Page 31 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

Amo Amass A-Muse - Lodge of the Nine Muses 31

of the Grand Lodge, to dispose of the Constitution and furniture of that Lodge,
certainly the Master and members of the present Lodge on which I eventually
conferred its Constitution, Jewels and Furniture could have no title to investigate my
conduct respecting the affairs of the former Lodge previous to their possession of its
Constitution, and it did appear to me and to other experienced and well informed
Masons, that as the whole of the members of the former Lodge had without assigning
any cause, abandoned the Lodge, and left me, its Master, to be answerable for its debts
and to dispose of its furniture respecting which none of its former members, not even
the Gentlemen who presented the several articles of the Lodge, had ever made the
smallest enquiry, I was entitled to dispose of such of the articles as I thought proper in
favour of any other Lodge; accordingly I presented the Candlesticks which belonged
to the former Lodge of the Nine Muses to the Prince of Wales’s Lodge, several years
previous to the renovation of that Lodge in the persons of its present Master, officers
and members, and consequently at the period when I made over the Constitution to
them, the Candlesticks were no longer appendages to that Charter, as I at the same
time delivered up the Minute Books (perfect and imperfect) of the former Lodge,
the different articles of furniture which belonged to it must have been known to the
Gentlemen on whom I particularly conferred the Constitution and it was certainly
their duty at that time to have demanded the articles with-held, but they well knew
that it was not in my power to recall my grant of the Candlesticks to the Prince of
Wales’s Lodge and if they had insisted on my doing so, I should have undoubtedly
refused their application for the dormant Constitution.”

Poor Ruspini! His time factor is a bit out. It was his duty as R.W.M. to have summoned
the Lodge. As to the Candlesticks, the donors had long since died. He had no authority
to dispose of the Warrant to another body of Freemasons nor to dispose of some of its
furniture previously. We can only say that a new Master was found to the original Lodge,
to whom Ruspini “conferred the Constitution” with its Minutes, Jewels and Furniture,
and he got together a number of joining brethren. The Lodge was working again after a
lapse of about three years. Brother Savage, who signed the List of Members Book after
Ruspini, must be assumed to have been the Master elected. Ten months later, Ruspini was
dead, owing £37-7-0 to the Lodge.

P.J.D. January 1980