Guarding Our Privileges.

GUARDING OUR PRIVILEGES .

GEEAT laxity prevails with regard to the guarding of our Masonic Secrets . Lodges are held in places where , with a very little trouble , Cowans could be hearers , if not spectators of all that went on in a Lodge . Native servants are allowed free access to our working rooms , and in many places actually prepare them for working , and Brethren themselves are apt to talk of

Lodge matters openly to their companions , Freemasons or not . It should be the duty of every District Grand Lodge to appoint an Officer to personally inspect any building in which a Lodge is proposed to be held , who , in turn , should make it his special business to discover if under any ordinary circumstances it would

become unsafe , insisting , in such case , upon necessary precautions being taken before the Lodge was opened . In one of the Hill stations , a Lodge is held in a room just divided by a door from one of the most frequented places there . You can hear people talking distinctly during the time Lodge is going on , so it can be

well imagined the same advantage is reciprocated by the outer world . In another station the Lodge forms one of the several rooms communicating with each other by glazed doors . As far as our casual observation served us on the occasion of our visit no attempt had been made to adapt it for a Lodge , though a

matter of fifty rupees , perhaps , would have done all that was necessary . Eegarding the second point , the laxity we speak of is still more culpable . That native servants should be allowed to have acsess to our rooms , when the various articles , especially those used in the third degree , are lying about , is bad enough

in all conscience , but that they should be permitted to handle them as a part of their duty in preparing a room for work is utterly inconsistent with all the established ideas of the Order , and cannot be too severely condemned . The strict caution that we commend to the candidate should be applied to

every Brother at all times and on all occasions where Freemasonry is concerned . No one has any right to presume upon the lack of intelligence in the most humble of human creatures , or imagine a servant can roam about a Lodge at will year after year and not be able to put two and two

together in such a manner as to serve for a stock-subject of conversation among his jhat bhais for many a day . The prevention of this state of things lies in a nutshell . Every Lodge has ( or should have ) a serving Brother , who should thoroughly understand his position therein . No person whatsoever , unless

he be a Freemason , should have access to the room where the articles used as accessories to the various degrees are kept . Where a special room is not available , such articles , it may be mentioned ( excepting one which is so incapable of being concealed that the sooner it is abandoned for one that can be folded up the

better ) could all be easily stowed away in an ordinary trunk with a lock and key , and the world might then invade the Lodge and see nothing to set it thinking . Nothing that has to be done for the preparation of a Lodge or the preservation of its property should be considered any degradation by a serving Brother , nor

. do we think it ever has been . It is the system that attaches itself to everything Indian—even extending to Freemasonry—that is at fault : the tendency to hustle off anything approaching trouble and put up with it at the hand of a servant . Eegarding the third delinquency little need be added to what has so often been said :

that Brethren are much too injudicious in their conversation with Cowans is unhappily indisputable , and many a clue is given in a moment of thoughtlessness . That women , especially , have

wheedled many of our secrets out of their husbands we are assured of , and it will ever be so while ( to use a common phrase ) the " apron string " husband exists , and we have the misfortune to receive him in our Order . —" Indian Freemason . "

Women Freemasons.

WOMEN FREEMASONS .

IT is no easy matter to obtain information about Masonry from a Mason , for the simple reason that most of them do not exactly know how much they may say , how far they may go , and are wont to reply : " Ah 1 if you were a Mason , I could explain all that to you in detail ; but as I am talking to a

' profane' you must excuse me if I go no farther . " And the interviewer hereupon congratulates himself for the time-being that he is a ' profane , ' for were he not , and had he been initiated into certain secrets , his task would be a difficult one to discern what he should write and what he should omit in order not to

incur the displeasure of his revered master . It requires a man endowed with the gifts of speech such as possesses the ex-Senator , Dr . George Martin , Chief of the Mixed Lodge of Freemasonry in Paris , who was so kind as to receive us , and at

the same time well-acquainted with Freemasonry in all countries of the world , to make clear the actual position occupied by the woman-Freemason in France , and the impression created by this new step . " Women Freemasons exist , " said the Doctor , when visited

Women Freemasons.

by the " Sunday Times " representative at his home in the Eue Vauquelin , near the Pantheon . " I am naturally in favour of women Freemasons , ' des francheinagonnes , ' and I feel convinced that before many years in this country , when one takes into consideration the rapid strides forward made by women , women

Freemasons will be very numerous , and will not be regarded with any greater amount of curiosity than are those women in England who have just been granted the right of voting . Our mixed Lodge has only been formed for the last twenty months , yet I assure you we are doing good work , and our numbers are increasing rapidly .

