Freemasons And Their Doings.

FREEMASONS AND THEIR DOINGS .

LONDON , SATURDAY , AUGUST 15 , 1863 .

( From the Daily Telegrapli . J Partly with a sensation of satisfaction , and partly with one of humiliation , will English Society remember the parliamentary session of 1863 , in connection with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's

famous speech on Charities . What a marvellous exercitation it was ! As a feat of memory , the recitation of the Homeric catalogue of ships , or a genealogy from Genesis , may be no child ' s play ; but what were such tasks in comparison with the glib

enumeration of all the pro \ 'isions made for centuries past by well-meaning but sometimes narrow-minded Dives , for the benefit of dead and gone Lazarus ? Long Avill the admirers of fluent rhetoric recall with pride bow the inexhaustible financier discussed the

perennial quartern loaves bequeathed by old Brown , and the perpetual endowment of poor widows Avith flannel petticoats by old Smith . Nor was the egotism of Jones who founded a charity less to benefit his species than to glorify himself , or the

short-sightedness of Robinson , Avho pauperised a whole district by limiting the locality of the objects of his bounty in any way forgotten . Mr . Gladstone spared none . He showed how hospital governors ate up patients at gormandising dinners ; how the pot of ointment had been sold for a hundred pence , and how the pence had

not been given to the poor ; how deans and chapters had thriven while almsmen grew pinched , and grammarschool boys fell into ignorance ; how the Pharisee's horn had been exalted , Avhile the beggar's wallet had been emptied . The Chancellor , indeed , read his countrymen a very sharp lecture on the occasional

futility of kind actions , when unaccompanied by sound discretion and common-sense . He gave a novel , a forcible , and a not very comfortable application to the dictum Avliieh teaches us that " charity coveretb a multitude of sins ;"' for he showed beyond dispute

how , under its cloak , innumerable mean , base , and cruel sins had been fostered . Until the world comes to an end there will be people , Ave apprehend , eager to compound for their faults , and to make a tardy atonement for the parsimony of their youth , by

flinging away their wealth in unconsidered benevolence . In a very few instances did the great censor modify his wrath . "We are not aAvare , however , that Mr . Gladstone had anythingm particular to say against tlie freemasons . "Whether he be himself a brother we

have no means of judging ; but the safest hypothesis to adopt is that the Masons were omitted from- this formidable philippic for the simple and sufficient reason that there was nothing to be said against them . An eminently charitable body , they have nothing to

do with Mr . Tidd Pratt , or with the Charity Commission . Let the galled jade wince ; the withers of the free and accepted brotherhood are unwrung . They are not ambitious of the dignity of being dissected in a blue-book . They don't ask for any Act of Parliament to regulate their concerns . They have their own

Masonic parliament , and Grancl Lodge is quite competent to settle Masonic affairs in an amicable and businesslike spirit . They are given , we believe , to occasional dining and supping together , and to the promotion of innocent hilarity aud temperate

conviviality ; but we never heard the brethren accused of " eating up " their pensioners , or of serving up their school-girls in turtle soup , or of devouring their school-boys in the guise of pine apples and early peaches . They have a curious way of appropriating

their revenues to the precise purposes for which those revenues are designed , and an eccentric habit of keeping their working expenses so low that , with the indispensable exception of the secretariat of the Grand Lodge , Masonic officials , who have a vast deal more to do than the outer world imagines , are purely

honorary functionaries . Somehow , without windy appeals to the public at large , without beggingletters , Avithout paid agents , without blowing the trumpet or infesting the doors of churches and chapels with yawning plates , the Masons contrive to bring to their periodical rendezvous a highly

gratifying number of money-bags of the most portly dimensions . Somehow it is found that the donors of these said money-bags belong to every class and grade iu the land—from princes , and nobles , and dignitaries of the church , to farmers , mechanics , and

private soldiers . Somehow it turns out ultimately that the funds collected have not been wasted in printing , salaries , and tavern bills—for Masons have a Avhimsical custom of setting down what they give to others andAvhat they spend on themselves—but are bestowed

without any " cookery" of accounts or spiriting away of balances , in most laudable purposes of mercy and beneficence — in smoothing the pillows of poor , broken-down brethren , and in bringing up young children to the habits of honesty and industry , to fear God and honour the Queen .

He certainly must have been a sour cynic who could find anything to cavil at in onr report of the ceremonies held and the festivities observed at the recent la 3 * ing of the first stone of tbe new Masonic School for Boys . It is , in tbe first place , most gratifying to reflect that the school at Wood-green is no

new affair , Avhile the untiring liberality of the brethren has necessitated continual improvements and augmentations . And be it remembered , the educational charity of the Freemasons is nob confined to this institution . They have had for a long period , in full and satisfactory operation at WandsAvorth , a