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NOTICE ! Friday next , being Good Friday , the •' Freemason" win be published a day earlier than usual , namely , on Thursday moraing , at 8 . 30 . ¦< - «•. «••• . ;

Answers To Correspondents.

Answers to Correspondents .

" Freemasonry in New Zealand , " under consideration —Thanks . " Ocarina , " in our next . " Amherst Lodge , Wcsterham . " Too late this week . In our next—Thanks . THE followingalso stand over : —AJCentury of Masonry ; Presentation to Bro . J . Dennis , P . M . 907 ; Reports of Lodges , 41 , 1225 ; Prov . G . Priory of Devon .

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TheFreemason, SATURDAY , APRIL 13 , 1878 .

Charity Reform.

CHARITY REFORM .

We have read with much interest and attention the report of the annual meeting of the Charity Organization Society , which took place on Tuesday week , under the distinguished presidency of Lord Aberdare . And while we most heartily and gratefully concur in a portion of the useful

work of the Society—we will add , its very valuable labours—namely , the investigation of applications for relief , and the detection of fraud and imposture , we do not shut our eyes to a mistake which underlies many of the assertions and accompanies the work of the Society—namely , the

confounding of two things essentially distinct , " honest poverty" and " mendacious pretence . " To speak more correctly , to our mind , the Society lays down a " hard and fast " line which , while it is useful as against the rogue , no doubt presses hardly on the truly destitute , who for many

reasons shrink from publicity of any kind . We shall all admit the need and the importance of such a society for systematic , kindly , careful enquiry , but we doubt veiy much if we are any of us prepared after all , seriously and deliberately , to endorse its peculiar dealing with charity qua

charity . For we fear that under the auspices of the Charity Organization Society , ( though we admit freely with the best intentions ) , charity would soon lose its gracious and distinguishing characteristic , and would be reduced to a minimum of gifts , somewhat ostentatiously announced ,

somewhat grudgingly bestowed . This ws apprehend , is not true charity . either on a reli g ious or Masonic definition , and though it may perhaps be true philosophically that ' * ' call it by any other name "it will " smell as sweet , " yetwe make bold , despite all the Organization Societies in the world ,

to avow our humble opinion , that such a principle of giving is not , and cannot rightly be termed , charity . There are three special fallacies which accompany the statement of Lord Aberdare , according to our appreciation of them , and we say it in all deference , which we think we are bound to

animadvert upon in the ever charitable columns of the Freemason . The first is the educational scare . Lord Aberdare is reported to have said that " great political economists had declared that the world would have been better without the endowments for charities , and the same thing

had been said in regard to the endowments for education . Without going so far as these views he could not help seeing that great mischief accompanied the good done by many of tha institutions and charities . " Now we beg to set off against Lord Aberdare the opinion of George

Canning , who declared that it was to the public schools of this country ( all , moro or less , the greater ones especially , "" endowed schools , " ) we owed a large portion of our national spirit and greatness . We do not profess to understand even by implication what is the " great mischief "

to which Lord Aberdare so mysteriously alludes as accompanying these educational endowments . For when one remembers that great network of endowed Grammar Schools and eleemosynary institutions like Christ ' s Hospital , in which countless Englishmen of all ranks and conditions

have received and still receive the invaluable blessings of a good education , and are thereby enabled to fight the rough battle of life , and rise successfully to the highest posts in " Church and State , " we cannot but feel , ( with all deference to Lord Aberdare ) , how mischievous

and paradoxical all such assertions are . We on the contrary have no hesitation in saying , that it is to those very educational endowments , which some affect to decry just now , that we owe at this moment our power and prestige among the nations of the world ! But as we live in an age of paradox and perversity , we

never feel astonished at the speeches made at public meetings , which being " ad hoc , " " pieces d ' occasion , " as the French say , are neither true , absolutely true , in the abstract , nor worth very much in the concrete What are all the opinions of political economists , many of whom have said , like Mr . Mills , many

Charity Reform.

very puerile and silly things , compared to the hourly , daily experience of us all alike in countless ways , and in ceaseless results ? Practicall y nil . Then again , "The hospitals , " Lord Aberdare went on to say , and as the " reports of the Charity Organization Society showed , were , by

the indiscriminate administration of medical relief to all who came to certain of the London institutions , proved to be great obstacles in the way of provident dispensaries , by supporting which the people , would learn to be self dependent and self-reliant . Then some of the societies

carried on by the subscriptions of living persons had drawbacks of a serious nature , keeping up unnecessary establishments and maintaining those habits among the people which the charitable desired to eradicate . " To such a "broad , " and we feel bound to add " bald " statement , we beg

most respectfully to demur , and with it we most utterly disagree . That it may be perfectly right to set up self-supporting hospitals we do not wish to deny , though in so doing the good Samaritanism of the great medical profession is thereby impinged upon , we think , against

the wish of the great mass of that most useful and distinguished body of our fellow citizens . To the working man—whether in town or country—the hospital is the greatest of blessings , and among many noble institutions in our free and favoured land none are so goodly , so

valuable , and so unselfish as our admirable charitable hospitals . Long may they flourish , and perfectl y may they develope , so long , that is , as suffering humanity has the utmost need of services which are beyond all price , and care which is most beneficent . Lord Aberdare spoke stronglv , we

are told , against the " canvassing" system in connexion with charities , and said that when he " saw these operations , a parody upon the words of Madame Roland came into his mind—Oh Charity , how many evils are done in thy name !" We really could hardly have supposed that a

statesmanof Lord Aberdare ' seminence could have "taken up " with sucha piece of " pure bathos . " We shall all remember poor Madame Roland ' s dying words , ( if true ) , and feel how correct they have been shown to be not so lon « - ago , in Paris itself . But to hear them parodied by so grave

an ex-Cabinet Minister as Lord Aberdare , in order to advocate the abolition of canvassing , is a great strain on our mental equanimity The evils of canvassing surely hardly deserved such an exaggerated apostrophe . After all , they are of a very liirited and humble kind at the

most , if they exist at all , and to say the truth , as far as we have seen the canvassing systemand we have seen much of it—a great deal may be advanced in its favour . But like Scribe ' s play —it is after all a " tempcte " in a " verre d' eau , " or , as we say , " a storm in a teapot , " and

demands neither the indignation of the Charity Organization Society , nor the denunciation of retired statesmen . But everything just now is exaggerated amongst us , and as we deal in " bunkum " and extravagance of assertion in our public appearances , so in our private life , this

tendency to inaccuracy is sapping amongst us , the reverence for candour , fair dealing , sincerity , and loyalty , which ought ever to characterise our dealings with each other . The evils attendant on Charity administration cannot be cured by the remedies of quacks , or the nostrums of the

" unqualified practitioner . They have to be dealt with with a kind but firm hand , with care and discrimination , and above all with common sense and practically . How this should be realized we will humbly essay to demonstrate in our next impression .

La Chaine D'Union.

LA CHAINE D'UNION .

Our excellent contemporary , under the able management of Bro . Hubert , gives us a most admirable number for April . In it , among other matters which we allude to elsewhere , Bro . Le Brun , a French architect , repeats the story of the initiation of the late Pio Nono , but this time at Thionville , on the authority of a M . Desforges ,

who had been his " parrain , " or godfather , in the tinitiation—what we should of old have called his " voucher . " According to M . Desforges , Pio IX . was once an officer in a French cavalry regiment , under Napoleon I ., he had , like Master Shallow , if not his little " law-suits , " his little love episodes . This is a new state-