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Contents . PAGE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE : — Effects of Popular Credulity 201 The Origin of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master JIasons of England & c 201 The Future of Masonry ¦ J 20-1

Masonic Jottings—No CI , 205 Masonry and its Obligations 20 G Masonic Notes and Queries 20 ( 5 Correspondence 207 Sayings and Doings Abroad 20 S MASONIC MIRROR : — Masonic Mcms 211 CRAI-T LODGE MEETINGS : —

Metropolitan 211 Provincial 212 Scotland 213 Royal Arch 21-1 . Mark Masonry 215 Knights Templar 215 Canada 217 New Brunswick - 217

Poetry 219 List of Lodge , & c ., Meetings for ensuing week 220 Notice to Correspondents 220 LONDON , SATURDAY , MARCH 18 , 1871 ,

Effects Of Popular Credulity.

EFFECTS OF POPULAR CREDULITY .

A legend , almost as old as tho public knowledge of Ereemasonry in this country , if not to be traced to the first quarter of the last century , attributes to the gridiron and red hot poker a broad action in the philosophic process of constituting- a

Freemason . The wide diffusion of this belief has very probably kept back many a poltroon and a sneak from candidature , when ho might fancy that such an application might be provoked by some of his peccadillos . Cooks ancl waiters in taverns ,

till lately the chosen places for holding lodges , instead of Freemasons' Halls , have not been disinclined to maintain the popular faith , and as a coffee-room or bar-parlour under such a dispensation becomes a preparation room , the wit of the

scullery has not been uufrequently manifested for the enlig htenment of a candidate , by an announcement from the waiters to the cook "to make ready the great gridiron , as the lodge is going to make Freemasons to-night . " Photographs may even be

obtained in the shops , in which those mysteries of Freemasonry are completely available to tho general public , as most other revelations are . It is to be observed that this legend does not prevail in France , ami some of the contributions to our

Notes and Queries may . enlighten our readers how far it extends in America . The poker and gridiron would be a very congenial contribution to French Freemasonry . The public have been welcome to their belief and their jokes , though it has been sometimes a

Effects Of Popular Credulity.

practical joke for boys and witless young men , who have been gulled into being made Masons of , but we hear , with concern , of a case where a boy of tender years has been so injured as to have died in consequence of two men burning him with

a red-hot poker , on pretence of making a Freemason of him . Ifc is some satisfaction to find they have been found guilty , and sentenced by the Lord Chief Baron to nine months imprisonment and hard labour . Had not the case occurred

in Ireland , and in the County Clare , the probability is the sentence would have been severer . The superstition was perhaps the more firmly implanted in the population by the slanders against Freemasons , propagated by Cardinal Cullen and other chiefs of the Roman Catholic Church .

The Origin Of The Grand Lodge Of Mark Master Masons Of England, &C.

THE ORIGIN OF THE GRAND LODGE OF MARK MASTER MASONS OF ENGLAND , & c .

The following- remarks on this subject are given as introductory to the official Reports , just issued of the proceedings of the Moveable Grand Lodge , held at Leicester , 27 ch of October , 1870 , and the

Half-yearly communication of Grand Lodge , Gth December , 1871 -. — There is probably no degree in Freemasonry that can lay claim to greater antiquity than those of Mark Man or Mark Mason , and Mark Master

Mason . A Committee of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland , appointed to examine into ! . I : o position of the degree , reported in 1865 : — " In this country from time immemorial , and

longbefore the institution of the Grand Lodge of Scotland ( 1730 , ) and ivhat is now known us the Mark Masters Degree , ivas wrought by the' Operative Lodges of St . John ' s Masonrv . "

in A . D . 1593 , "William Schaw , Master of "Work ; , to King James VI ., orders the marks of all Masons to be inserted iu their work . In the seventeenth century , Mother Kilwinning Lodge made members choose their marks , aud

charged them four shillings each for the same . On January 7 th , A . D . 1773 , the Banff Operative Lodge resolved— " That iu time coining , all