LONDON CHAT.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17118, 13 April 1921, Page 9

LONDON CHAT.

ROYAL FREEMASONS. (FROM OCR'OW.V CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, February 24. By being admitted to United Chapter, >'o. 109, ltoso Croix, tho Prince or Wjilcs and the Duke of York have been further advanced in Freemasonry. The Princes arc members respectively of the Household Brigade Lodge anil Navy Lodge, two' of the. lodges from ivliich the membership of this Chapter is largely-drawn, and they were thus eligible for"admission. Both had been duly elected, and an emergency meeting of the Chapter was held "for the ceremony o.f admission. At the saui" time Kcar-Admiral Sir Lioilel Halsev and Surgeon-Conunander Louis Groig. IhS., Controller of the Duke of York'.Jlou>ehold, wore admitted. The ceremony was of special interest and signiikanee, for it was the first occasion on which two Princes of N the Royal blood and sons of the reigning Monarch had /joined a Ko-e Croix Chapter. The perfecting ceremony was attended by many distinguished Freemasons, including W. Brother P.. Colville* Smith (Grand Secretary of the Craft), W. Brother A. 1). Kartell ("Grand Secretary of the Mark), and members of the Supreme Council. • At the subsequent banquet, Lord Blytbswood, submitting tkjo toast of "Our Newly Perfected Brethren,"' said he blew'of no better exemplification of the ideal of the principle of Freemasonry,' brotherly love, than tho attendance of these" Royal Brothers at the -same time to undergo the ceremony of perfection. He hoped they would often see them at the .Chapter', and that in due course they would I occupy the chairs taken that evening by the Acting-M.W.S. and himself. A Coining Windfall. There is every likelihood that tho Prince of Wales'-.; Fund for the Boy Scouts will beneiit very substantially from the winding up of the National Service League, founded in 1902 by Lord Roberts. This Lear-tie -served a very valuable purpose, but/the "results of the war have made .such vast changes that the Council of .the League have decided unanimously that the objects for which the organisation was founded are. unattainable under present conditions, and that no useful public purpose would bo served by its continued existence. The League had accumulated considerable funds, and when it had been decided to terminate its activities the question aroso of how the surplus remaining after all liabilities have been settled should Ik> distributed. After all liabilities have been paid off there will remain funds amounting to about £IO,OOO. At a meeting of the councd Lord Milner (chairman) proposed that this sum should be handed over to tho Boy Scouts' Association, as being the body wliich most successfully teaches the'ideals of citizenship of which Lord Roberts'-, scheme was a part. The resolution was seconded by Lady Roberts, daughter of the,'founder of the League, and carried unanimously. -This is a verv substantial and quite luiexpected windfall, but it is to be hoped that it will not have tho effect of checking the financial support that has been flowing in response to his Royal Hignness's appeal, as £IO,OOO is only one--twentieth,of the sum asked for by nun. An Emblem of Peace. Several vears ago Dr. Rendcl Hani", discovered "in the-old -barn at Jordan's Farm, Bucks, what he behoved to-be some of the ship's timber, of the Mayflower, and' investigations have smco been exhaustive with tho idea of establishing its genuineness. The most interesting piece, of evidence is the beam bearing'the'letters .... Eft probably the remains of Mayflower, .Harwich. ..tho- rest having, been plane:l nw'ay. The central cross-beam supporting the loof i 3 cracked, /and'flias been, mended with/a metal bar . said to •be. •part of the printing press which, the Pilgrims were carrying over to America,.. This cracking and mending *f the main beam was mentioned by General Bradford in his account of the voyage ..of tho Mayflower. It is ccrtain-that tihc> Mayflower was broken no at Rotherhithe, on the Thames; in l&2-i\ and the foundation bricks of which ,the farm, was built, were made, in 1625.' The. purchasers of tho. Mayflower"-were knoAvn to .have been Buckinghamshire men. In the hostel'(the old farm) is a door; obviously ail old cabin door,-which has four oak bars with hawthorn (the Mayflower) decorations. The sequel to the investigations, which naturally aroused great interest in America, was a simple i Ceremony recently in the bam, 'When a, representative of the British Society oi Friends gave to representatives of thu j |'American Society, of Friends a piece of | the timber from tho ship, which has come j to be regarded as the cradle of the American race. This precious relic is j to be placed in the peace Portal erected between- Canada and the United States at Blaine, Washington, and will bo dedicated ; on October 20th. It is at: Jordans that William Penn is buried, and the. village is now tho centre of a modern Quaker '• community, who aro -making it self-supporting, and reviving the Quaker tradition that died out' thei'e a century ago. During; the presentation ceremony, Mr fa*. Hill, president of the Pacific Highway Association (tho man who originated the idea of tho great concrete road that links Canada and. tho TJ.iS.A.) said that few'-spots on English soil had more interest for Americans tlian that on which, they Stood. On that quiet ( country-side, amid those stately oak trees, in the shadow of the Friends' meeting house, reposed the bones of "William Penn. And the good ship Mayflower, to which. Americans . owed their origin, was brought there, and her bones reposed "besido those of Wiljiam Penn. , Tho Catholics in Maryland and the Quakers in North Carolina, each granted to the other freedom in religious thought and toleration, and here the sacred relics of the Puritan and the . Quaker found their last • resting-place. That spirit must be carried on if the world was to progress towards a more perfect stat-v Seven, thousand miles away, on rha Pacific#Highway, there had been erected a Portal of Peace, the first in the history of the world. , They were taking back a piece of the wood of the Mayflower to put in that PortifT of Peace. 'that, 'it might bring to, the.peoples-on the Pacific Ocean that peace which pas*cth understanding, ■ Tho sawing and removal of the block of wood from tho beam tben # took place, e;)di man in thc'little group using t-ho saw iu turn. Then the' Tog was presented to air. Hill, who said with great emotion, "I-thank thee, and I tako it feeling t"he v responsibility it conveys—a link of peace between Great Britain and the United StateSs.of.America. I am. glad that this link is forged on Lincoln's birthday, wliidi to-day is celebrated as a holiday throughout the States." . Mr J?. T. Wade (High Commissioner for British Columbia) said • that -the Peace Portal was" the effort of a great imagination, calling up the fact that ono -hundred years haa gone by, without one hostile encampment on either side of the invisible line, without a fort between Canada and' America, and, strange, human nature being-what it was, without a conflict. On one side of the Peace Portal aro the words, "Children of a Common Mother"; on the reverse, "Brethren dwelling together in unity"; and on the concrete and steel doors recessed in tho walls wore the words, "Open for one hundred years, may these doors never bo closed." Others at the ceremony included Sir Basil Thomson and General . H. -'< T. Hughes, tho first Canadian to be in BelgiumStandard. Type of English Journalism. Lieutenant-Colonel L. S. Amery,, who presided at a lecture on English-written Journalism delivered at London University, by Mr Frank Fox, in con;

