ST. ANDREW'S SOCIETY, NEW YORK

Our readers, no doubt were interested in the account of the St. Andrew's Banquet, given in the December CALEDONIAN. Recently the President, Mr. Butler Duncan, has published in a handsome pamphlet, a complete report of all the speeches.

On Thursday evening, February 2d, Mr. Duncan held a very pleasant reception at his beautiful residence, No. 1 Fifth Avenue to the officers and new members of the St. Andrew's Society.

The New York Scottish Celtic Society held its annual entertainment at Murray Hill Lyceum on January 13th. There was a large audience who thoroughly appreciated the interesting programme rendered by first-class Scottish talent. The music by Dougherty's Orchestra was very fine. There was an excellent exhibition drill given by the Scottish Highlanders of New York, under the command of Captain Cochburn. The society is in a flourishing condition, both numerically and financially, and entered on a properous year.

THE NEW YORK SCOTTISH SOCIETY.

The New York Scottish Society of which Mr. Andrew Gillies is the popular president held its 17th Annual Burns celebration in Carnegie Lyceum on Tuesday evening, January 24, 1905.

Notwithstanding the inclement weather there was a large and thoroughly representative assembly of Scotch people and their friends.

The orator of the evening was the Rev. William Patterson Bruce, whose theme was Burns. He praised the exalted genius of the bard and deplored him being cut off in the flower of his youth. The Appolo Quartette gave a fine rendering of "Ye Banks and Braes," and were encored again and again.

Solos were ably sung by Miss Grace Munson and Sara Thomson which were enthusiastically received.

Mr. Alexander J. Burns. violinist, was especially happy in his selections and exquisite rendering.

With his usual technique and skill Mr. Frederick Smythe presided at the piano. Piper Ross and his highland fling dancers,

the Masters Ritchie contributed in no small degree to the evening's enjoyment.

The singing of "Auld Lang Syne" brought the gathering to a close, and congratulations are due to the committee of management for the successful outcome of their work.

NEW YORK SCOTTISH GAELIC SOCIETY.

The New York Scottish Gaelic Society held its monthly meeting on Thursday evening. January 12th in Caledonian Hall. This meeting was largely attended and greatly enjoyed, it took the form of a reception to Mr. Donald Cameron, former president of the Society. In reply to the address of welcome by President MacIntyre, Mr. Cameron spoke most happily. His patriotic songs were heartily appreciated, as well as the excellent music rendered by his friends. Mr. Cameron is a very popular member of the Society. Augus MacLeod, the Bard, contributed original Gaelic poem. The dancing by the Craig boys to the music of the bagpipe was a special feature of the evening. This was the first meeting since the annual election of officers, and several new members were received. The Society is doing good work.

CLAN GRAHAM, TREMONT, NEW

YORK.

Mr.

an

Saturday, January 7th, was a red letter day among the members and friends of Clan Graham. The installation of officers was made the occasion of a popular gathering including the ladies which entirely filled the Masonic Hall. Past Royal Deputy Kennedy assisted by Past Chief Boyle and a large delegation of Clan MacKenzie performed the installing ceremonies. Songs, recitations. speeches and music followed in rapid and delightful succession, the only regret being that the evening was too short for such a notable gathering. The clan begins the new year under the most favorable auspices, and bids fair to rival the leading Clans of the Order at no distant date.

CLAN MACDUFF, NEW YORK. The new officers of Clan Macduff were installed on January 14, and it was the occasion of a fine social evening among the members. Chief Miller disposed of the routine business with commendable rapidity. The annual reports showed an increasing membership and an increasing bank account. In the unavoidable absence of Royal Deputy Simpson, Past Chief Kennedy installed the officers, Past Chief Bain of Clan Macfarlane, Albany, assisting. An adjournment to the Harlem Casino where a Committee had prepared a pleasant repast gave the visiting clansmen a fine illustration of the hospitality of the Macduffs.

CLAN MACGREGOR, QUINCY, MASS. Since the last report of our doings appeared in the CAELDONIAN, we have elected a new staff of officers. Alexander Clark, who had filled the chair ably and acceptably for the past two years, declined to stand for a third election. Two nominations were made and the choice fell to Alexander Cowe, a talented and highly respected clansman who has for many years been connected with the Order, and always in the front rank of the workers. Following the example of his predecessor, it will be the policy of Chief Cowe to be absolutely fair and impartial, and thus prevent the formation of cliques, which have wrought disaster so often in other organizations.

