(L)

Worshipful Sir and Brother,—

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your esteemed favour of the 2nd instant, and for the kind information therein contained please accept my sincere thanks. With reference to your suggestion to having recourse to some public entertainments, the probable profits of which would enable us to clear off the Grand Lodge account re furnishings, I can assure you that we have that kind of entertainment ad nauseam in this city, by both religious and other bodies, and I am positive that surplus funds could not be obtained from such sources.

Last Monday evening being our usual Lodge night, one of the brethren tabled a notice of motion "To consider the advisability of reducing the weekly contribution for members from 18 years to 23 years to one shilling per week." This matter has caused me to again trouble you for information. You must bear in mind, Sir, that in this city there are the M.U.O.O.F., the A.O.F., and the Druids, all of which are popular, and we shall always lag behind as long as the weekly contributions of ours for the ages above stated are more than those Lodges I have already named, because the corresponding benefits in all these cases are identical; besides the Sons of Temperance, Good Templars, and various other bodies, who all and every one hold out better joining inducements, because their scale of weekly contribution is lower than ours. To my own knowledge we have lost some twenty-five would-be members for that reason only; and further, I am positive that we shall never be numerous as long as we persevere with the rates as they now stand. This conviction has gained us all. I therefore appeal to your wisdom in this matter, that you may grant us the permission to make that alteration above stated in the scale of weekly contributions; otherwise the elements of success will fail us, and, if persisted in too long, we should never regain the time so lost, and should die out in consequence. As I was one of the page 54 principal movers in the creation of this Lodge, I naturally feel a strong desire to see it prosper, and I have come to the conclusion herein mentioned from and after a careful consideration, and faithfully comparing our scale of benefits with those of our contemporaries.