THE name of Banyard is by no means uncommon in the eastern counties of England, where it is associated with manors, halls, and substantial houses. It is a good and ancient name, and the bearers of it are probably the descendants of that Ralph Baynard to whom the Norman Conqueror, as a reward for services rendered, gave forty-four manors in Norfolk and seventeen in Suffolk, as we learn from the Domesday Book. As happened in other parts of the country, the estates thus obtained did not remain for any length of time in the family of its first proprietor, many of them having been confiscated in the reign of Henry the First. But whatever privileges were enjoyed by his ancestors, it is certain that the subject of our notice inherited nothing but the name, corrupted in the course of years from Baynard to Banyard.

It is, however, rather with the lives of our principal men as Odd-fellows than as private individuals that we have to do. Suffice it, therefore, that he, Banyard, was born at Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, on the 23rd of March, 1816, and that at the early age of ten years he lost his father, and went to reside with his remaining parent at Lynn Regis, in Norfolk. Here he received the rudiments of an education, afterwards perfected, as all true education must be, in the rough school of the world; and here, in the course of time, he was introduced to the business (that of a tobacco manufacturer) in which he has achieved considerable success. His career as an Odd-fellow commenced under somewhat singular circumstances. When scarcely twenty years of age, he entered an Odd-fellow's lodge in Lynn, and soon became an active member. But the lodge was one of the oldfashioned, convivial kind, where only such benefits were conferred on its members as could be obtained by "sending round the hat." According to the light they possessed, the members of this society did good in their day and generation, but their mode of conducting business was certainly not of a character to satisfy an ardent and inquiring young man. Having occasion to go to Liverpool on business in 1837, Mr. Banyard noticed, while passing down St. Thomas' Buildings, a tavern with the sign of the Oddfellows' Arms. He entered and made some inquiry as to the lodge held there. In the course of conversation he learned for the first time of the

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existence of the Manchester Unity Friendly Society of Odd-fellows, and was so struck with its superiority over the club to which he belonged in Lynn, that he was not satisfied till he obtained of the landlord all the information it was in his power to impart touching its laws and constitution. He went home and thought on the matter, and soon arrived at the conclusion that it would be a good thing to introduce the principles of the Manchester Unity in Lynn. "At the very next lodge night he mentioned the matter, and for more than a year he kept up a constant agitation on the subject, and at last succeeded in influencing the majority of his fellowmembers. Some time was lost in finding the way to establish a connexion with the parent society, but at last it was discovered that his object could be accomplished through the agency of the lodge at Wisbech. Signatures to a requisition were with some difficulty obtained, and after the delay that almost always accompanies the successful issue of a new project, the Loyal West Norfolk Social Design Lodge was opened at King's Lynn on the 3rd of September, 1838. This was the second lodge belonging to the Manchester Unity opened in the county; the Lynn District now consists of fourteen lodges and about a thousand members.

On the same night Mr. Banyard was formally initiated and took office as Secretary; afterwards filling the chairs of his lodge with considerable credit. In 1840, while acting as N.G., he removed from Lynn to Bury St. Edmunds. He then found that neither in the town or county was there a single lodge of the Manchester Unity. Taking considerable interest in the progress of our Order, Mr. Banyard was naturally anxious to promote the interests of the Institution in new localities. He now knew something of the practical working of Odd-fellowship, and with a wide field before him proceeded earnestly and systematically to carry out what he believed to be his mission. Before many months had expired he was successful in founding the West Suffolk Social Design Lodge in Bury St. Edmunds, the first lodge opened in the county. Into this he threw his clearance, and imme diately took office as N.G. The following year he was elected Grand Master | of the Wisbech District, and, on the 13th of August, 1841, was presented by the officers and members of his lodge with a handsome silver medal, as an acknowledgment of his valuable services in the cause of Odd-fellowship. Before his term of office expired he was instrumental in opening another lodge in Bury St. Edmunds, besides lodges in Newmarket and Thetford. Here was the nucleus for a new district, the necessity for which was daily felt by Mr. Banyard and those who acted with him. Application was therefore made to the Wigan Annual Moveable Committee, and leave having been obtained, the Bury St. Edmunds District was formed, its first committee being held in July, 1842. Mr. Banyard was unanimously elected as the Corresponding Secretary of the new district, which honourable post he has filled ever since, without having had any person proposed in opposition to him. Now commenced his real active career as an Odd-fellow. He worked untiringly for the extension of the Order in Suffolk, and with such success, that in five years he increased his district to forty-five lodges and 2,442 members. Nor were his labours received without honourable acknowledgment, for in July, 1844, he was presented with a valuable gold watch and chain, purchased by the voluntary subscriptions of those who knew his worth. In 1848 the Ipswich District was formed out of that of Bury St. Edmunds; but although some few lodges had been closed or amalgamated with others, the Bury St. Edmunds' District at the present moment stands higher in numerical strength than ever-numbering thirtyfive lodges and two thousand seven hundred and ninety-six members.