At our last meeting Lawyer John D. Mackay gave an interesting talk on court procedure in criminal trials.

It is our ambition to have erected before many years a fitting statue to the plowman bard, and to that end the proceeds of the Robert Burns entertainment. which will be held on the evening of February 3, will be turned into a fund for the purpose. Several well-to-do citizens have promised to contribute to the fund, and the outlook is encouraging.

The Grand Clan is soon to meet in Boston. Matters of importance, in which Clan MacGregor has a large share of interest, will come up for discussion and settlement.

Quite a few youg men have joined the Clan of late. To get the younger Scottish element into the Order should be the especial aim of every Clansman who wants the Order to live and flourish as it deserves.

INVERNESSER.

CLAN MacDOUGALL, SOMERVILLE,

MASS.

At the meeting of this order, held on January 4, the officers for the ensuing year were duly installed. The ceremony was performed by the Grand Chief. Hugh Murray, of Massachusetts, and his staff. The following officers were installed: Chief, Thomas McNee; chaplain. Mr. Wilkie: Financial Secretary, Samuel T. Phillips; Treasurer, Malcolm McKav: Physician. Daniel McKillop; Pianist. Mr. Phillips; Recording Secretary, W. J. Regers: Warder, Alex. Macdougall; Sentinel, John Bond; Trustee, H. L. Cameron.

Lines on the installation of Thomas McNee,
to the chair of Clan Macdougall, Somerville:
All hail with joy, and blast of bugle
The new chief of the Clan MacDougall.
Than whom, 'tis ours to here declare,
None better ever filled the chair;
Nay, more, to him there doth belong
Both repartee and happy song,
Which, of themselves, is guarantee
The Clan will represented be
By one who has the tact to please,
And ever ready is to seize
The opportunities that tend

To make of each and all a friend
Since it is his own a heart
Free from guile and studied art;

MY HIGHLAND HOME.
BY CHAS. REEKIE

Let others sing o' those tropic isles,
That are kissed by the blue rolling sea,
Of those sunny lands where the sky ever
smiles,

And the blossoms ne'er fade frae the tree.
Gie me the land wi' rugged hills,

Wi' rocky glens and leaping rills

And vales where freedom's sons have bled
For freedom's cause their own.
Ah! that's the fairest land for me,
That holds my Highland home.

The Southern boasts of his flowery vales,
That crowns his fair coral strand,

Where the palm tree sighs in the fragrant gales,

That blows o'er his summer robed land.
Gi'e me the home wi' rugged hills,
Wi' rocky glens and leaping rills.
Home of the clans, where echo tells
The deeds that they have done.
And healthy mounds where heroes sleep,
On fields their swords have won!

Then hurrah! for the land where the proud eagle sweeps

O'er mountains no tyrant hath trod, And the auld kirk yards where the martyr sleeps,

Who died for his home and his God.
And bless the land wi' rugged hills,
Its rocky glens and silver rills.

Land where the pibroch thrilled the notes
Of freedom's early song;

Land where the brave still own their swords,
To guard their Highland home.

CLAN MacDONALD, BROOKLYN, N. Y. Editor Caledonian:

At the first meeting of this year held Saturday, Jan. 7, we had the honor to have with us R. Deputy Wm. B. Simpson, who with his staff consisting of Chief Mowat and Clansman Adams, of Clan McKenzie, New York, had come to install our officers.

stone;

The ceremony was conducted in a manner highly creditable to our installing officers. The new officers are Chief, Jas. Hay; P. Chief Peter Watt; Pianist, John McGregor; Chaplain, John Adair ; Secretary, John Cruickshank ; Financial Secretary, J. McD. JohnTreasurer. Bryse Martin; Senior Henchman, Dugald Yuill; Junior Henchman, Wm. Ferguson; Seneschal, Alex. G. Mitchell; Warder, Alex. Ross; Sentinel, Wm. Glass; Musical Director and Conductor, J. McD. Johnstone Piper. John Finlay; Standard Bearers. Robt. Guthrie, Robt. Lumsden, Robt. Hobkirk, and Geo. Tully; Physician, Peter Scott, M. D.; Bard, Andrew Munro;

Trustee to serve three years, James Slimon.

