NOTES FROM NELSON.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 270, 24 April 1886, Page 2

NOTES FROM NELSON.

(from OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) THK SNUFFKD-OUT COUNCIL. Borough Council matters are progressing very favorably just now, that is from the conspirators point of view. The petition for the abolition of tho wards, and the present Council, has been fully signed and despatched to the Governor this week, and in due course the Gazette notice will appear, and thou a fresh election will come off. The mayor and councillors affected to treat the public meeting aud its conveners with contempt, and said the whole thing would end in a bottle of smoke, but, as I stated before, the matter was in the hands of men who were not easily baulked when thoy started on a revolutionary campaign, and, although they have been very quiet, they havo at the same time gone about their work in a very thorough manner, and 1 think that there is very little doubt but they will in the long run get what they want. The time of the last meeting of the council was taken up by the mayor and members inventing excuses for their defence, but they were very hollow, and a series of letters from Mr John Graham, which have appeared this week, has broken up their contentions and left very little room for them to reply.

SECRET SOCIETIES. I darosay a good many of my readers have some time or other boen members of some benefit or secret society. For myself I can claim to have been enrolled in three, and vory near in four, so I have had an insight into the inner secrets of some lodges. They all claim to be constructed on the same foundation : Brotherhood and love for our fellow men * and a very meritorious kind of foundation it is, if only carried in its integrity. Moreover, there is a distinct benefit iu such societies as the Oddfellows and Foresters, iu the provisions made for sickness, death, and widows and orphans. These benefits are material, and are all the more valued because they are attainable at the times when they are most needed. But the brotherly love and moral attributes they allect in their rituals have a considerable amount of bosh about them. It is now over twenty years since I first

joined a secret society. F.ven then. gvr- c n as [ was in the wava of human nature,

it struck me, during the process ot my being converted from an ord nary mortal into one of the chos'en, that the promises expected from me, and the beneficial results which wore expected to follow my traslation, were ju-4 a little too' strep to be swallowed, lint I was so overcome with the o the banners and the gaudy attire of my newly found brethren and the high-flown language of the worshipful lecture-master I think hewas called, (he was a drunken little tailor in ordinary life) that 1 did nut take in the whole business the first night. Before another lodge night came on I went to the West Coast rush, and did not see tin inside of a lodgerooni for about two years, but pail my contributions like «. lamb. So, being near my loige om night I thought I should visit my brethren and see what sort of an investment I had made. I had some difficulty in getting in, for all the instructions as to tin number of knocks on the door, and the cabalistic words to be uttered to the warder or tyler, or whatever his title was, were clean fOl gotten, notwithstanding my solemn oaths on my initiation to recollect everything which had boon imparted to me. bo, having gained admittance, I felt a morbid curiosity to know what was going on. There had evideutly been a question of brothorhood on, which my entrance had temporarily interrupted, but on being instructed to put my finger to my 11 )se and bow to the officers I did so, and took my seat, and the discussiou was resumed. Brother Jones having the floor, was evidently very highly strung oil his subject, and was in the middle of a very excited harangue, when Brother Brown rose, and, without either putting his finger to his nose or saluting the chair exclaimed, " Brother Jones is a sanguinary deciever;" only he did'ut say " sanguinary," or '* deceiver," but something shorter and more expressive, and Brother Brown retorted, " you're another." The chairman kept his mallet going to restore order, but the brotherly love of the eighty old maniacs, who were spreading human sympathy aud bad language, was too much for him. I got to the door, but the janitor said I could'nt get out without the password. I took him by the scruff of the neck and passed - u. wit iout the word, and have kept clear of that particular society since. Since then I have joined two other secret societies, one of them being the Good Templars. I will not go any further iuto details thau to say they both claimed high moral aspirations, and both lamentably failed in putting them into practical effect. I may, perhaps, except the Good Templars in one respect. The gentler sex wore admitted there, and lent a further iuceutive to arguments on assthetical aud humanitarian subjects, ami there was always the fun of escorting a sister home; but cvm female attractions and moonlight walks were not sufficient inducements for me to remain with them, and I became a backslider and seceded o 1 the grouuda that the doctor ordered it.