"As is generally known , the builders , centuries ago , were the first to group themselves , and to communicate to one another , from country to country , their ideas , and the progress made in their special line of work . It is very evident that the groups or builders and Masons of those times were most seriously

bound to one another , for the Eenaissance took place at exactly the same period in all countries , this being all the more remarkable when the difficulties of international communications of the

epoch are considered . Freemasonry was founded , and the results were immediately appreciable , for the Masons communicated their ideas to one another , and their work improved rapidly .

" Other trades and professions followed in the footsteps of the Masons , and the women soon' grew desirous of grouping themselves as the men had done . I might here mention to you that one of the fundamental laws of Freemasonry is that no woman shall be admitted into the temple . So that , last century ,

when women in Germany tried to euter the Lodges for men , they found the doors fastened , and were compelled to found Lodges of their own , known as ' Lodges of adoption . ' Herein , they had a ritual , signs , and secrets of their own , but these were entirely different from those adopted by the men . "

" Towards the end of last century , under Louis XVI ., ' Lodges of adoption' ware started in France . They were , as in Germany , entirely distinct from the men ' s Lodges . Many ladies of the Court joined them , and became Masons of these Lodges of adoption . The Duchess de Bouillon and one of the ladies of

honour of Queen Mane Antoinette were among the first to join , so that you see , even at that time , women wished to become Masons in the same way as men . Thus , a little over a hundred years ago , there existed in France a masculine and feminine Masonry . It is to-day a notorious fact that verv little

philosophical recreation took place among the women , who , it must be said in their favour , were exceedingly philanthropic ; in the course of a few years they introduced a little music , singing , and even dancing , into their meetings . These Lodges were continued with indifferent success until about 1848 or 1850

when they disappeared altogether . In 1873 , there was an attempt at reviving them , but it failed , so that since over twenty years female Lodges are entirely a thing of the past . It should be borne in mind that I have been talking of Lodges for women only , and not about Lodges for both men and women—mixed Lodges , as we term them .

" The great champion of Women ' s Eights of her time , the late Madame Maria Deraimes , was of opinion that there should be women Masons exactly as there are men Masons . According to her , they ought to have exactly the same ritual , the same privileges , and advantages as men . I encouraged her in this

idea , and a Lodge of Freemasons , known as " Les Libres Penseurs du Pecq , " received Madame Maria Deraimes among them , and initiated her into all the ritual and formalities of Freemasonry . We gave a banquet after the meeting in question and Madame Maria Deraimes made a speech which was a great

success and created an enormous sensation in Freemasonry circles all the world over . Such conduct on the part of our Lodge naturally did not meet with the approval of the Grand Orient , and we were placed ' en sommeil . ' According to the Grand Orient , we had exceeded our rights , and were condemned . "

It may here be stated that in the Lodge of the Freethinkers of le Pecq were many celebrites of France , and among them was ex-Senator Dr . G . Martin . The Lodge was unable at the time to struggle against the Grand Orient , and six months after being placed ' en sommeil , ' suspended its meetings . The idea , however ,

which was the cause of their rupture with the Grand Orient , was not abandoned , and no better proof of this is needed than the existence of the first mixed Lodge of France , founded nearly two years ago by "Dr . Martin , and of which the Secretary , Madame Maria Martin ( no relation to Dr . Martin ) , was good enough to

explain the object to the readers of the " Sunday Times" a few weeks ago . The mixed Lodge is highly successful from all points of view , and the Masons from other Lodges , whom the mixed Lodge invites to its meetings , most heartily approve of the new movement . Continuing , Dr . Martin said : —

" There exists at the present day at Bucharest a mixed Lodge working on precisely similar lines to our own . In America , various attempts have been made to establish one , but unsuccessfully . The ' New York Herald , ' not so very long ago , published an article on the Women Freemasons of France , but it was full