At our meeting on Jan. 21 P. C. Wm. Holdane, Chairman of Audit Committee, presented report of year 1904. It was a very business like report and showed that the clan had an excellent financial standing.

Our sick committee is now composed of 21 members, they being divided between the wards of this borough of Brooklyn. It is so arranged that a sick clansman will be visited

daily, and the doctor's certificate must be endorsed by at least three of the committee before benefits are paid.

The Amusement Committee have arranged a concert to take place on Jan. 27 at Prospect Hall. A fine programme has been arranged and an excellent concert is assured.

Fraternally yours,

JOHN CRUICKSHANK, Secretary.

FROM NEW YORK TO NEW ZEALAND; OR THE NEW CENTURY TRIP. BY C. W. MCMURRAN.

"Of making many books there is no end." No country has been the subject of so many books as New Zealand, considering its youth and distance from other centers of civilization, but many of these are of little value, as they are simply imperfect compilations. Undoubtedly, the country has a remarkable fascination for the tourist; the delightful climate, beautiful scenery, with its geysers, glaciers. volcanoes and high mountain ranges, the vast resources, great progress, the marked characteristics of its people, their simple and easy life, and yet prosperous condition, are beyond description.

So far the best book on New Zealand is the Annual Year Book, published by the government. The excellence of this book is due to the fact that it is written by experts who have been instrumental in making the country, and who therefore understand the situation better than a flying tourist. But from our personal knowledge of the country and its literature. we venture to say that the standard book on Maoriland has not yet appeared.

Mr McMurran, the author of "New York to New Zealand" has given grand descriptions of the principal cities and various places of interest he visited, and yet many of the facts stated by him have appeared in previous works. so that, as a whole, the book lacks originality and literary merit. The appendix in which is included about half of the entire book, gives much valuable information, most of which is taken from the Year Book. The book has many fine illustrations and historical sketches, and will be of interest as a guide book to any one who contemplates a visit to New Zealand.

"MR. OSEBA'S LAST DISCOVERY." By George W. Bell, U. S. Consul at Sydney, Australia. Published by the New Zealand Times, 1904.

This book is to be commended for its originality and peculiar style. Into a weird

and romantic story, the author has woven much valuable information concerning New Zealand, the people and their customs. The book contains an unusual number of excellent illustrations, including several portraits of government officials.

Dr. Conways says in his recollections of Thomas Carlyle :

"The thing that especially amazed me about Carlyle was the extent of his intellectual pilgrimage. From the spring of 1863 until shortly before his death in 1881 I saw him often. During those eighteen years, after my thirty-first birthday, I had studied scientific problems under scientific men and revised my religious and political philosophy; I had entered new phases of thought and belief; but there was one in which Carlyle had not been there before me. He had studied closely every philosophy, generalization and theology. He knew every direction where an impenetrable wall would be found, and every deep and byway of speculation.

"An erroneous impression about Carlyle is that he was stationary in his ideas. But Carlyle, even within my memory, grew in a way rare among literary men in advanced

years.

"I think Carlyle outgrew some of his heroes. When Germany conferred the Order of Civil Merit on him he was rather irritated by it. When I mentioned it, he said he should have been as well satisfied if they had sent a few pounds of good tobacca. He had said to Vannhagen von Ense, who called on him with thanks of all Gemany for the life of Friedrich I have had no satisfaction in it at all. only labor and sorrow. What the devil had I to do with your Friedrich anyhow!' My first misgivings about Cromwell came from Carlyle. I had got high ideas of him from the last lecture on 'Heroes and Hero Worship.' but when I said something in that vein it was plain that he had moderated. if not lost, his old enthusiasm for Cromwell. He spoke of Cromwell's power, of the 'strong nose buttressing the forehead of him,' but the only

other comment was that it was a grievous thing to break all of the ties binding men to an existing order, whatever its evils."

THE HEIR'S SECRET.