HOW I ESCAPED FRKIiMASONRY. After throe years' experience one would naturally have supposed that I ought to have had enough of it; but fate willed it otherwise. A year or two afterwards I took up my residence in a busy southern town in which were two lodges of Free and accepted Masons. Ouo of these lodges, in the pursuit of brotherly love, had got a bit mixed up, and there was a savage unrelenting hatred botweeu two sections in Luis lodge which threatened its extinction or disruption or some such calamity. The worshipful master of the lodge waa a chum of niiue, and was anxious lo have me made a mason, so as to have me as secretary and mediator between the opposing factions, lie ap. predated my amiability of disposition, did Master Tom, and kopt on for months pointing out the many spiritual temporal and social advantages which I would gain by becoming a mason. My readers are aware that I usually say what I mean in tolerable plain Anglo Saxon, and I am afraid that my answer to all these alluring pictures ho drew sounded very iniuh like dam rot. But, at last, on one lodge night he caught me in a persuasiblo humor and I consented to go through the dre;*d ordeal of initiating. Not that I feared it much I for tho throe previous ceremonies had a sort of convinced me that nothing serious than the listening to a lot of high Uown lauguage and the promise of leading a moral life was before me. Howover, at the appointed tune-, I turned up at the ante-room and there found throe individuals who were keeping guard. They were decent enough sort of fedows, porters and shunters on the railway. They were keeping guard over a box in the corner, and this box I subsequently discovered was the wardrobe containing the insignia of novices, and the shunter was tho worshipful master of the robes. These three individuals also guarded a two gallou can of beer and some bread and cheese. There were a couple of cavalry swords there also, and being in the yeomanry at the tini<\ we whiled away the fleeting moments by practising cuts and guards till the lodge was ready for operating on me, filling up the intervals of o ir exercise with occ tsionally blowing the froth off tho pewter. Time went on, and the beer grew less and less and the can was replenished; when a worshipful something or other came out of the lodge room and shouted out orders to " prepare the novice for initiation " jnst at the time tho master of the robes and myself were making Bpnrks ily from our sabres, and as soon an we gut breath we went for the beer; and the oiacial from the lodge room joined in. Some chaff took place and he said it w.i, Lime ioget ready (more beer) Ami then the master of the robes

unlocked tlie w.irdril>e and extracted a ptir of flannel nnmiMUinn ildes. ami gave them to me with orders to divest invsell of my clrttliiiis* and array myself in the fltunels. I hold the garment up by the waisibmd and intimated that they were just about largo enough for a fine tra'tled jockey, whereas I wove largo sevens. And then a few more wor hipful brothers come out ot the lodge room to enquire into the cause o delay (another be?r all round.) Further explanation followed : some of the fee an 1 accepted masons got nngry at what they termed " my misplaced levity on ro solemn an occasion." L. stiil holding the garment up to shew 'he disparity of its proportion.-, to mine* »egan to feel riled at the absurdity of the »roceeding, and when they seriously insisted iu my peeling oil everything, I rolled the flannels up into a ball and sided them at the noisiest of the rabble, and fought my way out. That my detr readers is how Ijdidn't become a mason. Some people may consider I am guilty of .; breach of privilege in thus retailing my jXperioncco iu secret societies, but i don't ihiuk the best friends and wannest .upporters of any ot them will deny the lamentable amount of balderdash tha ( unrounds them. It it were worth while [ could go on for a dozen column-, on tha uisorablo humbug pertaining to them. .Vhat mnhX t!i".v may have done in tbt oast is mostly recorded in fiction, some ol the objects and aims were perhaps suited to tho middle ages, but in this nineteenth century; iu this age of railways and telegraphs; iu this common sense materialistic period of tho world's history", the tinsel p igeantry, tho pretence of brotherhood, and the aping ui morality are played out. KoKAitt.