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Craft to organize a party movement for the purpose of securing the election of certain brethren , " & c . " If this be true , " says the Grand Registrar , " I am no longer fit to hold the office with which you have honoured me . " We may here remark that , although we may regret that any such course should ever be adopted , we dissent

from so sweeping an axiom as the above . And our views are apparently sympathised with by Brothers GREGORY and HAVERS , holding briefs for the defence . The former remarks in Grand Lodge , " if Brother ROXBURGH , or those who met in his chambers , were inclined to get . up what is called a house listthey had

, every right to do so . " The latter says , " It is stated that Bro . ROXBURGH held at his chambers a meeting of Brethren of his owu peculiar views . My Lord , if he had done so , I contend that he would have been perfectly justified . " ( Cheers . ) And yet so heinous a crime was it in a certain Brother to state his regret that some

such tactics had been pursued , that an immediate vote of censure fulminated along the dais , and rumbled through the vast assemblage of metropolitan Masons there , by notice of the Grand Registrar himself , convened . It would be a novelty if the Queen ' s proclamation at an assize were accompanied by a declaration of innocence on the part of the defendants in misdemeanourbut

, such is the only parallel we can suggest to the appendage of Bro . ROXBURGH ' declaration to the agenda paper . However , if ( in the teeth of the admissions of the experienced Brethren that a certain leaven of exclusiveness is allowable , when a Board of General purposes is to be elected ) , Bro . ROXBURGH really feels aggrieved at the

imputation of such tactics resting upon him , he will take more extensive measures than he has done for making known to the Craft at large that he invited Brethren of all parties ( sic in P . M . ' s Mag ., May 28 ) , to attend his council board . We shall look forward joyfully to the confirmation of such a statement . We doubt not it will come . Men

shall learn how those blind malcontents who were the orig inal introducers of party polemics into Masonry were disarmed by the courtesy of the Executive , and routed by the ready wit of the Grand Registrar . They shall hear how Themis herself laid aside the horsehair and alpaca for the apron of the brotherhood , and auspicated a millennium in the chambers of a pious and charitable votary .

Was the very existence of party to be blotted out as something so nocuous that even confessed mal-administration were a lesser evil ? Then , of course , its ties were all unrecognized in the gathering of this federation of peace ; and the lambs that had been the most rebellious to the summoning shepherd , were , for the very hardness of

their hearts , the more tenderly invited to the elysium of this new and pleasant pasture . Already we seem to see the clerk in chambers pointing out with the tear of reconciliation in his eye , the spot where a noble Brother shook off the dust of Downing-street , and a reverend one from the bucolic districts , was invited to deposit his umbrella . If even the members of that odious " Observer party , " had known of this general invitation , ( there are

one or two Brethren of tolerable position and respectable education among them ) , the writer of this article would himself' gladly have accepted the humblest stool that supported the foot of Gamaliel . As he writes , he is warned that in his suggestion of the attractions of the meeting in question he has " embellished . " Rumour now says , " there were no biscuits and sherry . "

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THE discipline of the Craft is entrusted , as eveiy one knows , to the BOARD OF GENERAL PURPOSES . They are the Masonic "Beaks" on whose decision all sorts of pains and penalties depend , subject to an appeal to Grand Lodge itself .

The Constitutions provide with jealous care for the impartiality of this important tribunal . Half is to be appointed by the Grand Master , half by Grand Lodge —the President by the former , the Vice-President by the Board itself ; and it is always understood that the latter is not to be the fortunate wearer of the purple

apron . All this is very well , and very necessary , since it is obviously of the highest importance that this Board should be so constituted as to secure the confidence and respect of every one over whom it has jurisdiction . It is however no less clear , that if all these restrictions and checks are necessary for securing the

appointment of a proper Board , none of them can be disregarded without manifest injury to the constitution of that body . It would be as fatal to destroy the influence of the Grand Master , as to set aside that of Grand Lodge , in its appointment . Being then convinced of the wisdom of the constitutional arrangement , we do most earnestly call the attention of our Brethren to the existing state of affairs .

In theory , one half of the Board is to be appointed by Grand Lodge—that is , by the Master , Wardens , and Past Masters , of all the Lodges in England and Wales . In practice , this popular half of the Board has always been appointed by the London Masons ; those favoured few , whose lot is cast within the sound of Bow bells ; the great majority of Grand Lodgeits country

, members , have had no more share in the election than the Hottentots . So unconstitutional and unfair is this , that the eminent jurist , BRO . ROXBURGH , has thought it no innovation—as indeed it scarcely is any—to invite a few friends to a quiet meeting at his house , and there to settle upon a list of Brethren who should ostensibl

y represent the choice of the seven hundred Lodges of England : so that the Constitutions notwithstanding , we have now a Board , one half of which is appointed by the Grand Master , the other by the Grand Registrar and his friends . That the Brethren so appointed will do their duty well , we have no wish to doubt ; that they

represent the Masons of England we beg most distinctly to deny . But how long is this to go on ? How long is a London minority to govern the country majority ? Why is the Grand Lodge of England to be represented in Freemasons' Hall by the London Lodges only ? If the Provinces are to he governed by a central