Those who are familiar with Sir Walter Scott's novels know the story of the secret room at Glamis Castle, to which only the owner and the heir and a third person knew the entrance. The author of "Secret Chambers and Hiding Places" says that the mystery, so far as he can discover, has never been satisfactorily solved. Yet the story is not mere fiction, for there is at least one other case well authenticated of a room known only to the owner of a mansion, and it is a fact that many English houses have hidden passages and buried rooms entered through concealed doors.

The walls of Glamis Castle are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are several recesses. The secret chamber or "Fyvie-room" is said to have a window, but this has not led to its discovery. Sir Walter once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and straggling arrangement of the acommodation within doors."

"I was conducted to my apartment in a distant corner of the building," he says. "I must own, as I heard door after door shut after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead; in a word, I experienced sensations which, although not remarkable either for timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point of being disagreeable."

We have the novelist's authority for saying that in his time the entrance of the chamber was, according to ancient custom, known only to three persons at once, the Earl of Strathmore, his heir apparent, and a third person, whom they had taken into their confidence. The mystery was imparted to the heir of Glamis, or the heir presumptive, on the eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is indeed remarkable, yet that is said to be the fact. Many a future lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when he should come of age. Still, however, when that time did arrive, in every case the recipient of the secret has solemnly refused to speak a word on the subject.

The other case that bears out the story of the "Fyvie-room" is the secret chamber in an ancient Cumberland house. To this day its position is known only by the heir at law and the family solicitor. This room has no windows, and every attempt of those not in the secret to locate it has been baffled. Remarkable as the story seems in these prosaic days. it has been confirmed by the present representative of the family, who wrote: "It may be romantic. but still it is true that the secret has survived the frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has been in it, that I am aware, except myself."

TENNYSON'S IMPULSIVE FATHER.

The poet Tennyson once related to Capt. M. Gordon McCabe a perilous adventure that befell his father while a guest of Lord St. HeIt lens, the English ambassador to Russia. was during a state dinner, and some guarded allusion was made to the death of the Tsar Paul. The Century Magazine tells the story as follows:

"My father, said the laureate, was a most impulsive man, and always spoke out whatever was uppermost in his mind. He leaned over, almost across the breast of some Russian dignitary covered with decorations, who sat next to him, and cried out in his quick, impulsive way, "Why, St. Helens, what's the use of speaking so gingerly about a matter so notorious? We know well enough in England that the Emperor Paul was murdered in the Mikhailovski Palace, and we know exactly who did it. Count Zoboff knocked him down and Benningsen and Count Pahlen strangled him."

An appalling hush fell for a moment upon the table, and then Lord St. Helens at once rushed into some subject discreetly foreign to the matter under discussion.

It's the custom in Russia to go after dinner into another room where the samovarls, and have tea. As the company rose, Lord St. Helens, standing by the door as the guests filed out. gave my father a meaning look to drop behind the rest. As my father came up to him, he said, in a hurried whisper :

"Don't go into the next room, but fly for your life. No flag can protect you in such a country as this. The man next to you, across whose breast you leaned, was Count Panlen, one of the most powerful nobles in Russia. Zoboff was at the table, too, and you have publicly charged both of them with being assassins. If you don't get away to-night, you'll be inside the dungeons of St. Peter and St. Paul within forty-eight hours. Go to a Scotch merchant, whom I know, just outside of Odessa (giving him the name), and he will conceal you until I can contrive to get you out of the country, if it be possible. Post tonight-the fastest horses you can get. I'll keep the company as late as I can. Don't even stop to change your clothes."

My father rushed away to his hotel, called up his courier, and made him order a fourhorse droshky, while he literally pitched his clothes into his portmanteau. He posted all night and the next day, still in his evening clothes, although the weather was bitterly cold; but he had a clever courier, and found his Scotchman, in whose house he lay concealed for weeks.

St. Helens managed to get a message to him to be on the alert, and when he heard the horn of the "queen's messenger" blown three times, to be ready to go with the man who gave the signal. At last, one stormy night. he heard the welcome sound, and disguised as a servant of the messenger, who was going home with despatches, and for whom an English frigate was waiting at Odessa, got safely on board, and so back to England.