Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 18 January 1906, Page 18

Notes

A Privileged Sect Freemasonry is a sorl of ' imperium in imperio ' in evciy country in .which it is established. It enjoys some curious exemptions under British law. We learn, for instance, from Harris's l Principles of the Criminal Law ' (6th cd., pp. 53-1) that, in Great Britalin and Ireland, persons who take or administer unlawiul oaths make themselves liable to seven years' penal servitude. Freemasons are, by special privilege, exempted from the operation of the Act. Another privilege enjoined by the brethren in the Green Isle cropped up in the course of a recent prosecution in Dublin. There 'is in Ireland a Club Act, passed with the consent of the labor organisations. One of its sections provides for the withdrawal of a club certificate in the event of persons being seen leaving the club premises in a state of intoxication. All this is vory, reasonable and proper. The law was recently put into operation in Dublin against the United Trades and Labour Club and Institute. And then the public discovered, much to their surprise, that ' this section shall not apply to any lodge of Freemasons duly constituted under a charter or warrant from the Grand Lodge of Ireland.' ' The carpenter and the plumber,' said Mr. T. M. Healy, 'dare not look crooked at a glass of porter, but Freemasons may get as drunk as Bacchus if their club has the sanction of the Grand Lodge.'