Mr. Banyard has represented his district at sixteen Annual Moveable Committees, having been absent only from those held at Glasgow and

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Oxford since 1842. During the years 1851, 1852, and 1853, he served as Auditor of the Order, and in the years 1853, 1854, and 1857, he was elected as one of the Board of Directors. To this onerous and honourable post he carried the enthusiasm and the strict business habits which have always distinguished his conduct both in the Order and in private life. In 1846 he entered the "holy state of matrimony," and has given hostages to fortune in the persons of "two brave sons and two fair daughters." He is essentially a man of the people. In his business pursuits he has achieved success, and as a "Good Odd-fellow" he is universally known in the Unity. Moreover, he has, we understand, been for several years past elected to the responsible post of Poor-law Guardian. But the position he has attained he owes to no adventitious circumstances. It has been his lot, like that of many of his kin in the eastern counties, to shape out for himself his own course in the world. As the phrase goes, he has been the architect of his own fortunes, and to his indomitable perseverance and unswerving integrity are attributable, under Providence, the fact that he has erected a goodly edifice in the land.

ODD-FELLOWSHIP: ITS PRINCIPLES & PRACTICE.

III.-FURTHER EXEMPLIFICATION OF PRACTICE.

To say that all the funds must be applied strictly according to law is to repeat what I have before endeavoured to impress upon you. But it is well every member should bear in mind when claims are being considered, that he is one of a host of trustees for his fellow men, and when voting in favour of payments he must not only desire to show his sympathy, and act liberally, but exercise his business habits to learn the claims are perfectly correct, and display some wise economy in dispensing benefits, where there is any discretion as to amount. Thus far as to sick and funeral and widow and orphan funds. With the distress and incidental (or management) funds, it is different. They are formed by the small contributions of the members, and each lodge may therefore be as profuse or mean as it pleases in expenditure on this head.

The incidental expense fund is raised in every lodge in such a way as is thought best; in yours each member contributes, with his other moneys, three half-pence weekly. Out of this you pay the surgeon, secretary, trustees, auditors, rent of room, Unity, District, and Widow and Orphan levies, leeches or other medical aids to the sick, gifts in distress, and testimonials to officers of your lodge, the District, or Order. With proper care all this can be done from that contribution, therefore keep within it, never make a levy if it can possibly be avoided, nothing causes so much ill feeling.

You consider the travelling relief small, too trifling, in fact, to be of real ase. It is purposely so to prevent any member travelling for amusement or from idle caprice. A lodge must not grant a card unless satisfied it is necessary a member should have it. If any traveller deserves more, and gets a proper recommendation from the district officers, he will seldom find yours or any other lodge hesitate to assist him with a gift. So in other cases of misfortune your lodge will be ready according to its means, to vote a distress gift to relieve the unfortunate; but no petition can be circulated in any other district than that to which the member (or the deceased member) belongs, without proper sanction.

