Offensive Blackballing.

If each of these methods fail , there is then the ballot , but a rejection by that means should never be attempted unless all other methods have failed , as the ballot being secret it often happens that the

innocent are accused of setting it in action , and there should be no possible chance of finding out one way or the other how the voting went . Although AVO are so strongly opposed to the

blackballing of a candidate irorn any unworthy motive , or with a view of accomplishing some ulterior object , it must not be thought Ave should like to see the ballot abolished , or its powers in any \ vay curtailed . We

heartily approve of its use , but as heartily deplore its abuse , and it is Avith a view of lessening this latter Ave have taken the opportunity afforded by the action of our Canadian friends to say a fe \ v words on the

subject . To those who are innocent of any malpractices they will not be wholly useless , while it may happen that at least one of our number who has looked upon the ballot as offering a ready means of giving a sly thrust Avill hesitate before putting his intention into

practice , and ask himself how far removed from a Masonic offence such behaviour would be in this country , even though we have not had occasion to go quite as far as our Canadian friends in the matter .

The 'Hub' Ms

The 'Hub' MS

BY BRO " JACOB NORTON .

American legal Freemasonry . I do not believe that Henry Price was a legal Grand Master after be acted as such when constituting tho first Boston Lodgo , in 1733 . But Robert Tomlinson was a Provincial Grand Master

' PHE City of Boston , in Massachusetts , has wisely and ¦* ¦ juslly been named by the civilised world " The Hub of the Universe , " and , Maaonically , she is the mother of

of New England in 1736 , before which time no one in America exercised the functions appertaining to that high dignity . Again ; in the last century three distinguished Masons were successively appointed by the Grand Lodge of England as Provincial Grand Masters of all America , and every one of these brethren were Boslonians .

Now , as an nnheard of Masonic MS . recently turned up in BostoD , the highest authorities of the Hub , who were informed of that important event , have unanimously ordained that the said MS . shall be dubbed with the title

of " The Hub of the Universe Masonic Manuscript . For brevity sake it may be name " The Hub MS . " or , " T . H . O . T . O . M . M ., " but by no other name will the high

authorities of the Hub suffer it to be called . I therefore hereby and herewith warn all Masonic manuscript commentators , classifiers , and arrangers to take due notice thereof , and govern themselves

accordingly-Having faithfully discharged the important duty assigned to me by the Hub authorities , I shall now proceed to point out what I learned from the old Masonic MS . 1 st , I learned how the old letters in the alphabet were Bhaped in olden times . 2 nd , I found out that the old

writers never learned how to spell words , for the same writer spelled the same word in a different way each time he wrote it . 3 rd , I learned some strange words and strange phrases . But the most important information I derived from them was to find out what the old Masons knew , and

also in a measure what they did not know . These MSS . may be called photographs of the minds of their authors . But that is not all , for as long ago as 17 th June 1871 I pointed out in a paper in the Freemason that these Masonic MSS . were nothing more nor less than tbe rituals of tbe

pre-1717 Masons . Each Master of a pre-1717 Lodge had just such a kind of a MS ., and for initiating a candidate that MS . was read to him , and I believe that , with the exception of signs or secret modes of recognition , that MS . contains all the Masonry of tbe pre-1717 Masons , and all they knew about the history of Masonry .

Our MSS . also reveal sometimes Anderson ' s perversions of his authorities ; thus the " Robert MS . " has a supplement of some Regulations adopted by an Assembly in 1 G 43 , which laws are prefaced , as follows : —

The 'Hub' Ms

"Additional Orders and Constitutions made and agreed upon at a General Assembly held at , en the Eighth Day of December 1663 . " Anderson reprinted tho said Regulations , but he made the Earl of St . Albans the Grand Master of that Assembly

Sir John Denham his D . G . M ., Sir Christoper Wren and Mr . John Web his Grand Wardens , and ho altere d the dato of the meeting of that Assembly from " tho Ei ghth Day of December " to " St . John ' s Day , 27 th December . " That glaring falsehood was reprinted in several

successive Constitutions , in Preston ' s History of Masonry , and in many other Masonio books , and it was triumphantlyquoted , as " Gospel truth , " by a pious Grand Master of Massachusetts , to prove that the observance of St . John ' a Day was an ancient Masonic landmark .

Masonic MSS . are of two kinds , viz ., decorated and undecorated . The former were written by artists , tho latter are of an ordinary off-hand style . The old poem and the Matthew Cooke MSS . wero tho works of professional artistic penmen , and I shall call them decorated

and the others I shall refer to as undecorated . Now , in judging the age or authenticity of old MSS . we ought , I think , to make a distinction between the decorated and undecorated MSS ., for instance , if an undecorated MS . was submitted to my judgment , unless there was some reason

to suspect , I would pronounce it genuine , thus I have no doubt that tho Hub MS . is genuine . But if an artistic written MS . was submitted to me , I should not be quite so sure about its authenticity , more especially if there ig reason to suspect that it was the interest of the writer to

imitate old style of writing , and , as we know but too-well , that the scribes of all the Masonic MSS . of the 17 tb , and even of the 18 th century , retained old obsolete words , and

out of the way or disused modes of spelling , for the purpose of giving them an air of antiquity , we should not , therefore , be blamed for suspecting the age of the alleged antiquity of Masonic MSS . Another distinction between the two kinds of MSS .

must be noticed here . As a rule , when composing an essay for printing , unless the writer is a professional he will generally write his essay , after which he will correct it , and then he will copy it . Now our old decorated MSS . are either the penmanship of their authors , or they wero

copied from the authors' MSS . Now , supposing the author himself was an artistic penman , even in that case be must first have written the MS . in an ordinary style of handwriting before he went to the expense and trouble to write it on parchment , with all the decorations

and illuminations as they have come down to us . Hence , while an undecorated MS . may or may not be an original copy , there is at least a thousand chances to one that a decorated MS . is a copy . But whether it is a copy of a MS . written one day previous , or hundreds of years before , must be decided by internal evidence , if possible .

Now , we all agree that the poem Avas not written before the middle of the 15 th century , and on comparing the stylo of penmanship of the Cooke MS . with that of the poem , I admit that there is a strong resemblance between them , not only in the formation of tbe letters , but in the size and

shape of the MSS . too . But , " on the other hand , I find in the poem the script letter , " z , " very curiously sounded . For instance , " zef " is pronounced if and also given , and " zaf " stands for gave , " zer " means before , " zese " stands for is , and " lawze " is pronounced laugh . Now , in tho

Cooke MS . I cannot find such words . Nay more , while the poem cannot be understood without the aid of a glossary , as for the Cooke MS ., after one learns to understand

some peculiar signs or marks that stand for words , even a greenhorn can tolerably make out its meaning without the aid of a glossary . This fact itself proves that the Cooke MS . was written some considerable time after tbe poem

was written . Now , when the poem was written , secret Masonic organizations existed for about a hundred years ; and 1 strong ly suspect , that then as now , and as it was in the 17 th century , there was no perfect uniformity in the Masons' laws in tho

various districts where Lodges existed : the code of laws which the poet obtained was divided into fifteen articles and fifteen points : there can be no doubt that in those days each Lodge had a patron saint . The code of laws ,

and the story of the patron saints of the Lodge to whom that code of laws belonged , formed the orig inal materials for tbe poem , to which the poet added the legends of Each " and of Athelstan , probably the seven sciences , & c Tho

poet evidently had never read tho Bible , he does not me "