Round And About.

In the Art School of Bedford Park a little coterie of Bohemians , whose dramatic and literary duties allow of no other opportunity , gather together on Sunday mornings at the hour of eleven for a very worthy purpose . They are all members of the Craft , and turn up in their smoking hats

and lounge coats just to show their sincerity in their work . What think you , ye railers at the " actor chaps , " come these men o' Sunday morn to do ? You cannot say perhaps ? Then let me tell you .

Norman Shaw and Maurice Adams ' s Queen Anne Church looks pretty in the sunshine of a summer morning , and the bells are calling the worshippers of Bedford Park out of their cosy little red-brick huts and bungalows as a few men stand on the steps of the handsome Art Club in Bath-road , waiting

for another , who comes briskly along between the plane-trees . Mutual morning greetings take place , and presently a start is made for the Nude Room on the second floor . The staircase is lined with the clever work of the Art School students . Studies in chalk from the life , in colour from the model , in pencil from the cast , and then there are many creditable designs for textile fabrics , or sketches in black-and-white

for Egyptian embroidery . In the Nude Room on the walls are more sketches and casts , and on the wooden floor a dozen chairs , a few modelling boxes , which make excellent platforms , four curious looking pedestals , and a few more extraordinary things known in Masonic circles as furniture .

When all have entered , the door is safely locked , and all present busy themselves with the preparation of a Lodge of Instruction . Think of it , you scoffers at the manliness and sincerity of the actor and the journalist . Here are men who devote the one day in the week they have for rest and quietude to intellectual improvement in the holy science of our Craft .

* -. 1 -t The chair is taken by a certain Bro . W . Lestocq , whose charming rendering of the Butler , in " New Lamps for Old , " was such a brilliant piece of acting . The Senior Warden's chair is filled by Bro . Miller , the duties of Junior Warden are

very imperfectly undertaken by a man who is not altogether unknown as "The Druid . " The Deacon and Inner Guard are represented by Howard Reynolds , the Secretary is Bro . Holloway , for five-and-twenty years a leading actor across the herring-pond , and the Initiate is Harry Nicholls .

With care and impressiveness the working of the Third Degree is completed , and I am complimented by being elected a member of the Genesius Club . The whole thing impressed me as being novel and sincere , and I am very happy indeed in being connected , if only as a passive

member , with a club of Worthy Masons who delight to devote the early hours of the Sabbath to a study of the ritual of Freemasonry . # * *

Bedford Park has much improved since I knew it well some seven years ago . Since then the place has been drained , better houses have been built , and the defects of the old ones remedied . The commons have been pathed and laid out with shrubs . The roads have been made , and

the picturesque redness of the village toned down with the ivy and trees which have since matured . There is a club house and tennis courts , a real " stores " where provisions of all kinds may be purchased at unheard of prices , a post and telegraph office , a church , and an hotel , and a railway

station in communication with all the centres of London . But , perhaps , its greatest virtue is its freedom from that terrible craze " ajstheticism , " which once nearly ruined Bedford Park . Servant girls no longer roam the streets decked in puff bonnets and gowned in Kate Greenaway costumes in sickly green .

My contemporary of Queen-street sketched the Mark Benevolent Fund Festival at Freemasons' Tavern from the shop-girl ' s point of view , and told its readers all the fun , in one of those silly letters from Gertie to Grade , which forms a strong feature in such monstrosities as the Shop Girts '

Gazette . A good idea of what the letter is worth may be had from the postscript , which reads thus : "P . S . —I forgot to say I have that black silk I had made in Baker-street . You know what I mean . "

Here , however , is a delicious bit from the body of the epistle , which more than ever stamps the opinion of my said contemporary for what Masonry was really instituted . I have generally understood that the Craft is constituted by a body of men who find enough good in life

and human nature to bind them a little closer together than the ordinary ties of social intercourse accomplish ; by ceremonious measures of a serious and elevating kind . But my understanding is at fault , evidently . Says Gertie to Gracie : — " All the men seem dressed up

to the eyes in gold chains , gold embroideries and glittering jewels . Too bad , I thought it , and so I told Fred ; but he only laughed at me . However , one day I shall get hold of his collar and apron and pick them to pieces to trim a frock for the next fancy dress ball . He

will be so wild ! " It is ' just this pot-house , bantering manner in which Masonic jewellers and candle manufacturers speak of a noble institution which causes the condemnation with which the general public look upon us .

* * * There is a great deal of humbug knocking about the Institutions for which , perhaps , nobody in particular is to blame ; and a very good instance of it was shown by the Hon . Sec . of the " Old Masonians" some time

ago now , when he gave a very depressing account of the manner in which the Lodges look down upon this association of worthy " old boys" of the Boys' Institution . But what concerns everybody at the moment is the discourtesy shown to the Association by a certain

seventy-five gentlemen out of a certain eighty . It appears that the Secretary , desirous , as he must have been , to make the annual dinner as successful as possible , invited

eighty " members of the Masonic Craft , " by circular , to countenance the Association either by attending the dinner , or otherwise , and only five out of that eighty—Messrs . George Lambert , F . J . Terry , Augustus Harris , A . F . Godson , M . P ., and W . W . Morgan—took the trouble to

reply . There comes another startling disclosure , however , which . shows what kind of soil beneath the little soft well raked mould which covers the ground , to all appearances deeply , Masonry really thrives on . It is this . " Last winter , " said the Secretary , " we held a dramatic

entertainment in St . James ' s Hall , when I sent out a circular to every Lodge in the kingdom . In reply I received but one solitary answer , which came from the Anchor Lodge