Royal Arch Masonry In Lincolnshire.

Chapter assembled at Barton-on-Humber for the transaction of the ordinary business , but especially for tbe Consecration of the St . Matthew Chapter , No . 1447 , and the installation of its Principals . This done , the regular business was entered upon . The finance acconnt showed

a balance in hand on 31 sfc December 1880 of £ 39 8 s 9 d , from which , on motion made and seconded , the snm of fifteen guineas was unanimously voted towards the Smyth Scholarship Fund . The Register showed a total of 167 subscribing members , or twelve more than in 1875 , and

eleven more than in 1879 . Among the Officers subsequently appointed must be mentioned Comp . F . D . Marsden , to whose care , as well as to tbe liberality of P . G . Chapter , we are indebted for the publication of this little history . Ifc remains for us to add that , at tbe close of last year , there

were fifty members of Provincial Grand Chapter , of whom thirty-eight were Present or Past First Principals , two ditto Second Principals , four ditto Third Principals , and six ofcher Provincial Grand Officers who had nofc passed

a Principal ' s Chair . There is also a list of Companions who have died since the establishment of the present Prov . Grand Chapter , the most conspicuous name among them being thafc of the late lamented Comp . John Sutcliffe .

We beg to present our thauks to Comp . Marsden for having placed a copy of his History at our disposal , and so enabled us to present the result of his labours before our readers .

Editorial Blundering.

EDITORIAL BLUNDERING .

IT is nofc a little singular to note tbe strange mistakes into which even editors not infrequently permit themselves to be betrayed , or which , for lack of a little careful supervision on their part , are permitted to appear in the columns they are supposed to edit . Here is one such error

which has teen , in its chief particulars , laid bare by our genial contemporary the Masonic Review of Cincinnati , Ohio . It appears to have occurred in the Masonic column of the Neio Yorh Dispatch , but how any one could have committed so egregious a blunder is to us unaccountable .

A correspondent , in search of information on the subject of Lewises , submitted a series of questions to the Masonic Editor of the said Dispatch , among them being the following : — " Was General Washington initiated under twenty-one ? Was the Prince of Wales , Grand Master of England ,

initiated under the ago of twenty-one years by reason of being the son of a Mason ? " And what do our readers imagine were the answers , or rather the answer , for the queries were dealt with as one—vouchsafed by our

fraternal wiseacre of the Dispatchl Let them read , marllearn , and , if they are so fortunate as to possess the requisite powers of digestion , inwardly digest the editorial reply .

It were better , perhaps , if we premised that the antecedent questions were ( 1 ) whether a Lewis could be initated under twenty-one years by the existing laws of the Grand Lodge of New York , and ( 2 ) if such were nofc the case , whether such a law ever existed . The former is answered in

the negative , and the latter in the affirmative , with the supererogatory addition that tbe law in question " has however long since fallen into desuetede , " which is a matter of course , for , if the law had not fallen into desuetude , we presume that , in the order of things , ifc would still be in

force , and might be acted upon . The editor then proceeds as follows : " Under it , however "—that is , under the law " which has long sinco fallen into desuetude "— " we know that General Washington , and we believe H . R . H . the Prince of Wales were made Masons , not so much because

of their being sons of Masons , as on account ; of their disguished position . One had marshalled his country through a long and hopeless war to final victory , and the ofcher was , and is the heir of a long line of kings , and the Fraternity in each case found itself more hononred in the

breach than tbe observance of the law We may be wrong , but we think no mistake was made in either case . Washingtons and Wales do not grow on every bush , and the honour they have each done the Craft goes to show that

exceptions prove the rule . The rule , however , no longer exists , and until another Washington or Wales turns up , there will be no excuse for making Masons of yonng gentlemen under twenty- me . " The Review calls this an instance of " unconscious cerebration , " and remarks " that ' Uncle

Editorial Blundering.