notion with the Journalism course i<T-eed w'"th the lecturer that rmgusu iourarfcni was i»w tending to return towards the older type. It would soon "ain reflect. Colonel Amery thought what were the paramount interests ot ■tte BriUsh peopie-the working of their own systenidf responsible government and the development, of world thought and world movements. The tress was tbc one trulv Imperial institution that the Empire had, and its responsibility was immeasurable.. The modern tendency of the English Press J™ "J American characteristics he attributed .to'war influence. T _ , ■Mr Fox took the average London dailv of a quarter of a conturv _ ago as: his standard type ot English journalism, "even though it hardly snryivos nw out of Scotland." lie traced the

changes from that, standard in America, in Australia, aud m Londou today. The changes in America had been vei'v.great.; for the journalist there was without most of the charts which guided the English editor. There was much less responsibility, but more "human interest'" 5 in his columns. From America came the idea of "making news,' e.g., The Stanley Expedition. The nearest approach to the standard type was to ; be found, he said,' in the Australasian Press, which cherished a reverent regard for established English traditions. • • ■ 'Change Chimes.Concert.

At one o'clock any day in the .City again now, after six years of silence, may he heard, above London's perpetual whirl and the roar'of incessant trallic,

i the chiming times from the bells of the Koyal Exchange. When the belLs were rung in a trial- -to herald peace they were proved to be faulty; since then they have been recast and tuned accurately on the-new harmonic-system. The restored carillon of thirteen wag set going bv the simple,action of the Lady Mayoress, who pressed a button on a table in tho Court of the Exchange. From the button a wire stretched away up to the roof of the building. In n brief space.the current set the drums turning, and then the old familiar tunes began to-peal from below the grasshopper. They started with the National Anthem, and the crowd outside cheered tremendously. Then came "Tom Bowling," followed by "Oh, dear, what ci'JV. the matter be. 4 " and "God■ JJJosS the '■Prince of "Wales." " On this great day

the public heard the whole repertory ol twenty-one melodies—seven eacb for Juigland, Scotland, and Ireland. Henceforth the midday melodies will be oneo more a daily feature of City life, a pr'jI gramme having been drawn up for each flav 'in the week, three aire per day, at'four periods of the day. The total weight of the bells is about seven tons. "The chimes have. been rung since 1671," said the Master of the Mercers' Company, which is part-owner with the Corporation of the building. The chairman of the Gresham Committee regretted that there was ''not a more complete harmony in the world around ns,". to fit in with the harmony of the bells. ' The Lord Mayor remarked that the bells had always been regarded with fondness i.y the citizens of London.- Th«y-wer« alluded to repeatedly i» the histories .

of civic events, and they found a plitce in those quaint annul* of tho old city on which so many novels had been founded. "In modern days," he added, "their delightful chimes had had a soft* ening effect on many a hard bargain on 'Change." Whether or not, they certainly aro a part of City tradition which citizens would not like to seen banish- , cd. There have been chimes under < Gresham's grasshopper for over "2.50 year 3. ■ '