or 70 per centum more than his equitable share, is more than we can understand. The average of the surcharge on all the old members is 67 per centum, and is 27 per centum higher than the new members pay. Naturally, if the membership could be held together, these new rates would create and pile up a surplus, or excess, of $3,700,000 per year over any sum that the laws of Massachusetts permit the society to hold, which at the present time is about $30,000,000. However, the society has never attempted to create any surplus or reserve over and above about $2,000,000, nearly equal to the proceeds of three assessments. What kind of financing is this which at one fell stroke burdens the members with paying sums which will produce $3,700,000 per year after paying over all mortuary calls? Heretofore the order has preached for twenty-eight years that the surplus remains in the pockets of its members and shall so remain. Now it is to be created and placed in the control of Mr. Butler and his one hundred and fourteen associates who are souls with a single thought. And what for? What kind of actuaries did the Supreme Council employ to make these new rates that such a result is brought about and that the policy of twenty-eight years is reversed at a single session, without any notice to the members? The members of the Royal Arcanum, the men who pay the money disbursed by Mr. Butler and his associates, have no voice in proposing any new legislation for the order, nor in approving or rejecting any enacted by the Supreme Council. They must pay whatever the one hundred and fifteen guardians ask of them or get out of the order.