Round And About.

has joined his lifelong friend , the Provincial Senior Grand Warden of Middlesex , in the management of The World newspaper . Though a smart writer , J . C . Parkinson must not be mentioned in the same breath with Edmund Yates if it is a question of pure composition , but there is one great

faculty which J . C . Parkinson possesses over E . Yates , and that is the faculty of answering a letter . It is a curious instance of the different views birds of a feather sometimes express , that while Joseph Parkinson was writing a very clear paper upon the benefits of tricycling , Atlas was ventilating his

wrath in an article which he very tersely entitled " Cads on Castors . " However , it is a consolation to the Craft that Edmund Yates and Joseph Parkinson are brilliant members of it .

Mr . W . Clarkson , the busy costumier of Wellington Street , has achieved many successes in the art of transmogrifying living individuals into the beauteous nonentities or celebrities of a bygone age . Why the royal murderer of his unfortunate wives should have been seized upon by a

fancy dressed clown as a pattern for his clowning cannot , perhaps , be explained ; and why I , of all men else , should be dragged to the bucolic latitudes of Sydenham at ten o ' clock at night , in a stuffy four-wheeled cab , decked—I decked , not the cab—in gorgeous robes , with a sword

safely stowed away under the seat ; puffed out , not with vanity , but with padding and sawdust bags , is for others to guess , but I should never have believed the little puttyfaced rascal who has the misfortune to edit these columns could so near approach to the stateliness of a king as I did

that night . My best friend and my worst enemy , could I have met them , would never have known me , thanks to the really wonderful art of friend Clarkson .

* * » But what an awakening there was the following morning ! No liveried flunkies , no lords of the bedchamber , no satin sheets or laced pillow-cases , no butterflies' brains on toast , or strains of sweet music to arouse me from my

slumbers ; nothing but the solid housekeeper thundering at my chamber door and asking whether my breakfast should consist of unsophisticated eggs and bacon , or , for a change , bacon and eggs . I had slept myself down in the course of a couple of hours from a gorgeous monarch to a common-place

nonentity , and all that was left of my regal state was a little heap of apparel , a pair of buckled shoes , and a sword whose deadliest record was tearing a hole in King Henry VIII . ' s stockings . Oh ! how wretched is that man that hangs on princes' favours . There is betwixt the smile we do aspire

to , the sweet aspect of princes and their ruin , more pangs and fears than war or women have . And when they fall , they fall like Lucifer , never to rise again . I have forsworn ere this many of the modern luxuries of existence . My first and last fancy dress ball is past , and I never intend to raise a stone to its memory .

-t .. # Thirteen years ago , when the Freemasons' Chronicle ran its series of Masonic Portraits , which eventually died out after a short career , for lack of interest and appreciation , Bro . Magnus Ohren , who for 35 years has been the secretary of the Crystal Palace District Gas Company , was portraitcd as " a shining light . " Magnus Ohren conies of a good old Swedish

family ; his great grandfather , a ship owner , married an English lady , settled in this country , and became naturalised ; his grandfather held an appointment under the Crown—as Surveyor of Sloops . His father was a wharfinger , Durand ' s Wharf , Rotherhithe , Surrey ; his mother was the daughter of the Rev . John Ovington , Baptist Minister , of Clapham Common . He was

born on the Sth of December , 1821 , at his father ' s residence , adjoining the wharf , and is , therefore a Surrey man—an Englishman by birth , as in sentiment and disposition . He was , in October , 18 37 , articled to Geddie Pearse , Esq ., Engineer in Chief to the British Gas Light Company , which , at

that time , had gas works in London as well as in the provinces . Under the able tuition of his distinguished teacher , our brother mastered the difficulties of his arduous calling , and in due time was admitted to the ranks of the profession . Since the termination of the period of his novitiate he has been closely and continuously connected with gas lighting enterprise .

From the year 1 S 46 to 1 S 50 he was engaged in the task of lighting the city of Hamburg ; was afterwards connected with the Commercial Gas Company , London , and in 1 S 55 was appointed Secretary and Resident Engineer of the Crystal Palace District Gas Company ; this Company

having made very rapid growth , the two offices were in 1865 separated , and he now holds the former post alone . In the year 1 S 56 he was admitted an Associate Member of the " Institution of Civil Engineers . " Is a member and one of the founders of the "Society of Engineers " ; is Past

President of the " Gas Institute "; a Fellow of the "Chemical Society "; a Fellow , and one of the Founders , of the "Sanitary Institute . " He is a member , and on the Council , of the " Aeronautical Society of Great Britain " ; and is , like many of the members of his profession , connected will ) other learned societies .

His Masonic career commenced m 1 S 61 , when he was initiated in the Britannic Lodge ( 33 ) , and became W . M . in r 872 , and such is the interest he has always taken in his mother Lodge that a large number of its members arc his personal friends , and were introduced by him into our

Order , including the W . Bro . James Glaisher , F . R . S ., now a Past Grand Officer of England . He is likewise a P . Z . o the Britannic Chapter . He was installed W . M . of the