Trading On Masonry.

TRADING ON MASONRY .

THE despicable practice of business advertising by the disp lay of emblems rightly belonging to tbe Masonic Craft , but freely adopted—in a modified form , certainlyby spurious imitators , has more than once called for reproof in these columns ; and we have lately received letters from various correspondents bearing on the same subject .

But the system so unworthily adopted has long been understood and deprecated by thinking Masons , who form a majority of the customers whom these specious traders hope to catch . Over and over again it has been scathingly exposed and held up to public ridicule , and the only

wonder is that , after all that has been written and said upon the matter , so many are found to cling to a practice whicb would be scouted in Lodge as it is everywhere outside . The cases named in a recent letter by our correspondent " Q ., " who complained of members of the Graft decorating tbeir

shops and places of bnsiness with so mnch of its insignia as the Square and Compasses , the Level , the Plumb-rule , & c , are but a few of the objectionable artifices resorted to , we are sorry to say , by those who profess and call themselves Masons . Still , on the other hard , it mnst not be forgotten

that since those signs were adopted by our Ancient and Honourable Institution , imitators have sprung up in great numbers , while virtually and in fact only friendly and benefit societies , who yet seek to attract to themselves a certain degree of that symbolic interest which attaches to Free .

masonry . It is not our wish or province to speak in any way disparagingly of the great "Orders" and "Unities" thathave sprang into being within the last half a century , whose aim it is to inculcate habits of thrift , forethought , and providence , especially among the poorer classes , and the result

of whose labours has undoubtedly been to relieve a vast amount of human suffering and distress . But they have nearly all appropriated in a greater or less degree the allegorical symbols witb whichMasonry is veiled , andtbey do not shrink from using them , as Artemns Ward would say ,

"in reckless profusion . " We venture to think , if our correspondents , who entertain so justifiable a repugnance to the illegitimate use of these emblems , would only enquire a little deeper , they would discover that in a very great majorit y of cases the appearance of the Square and

Compasses , & c . outside public-houses , denote merely the headquarters or branches of the friendly societies to which we refer , while we may be charitable enough to imagine that a similar display made by the chemist is but a guide-post to the members of sncb " Lodges , " or "Courts "

as to where they may find the medical advice and medicine to "which they are entitled in case of need . Unquestionably the practice , which is stigmatised as indecorous in our own Institution , and very properly so , is deemed no offence a gamst the rules of some other societies ; indeed , we have

Mason to believe that it is regarded in precisely the opposite way , and considered an expression of loyalty and desire 0 promote the interests of those clubs , who enter into such eager , though friendly , rivalry to increase the number ot their members . The pity is that the founders of ese societies should have so admired the svmbols of our

raft as to have adopted them in their entirety and withth * T . ration " ' but in tbis they were no doubt actuated by e desire to surround themselves with some of the halo 11 s 5 ? y and importance which has always attached to din x SOnic fraternity . Be that as it may , we are inec * to the belief that a very large number of cases of

"trading on Masonry" which have raised the just ire of our correspondents are the acts , not of Masons , but of the members of other crafts . We are painfully obliged however , to qualify that assertion by admitting , that not a few instances record

are on of flagrant attempts at trade " puffing " by brethren who scorn to have forgotten that they were prompted to join the Order by no " mercenary or other unworthy- motives . " A man who seeks participation in the mysteries and privileges of Freemasonry makes that solem n declaration in one of the earliV « f . of *™™

of his advance along the chequered floor ; and if he afterwards copies the servile custom of which complaint is made , the most charitable conclusion we can arrive at is that he must have forgotten the sublime ceremony of his initiation , and become dead to those pure sentiments which he professed when he first crossed the threshold of his

Lodge . Not many years ago we exposed the mean attempt of a firm of wine merchants who- unblushingly forwarded to the various Lodges in the Metropolis , and we believe the Provinces as well , copies of their trade circular , couched in much of the parlance of the Craft , and offering to sell wines . & c . for the festive uses of the brethren n . f . a i

- , - — .. j HV „ very much lower scale of prices than could be reasonably expected at the ordinary assemblies in the Fourth Degree But the touters had reckoned without their host , and the advertising spiders wbo , as they thought , so adroitly invited the

Masonic flies to walk into their parlours , were met with such a scowl of disapprobation , and received snch a drubbing , as will prove an effectual bar to any repeated

indiscretion of the kind . We have known other cases in which attempts to obtain business by the display of symbols and allusions to the Brotherhood have been equally scouted , and it is devoutly to be hoped they will ever be so

whenever men are found to insinuate themselves into our Order —as they do into every institution and societ y—with the unscrupulous and avaricious aim of making : it a handle for

the promotion of their personal aggrandisement . Tho world despises the sycophant who parades his hypocrisy in church or chapel for the sake of unholy gain ; and Masons who are true to the sublime and sacred tenets of

their creed should treat these reptiles of greediness with no less favour . We are disposed to think that Masons , rather than being drawn towards such establishments as expose these emblems , will , as some of our correspondents suggest ,

give them a wide berth . We have heard many brethren , both in and out of Lodge , assert that , whereas they would otherwise have been pleased to give a brother " a turn " in business , they have been entirely dissuaded and disgusted by the display of Masonic quackery on shop front , sign

board , trade card and circular in which some persons indulge . There is one tendency of such in practice , and one which obviously cannot be very advantageous to those who adopt it , and that is , it may attract to them the increasing number of those and

equally unscrupulous Masons impostors who live upon charity . If this is the effect of the flaunting of Masonic emblems , we can only wish the offenders joy of tbeir bargain . The complaints we are constantl y receiving of those predatory brethren who trade on Masonry ,

m the lowest ana most abject sense , are by no means lessened , but rather fostered , by the principle which stimu . lates and encourages this unworthy practice . The man who makes cadging his trade loses sight of no artifice by which to obtain the object of his desires ; and we know of no bait likely to excite the risibilities of a Masonic tramp so much as the glittering display of those emblems which

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