Round And About.

the family plate . The luncheon was gobbled up , the speeches rattled through in a fashion which should put to the blush the windy foolery of ordinary lodge banquet orations ; and the Royals returned to town with most of the P . G . M's . and the luxurious grand officers at an early hour . Heigh Presto !

and our future King and Grand Master is now the head of the royal province of Berkshire . Being of that province bred and born , my humble congratulations lay at the feet of His Royal Highness .

The timely ending of the celebrated Old Bailey libel case gives me an opportunity of offering just one comment upon it . I have been anxiously waiting Mr . Marks' initiation into the Craft to make him at once an " eminent Mason at home" ; because there are materials in his career and

in his house for a highly entertaining and instructive article . Whether he will seek admission into Masonry now may be doubtful ; but I should think there is no doubt that he has a deal of sympathy from every fairminded man who knows anything of life . Never before

has any case been fought with such weapons as Mr . Gill used to stab his victim ; but there are evident signs that that counsel ' s conduct , in the treatment of his case , will just about put an end to his impudent ambitions now and for all time .

* « As to the Koppell story , what does it amount to ? The lust of a grown woman for a mere boy—threc-and-twenly years of age . Nothing more , nothing less . Yes , there is something less , for the story is eleven years old , forsooth . '

and the retribution—if such it is—comes not from an injured woman—a woman , mind you , who seduces this boy within a fortnight of her husband ' s death — but from a man stung to the quick by an action of the Financial News , cutting up into shreds a huge and questionable financial scheme he was about to plunge upon the investing public .

What is there in this Koppell story that is " for the public good " ? Perhaps the twelve " good men and true " should have enlightened us . But I wonder how many among them could look back upon their past without the memory of such a boyish or a manish intrigue flitting across

the lens ? Of course it is a positive cruelty to lock a dozen men in a box for ten days , dragging them from their business , without giving them a farthing of recompense ; but that is no fault of a prosecutor . And what are the odds that if each of these men had received a guinea a day they would not have willingly sat till Doomsday and have brought in an entirely different verdict ? It all comes down to the

common ground of potatoes versus principles . Twelve individuals disgusted with their task , wearied to death with the bewildering efforts of a counsel who , having a grand opportunity of winning spurs in a race against the crack horse and jockey of the day , fouls and bores and gets his

animal home by hook or by crook ; influenced by the cheers of a packed court , and allowing their own unexpansive intellects to be guided by the rantings of a lawyer fighting not for justice , or justice to his client , but for his own advancement in a profession which has now no longer a code of honour and decency to guide it . gives a verdict dead against the summing up of the Judge , and hands a

warrior over to the dogs , who would tear him to pieces if their teeth were strong enough . This is the Marks versus Butterfield case in plain language , and a greater injustice was never done to any man in a court of law , as was done to the prosecutor in this .

* * # Bro . Robert Grey , though not particularly ambitious , has been fortunate in his Masonic career since he was initiated in the St . Andrew ' s Lodge ( 222 ) , the Chair of which he

eventually occupied . Mr . Grey carried the Ionic light when the Earl of Zetland , Past Grand Master , laid the foundation stone of Freemasons' Hall , in Great Queen Street . Twenty-six years ago he was admitted a member of the Prince of Wales ' s Lodge , and was made a Grand Steward

in ' 65 . Then comes a period of steady work , and in 18 74 Robert Grey was appointed , by H . R . H . the Prince of Wales , the first Deputy Master of the Prince of Wales's Lodge , of which he is the permanent W . M . In the same

year Robert Grey assisted in the initiation of H . R . H . the Duke of Connaught , and he himself raised H . R . H . to the second degree , and in April , 18 75 , passed him to the third ; on which occasion the ceremony and its working so

impressed the Duke that , although he had been compelled to request the Lodge to meet at an earlier hour than usual , to enable him to attend some State function elsewhere , H . R . H . determined , at the last moment , to stay out the Lodge , so that he mig ht witness the ceremony of initiation on some

fortunate apprentice performed by the Deputy Master . Mr . Grey is Past Junior Grand Deacon of England , is President of the Board of Benevolence—to which he was

elected four years since—Treasurer of the Prince of Wales s Lodge , Vice-Patron of the Boys' and Benevolent Institutions , a Patron and Governor of the Girls' Institution , Chairman of the House Committee , and is a member of the Board of General Purposes . Robert Grey is

also a Mark and Royal Arch Mason , and , as an old boy of Merchant Taylors ' , is one of the founders of the Thomas White Lodge ( 1820 ) , which is sacred to old scholars of that school . Mr . Robert Grey lives in Russell Square , and can boast of a splendid collection of bronzes ,

of which he is a coiinoisseur . Being a " waterman , " he is a member of the Thames Conservancy , and is on the General Board of the Foundling Hospital , an institution to which he devotes most of his spare time .

= i ? # < ff It will be news to many that Bro . J . C . Parkinson , who appears in our supplementary p late as a "Mason of the Year , "