daughters of our Royal house to the help-mates of their choice , and equally all have anxiousl y waited for the bulletins of each returning day ,

and all have rejoiced to think , . that , humanly speaking , the danger is over , and that H . R . H , Prince Leopold is now in a state of convalescence . As a member of our Order , our interest is , if it be possible , augmented and enlarged , alike in his career , and in his health , and we trust , that

surmounting the weakness of many years , he may be enabled , in a good providence , to continue that great career of usefulness which seems marked out for him . As a friend to literature , as a patron of the finer arts , in all of which he seems , as the Times said , very much to resemble

his illustrious father , he is peculiarly in his place in our Masonic Order ; and we , as English Freemasons , can gladly remember that we have alike the approval and special favour of the Heir to the Throne , the presence of the young soldier ,

the Duke of Connaught , and the fine , cultivated taste of Prince Leopold , as a set-off against the incriminations ofthe ignorant , and the anathemas of the intolerant . May this happy union endure and even grow more intimate through many a "long , long year . "

Our Good Bro. Valleton.

OUR GOOD BRO . VALLETON .

This worthy brother , though probably as yet little known to our Order , is , it appears , the correspondent in London of the French Masonic journal Le Monde Maconnique . Some time

ago he thought well to write what was meant for a most severe denunciation of English Freemasonry , and to which we thought well to advert , as our readers will remember , some little time . back . Bro . Valleton appeared to us evi-

Our Good Bro. Valleton.

dently to be a " blind leader of the blind , " inasmuch as he was making statements about English Freemasonry , which were as baseless as the " baseless fabric of a vision . " It was patent to us that he had yet -to learn the ABCof that English system he affected to understand , and

professed to denounce . All his ideas of English Freemasonry were , as we sought to show him , utterly unsound , illogical , and empirical . He clearly had hardly ever been in any English lodges at all , and he was utterly unacquainted with the actual condition , as well as the true

teaching , of English Freemasonry . Bro . Valleton gave us , as the French would say , " en ' revanche , " certain remarkable opinions ofhis own ideas as to what English Freemasonry should be . It was , alas , too evident even to the least informed , why he found such fault with English

Freemasonry . We were in the way of certain so-called philosophical theories , certain avowed designs , which abroad have only culminated , wherever a free scope has been fatall y given to them , in revolution and socialism , whose " Goddess of Reason" appears to be brute force ,

and whose untoward manifestations have been painfully seen in energetic " petroleuses " and amid deeds of wasting , plunder , and cruelty We protested , and we protest still , against venturing to associate English Freemasons with principles of which they have an abhorrence ,

and with proceedings on which they look with shame . English Freemasonry , we contended , has nothing to do either with politics or controversies , or revolutionary principles or illuminating theories . In England we are a very loyal and a very peaceable order—we are good citizens

as well as true Freemasons , and one of oar first duties as patriots is to reverence " the Sovereign of our native land , " one of our great anxieties as Freemasons is to keep at a distance from our good old Craft , the pernicious doctrines of socialistic folly . But it appears , apres tout , that Bro .

Valleton thinks we are in the wrong and that he is in the right . He knows , in his own opinion , much more of English Freemasonry than we do , and so he returns to the charge in the Monde Maconnique of January , 1875 . He writes again from London and gives us most important

information relative to the real feelings of English Freemasons on these subjects , of which we are such ignorant and beclouded exponents . In order to prove his favourite charge , that English Freemasonry is under the " direction of the Anglican clergy , " he quotes an extract from the

Free » ioscm , which tells us that thejjFrancis Burdett Lodge , | HamptonHill , was consecrated , and that Bro . R . J . Simpson , P . G . C , was present . To our stern Bro . Valleton such an act is in itself apparently a most unenlightened proceeding . He evidently is equally out of

love with our Order and " world , which kings and priests are plotting in . " And therefore he adds " it is not astonishing that we do not agree with the Freemason , which is what one may call the official organ of Sacerdotal Masonry in England . " " Happily , " the good brother goes on

to say , " the Freemason is not the organ of all English Freemasonry . " " There is in England , as in France , a Freemasonry free , philosophical , scientific , positive , which proclaims , as we do , that all men are brethren , beyond all reli gion and all nationalities 3 and notwithstanding the

spirit of division and hostility which these last institutions have always fomented amongst every people , " endeavours , as with us , to proclaim the human fraternity beyond any religious formulary and ceremony . " In the abstract we shall probably agree , in the concrete we know that

this statement of Bro . Valleton goes beyond our English good common sense . Though we accept into our Order all men except the atheist and the libertine , and look with compassion and sympathy on all mankind , we have no leaning for the expansive notion of continental

positivism or any other ism . We have nothing to do with these new philosophies and these hurtful principles which are undermining social order elsewhere , neither can we manifest any , even the slightest approval , of those subversive dogmata which end in either a positive infidelity or the offensive assertion of a " morale sans Dieu . "

We do not believe that there are half-a-dozen Freemasons who hold such opinions in England , and wc fancy we know a good deal more about