John ' here gives the fact that Washington ' marshalled his country through a long and almost hopeless war to final victory , ' as the reason why he was initiated under ao-e ! Which is pretty good for a veteran . " As we happen to be in a critically analytical frame of

tnmd just afc the moment of writing these presents , we will take the liberty of going a little beyond onr Cincinnati contemporary in the length of our remarks . It will be noted that the first of the series of four questions , which the unknown querist submitted to the Masonic Editor of

the New York Dispatch , related wholly and solely to the present state of the law as to initiation in the Grand Lod ge of New York . In tbe second , inquiry was made as to whether a law permitting Lewises to be initiated nnder twenty-one ever existed—presumably in the same Grand

Lodge ; tho third related to Washington , who was a Virginian , and the fourth to the Prince of Wales , who is an Englishman . For this concatenation the Masonic Editor of the Dispatch is , of course , not responsible . But this he has overlooked , and in his eagerness to explain that

Washington was initiated into Freemasonry under twent yone years , because he entered on the task of marshalling " his country through a long and almost hopeless war to final victory " some four and twenty years after he was so made a Mason , has made confusion a thousand times

worse confounded . Let us confine ourselves for the present to this matter of Washington ' s initiation . Washington was born in Westmoreland County , Virginia , on 17 th February 1732 , but we have never heard , nor have we ever seen it recorded in any Masonic History , that his father ,

Augustine Washington , who died in 1743 , was a Freemason . He may have been , of course , as Freemasonry had found its way into North America some thirteen years before . But be this as it may , George Washington was initiated , when still a minor , in a Lodge at Fredericksburg

in Virginia , on 4 th November 1752 . His first experience in active warfare was in 1754 , on the 27 th May in which year he defeated a detachment of the French army under M . de Jumonville , who was slain in tbe action . He was with Braddock in his ill-starred expedition the year

following , when he still further distinguished himself ; but it was not till the 15 th June 1775 , thafc he was appointed by the American Congress Commander-in-Chief of its armies , and commenced his task of marshalling his country to victory . He had then been a member of the Masonic

Fraternity for close on three and twenty years , and as the Independence of the United States was not achieved until the year 1783 , or eight years later , we are at a loss to understand , except on the Irish principle of progressing backwards , how , when at the mature age of fifty-one years

he had brought his country successfully through a long and almost hopeless war , he could have been initiated as a minor in a Lodge at Fredericksburg , Va ., in 1752 , on account of his distinguished military services . Let us now turn to the Prince of Wales , in the answer

respecting whom the Masonic Editor of tbe Dispatch has had the good sense not so egregiously to commit himself . He Ttnew that Washington , who was initiated in 1752 when yet a minor , was so initiated , nofc because he was the son of

a Mason—if , as we have said , such was really the case , though we do not know if ifc was—but on account of his distinguished military services rendered from twenty-three to thirty-one years after he had been made a Mason . He only believes the Prince of Wales was initiated as a minor , nofc

because he was the son of a Mason , but because he " was and is the heir to a long line of Kings . " A very little inquiry would have satisfied our friend the editor in question firstly that the Princo of Wales was not a minor when he was initiated into Freemasonry , and secondly , that he was nofc the son of a Mason unless indeed he were the

brother of his own mother , who was the daughter of a Mason , H . R . H . the Duke of Kent ; or the son of one of his mother ' s uncles , the late William the Fourth , the Duke of Sussex , or Ernest Duke of Cumberland , afterwards King of Hanover ; in one of which

latter cases he would have been King instead of his mother being Queen of England , while in the other two , unless his mother had remained single , or being married had had no children , he might not have been tbe " heir of along line of Kings . " As a matter of fact , the Prince of Wales

was born 9 th November 1841 , and was initiated into Freemasonry * some time during tbe year 1868 , when he was uj the twenty-seventh year of his age , by the late King ot Sweden . Then the late Prince Consort was not a Mason . The late Dr . Oliver says somewhere that ifc is believed the