Freemasonry In Kelso.

of assisting at various public ceremonials , Masonic ancl otherwise , there is nothing recorded in the minutes of more than local interest ; the meetings were not held very regularly , and sometimes only twice a year—on St . Andrew ' s and St . John ' s anniversaries . The ceremonies of initiation , passing , and raising , were crude in the extreme , and were frequently accompanied by such rough samples of practical joking as almost endangered the limbs of the candidates , and certainly altogether terrified them . I believe that this

tomfoolery and burlesque of our beautiful service was actually believed by the initiates to be part of the ceremonies of Freemasonry ! It is no wonder that our Craft gets into disrepute when such disgraceful scenes are transacted or tolerated in a loclge ; these , combined with the orgies sometimes held after the loclge is closed , and supposed by many to be inseparable from Masonry , have proved to us a bye-word , a reproach , and a stumbling-block . To the

honour of the loclge and the credit of the Craft there arose a champion in our midst , one who had been initiated with the usual rough accompaniments and in the crudest manner—Bro . James Steel , than whom there is not a more respected or keener Mason in the Borders . He it . was who , being then a very young Mason , and seeing a candidate grossly ill-used during the ceremony of initiation , put his veto upon such a course of proceeding , ancl , by his

determination ancl example , gradually weeded out the abuses that had for so long disgraced the meetings of this particular loclge in Kelso . We return now to continue the history of the old lodge , from the date last mentioned , 1819 , to the close of the year 1831 . The meetings were regularly held , ancl there are several records of 2 mblic ceremonies , but there are no minutes for the year 1832 , ancl no meeting was held till St . Andrew ' s Day , 1838 , when we notice that the R . W . M . " in the course of the evening' alluded

to the dreadful calamity of cholera which had prevented the loclge from meeting at any period during the year 1832 , and , with much feeling and propriety , remarked he believed that all over Scotland it was a year lost in the annals of Masonry . " St . John ' s Day was held this year , but from that clay to the 26 th of December , 1843 , no meetings are recorded . The scourge of cholera above referred to no doubt had a good deal to do with the discontinuance of the meetings ; but there is also no doubt that the great political wave which swept

over the country during the Reform agitation had also a very detrimental effect upon the attendance of the brethren . Politics and Freemasonry are ever kept apart ; but during this period , when party feeling was so strong on the Borders that even life-long friendships were sacrificed to political partizanship , we cannot feel surprised at its being then felt even b y the brotherhood . An attempt was made to revive the interest in the lodge in 1843 and a meeting

, was appointed for January , 1844 , to initiate members ; but no candidates appeared . So the second and third degrees were given to those brethren who had not already been passed and raised . For St . John the Baptist ' s Day , 1844 , there is a minute , but no business is mentioned , and this appears to have been the last meeting of the old loclge until the event detailed below . As the history of the two lodges are converging , I must now return to

Tweed loclge . In January , 1869 , a proposal was made to remove the meetings of that lodge from the Cross Keys Hotel , but the matter was then abandoned . A year or two after it was proposed that Tweed lodge should try and get the name and number of the old lodge ; but this matter also fell throu gh . It was discovered that the goods belonging to the Loclge of Kelso were in the possession of a widow in the townand that they could be got for a small sum

, , which was accordingl y given for them , and an endeavour made to revive the old lodge ; but it was unsuccessful . It was not until the month of April , 1878 , that Grand Lodge sanctioned the resuscitation of the ancient lodge , upon payment of arrears , ancl it was decided by a very large majority of the members of Tweed , convened for the purpose , to amalgamate the two lodges , and at the same time to secure a place of meeting apart from a public-house or