Now, without speaking politically, I think you will ere long confess you are pleased with the working of our model democracy. You don't think

you can until you get over some little things. What are they? Such as addressing the "Most Noble Grand." Well, you know it is necessary to have in all assemblies some head, an authority that must not be disputed, and to whom all others shall behave with respect. Fancy addressing your self to "Mr. Chairman" or "Mr. Speaker," and boring everybody with a repetition of "Sir" after each halt. Would it not remind you of the dis cussion class at the Mechanics' Institution, or a political debate in a tavern parlour. The public-house has been rightly called the "common home," and it is said to have had something to do with raising the "tap-room" to the "parlour." Our Order's mission was to raise the parlour to the lodge, and having done so, we, in the lodge, throw aside all old associations. You remember Shakspere makes Cassius say to Brutus, "Most noble Brother, you have done me wrong," &c. Do you think "Sir" would have been better? Could it have expressed old friendship, enforced respect, and the fraternal spirit, smouldering within, and soon to burst forth? This objection, on little things as you call them, is a fastidious one, it is mere disinclination to adopt our ceremonies, because, to the objector, they are new. But they must be preserved, improved if you like, but still preserved. The history of the past, even of uncivilized communities, teaches the value and policy of ceremonials; and in civilized, how they have been and are of essential service. If any one objects in your presence be prepared to ques tion him whether he would not by abolishing them in our Order deprive our meetings of their pleasing attractions-our officers of their well earned honours and influence-and our chiefs of their authority. A gentleman lately initiated in one of our lodges remarked, that our ceremonies and regalia gave a gravity and purpose to our proceedings which nothing else could so well effect. Depend upon it that without ceremony, and the ob servance of good laws, this Unity, which is now easily worked like a massive engine in a great factory, would be as useless as the fragments of such machinery, should the building be shattered and crush it.

I say our society works well, and you can test it. You conceive an alteration of general law necessary, and you mean to propose it in your lodge; you will explain it, because the lodge is not likely to sanction something which will bring it into ridicule; it is approved, and sent to the district. Before the next district committee you may have been selected as N G. of your lodge; merit alone will place you there, yours consists in suggesting the proposed alteration of law, but being done neatly, and the majority considering you a man of business, vote spontaneously. If you dare to ask a vote for any elective office, you must be fined. The time arrives for the next district committee, and by a majority of votes you are selected as delegate from your lodge. In proposing the alteration of laws, you repeat to the assembled delegates what you told your lodge. What, all over again? Yes, for when your lodge approved it, only a majority of the 150 expressed themselves in its favour; and now these delegates, who represent 5,000 members in the district, have to consider whether it shall be approved on their behalf. They decide it shall, and send it to the next A.M.C., where it must AGAIN be explained, although the new law has been printed and circulated in the Quarterly Report read in every lodge. You are to go as delegate, and will then learn whether those representing, with you, the 290,000 members of the Unity consider your new law a politic one to adopt or not. After such experience, and returning from the Grand Parliament, I should like to hear your opinions. You would, I think, then tell me, that in altering laws, in electing officers and trustees, in distributing gifts, in paying the benefits, in properly investing surplus funds, in general conduct of business, aye, and in having lectures and degrees, to instruct some, and confer honours on others, the Manchester Unity works well.

In our next we have something to say of lectures and degrees. Some say we shut good members out from office because they have not possessed themselves of a lot of these absurd secrets. How are they good members? and the secrets absurd? A good member will devote himself to office, and take his honours which entitle him to be put in nomination for higher places, and why should those who will not follow his example be in a position at any time it pleases them, to stand against him, taking the place he ought to occupy, and which he has prepared himself for by his previous work.

Really to be consistent, some of our take-it-easy members should offer at once to surrender the Unity, its funds, and its honours, into the keeping of the honorary members. Against a policy of this kind our general laws have carefully guarded. Though feeling at all times happy to see them and receive their advice and friendly assistance we are obliged to say, "We can hear you speak, we shall probably do as you say, but we cannot let you vote, we cannot let you take office; because we should be no longer independent. Become one of us as a subscribing member and you may do anything you please." These lectures and degrees, which bring together members in cordial meetings on other than lodge nights, which contain sound moral instruction, exercise the intellect, have taught many a man humility, how best to act for the general good, and which impel members onward to the topmost height in the Order-are to be sneered at !! I question whether our motto is not forgotten when such things happen. To "Friendship, Love, and Truth" we will devote another chapter.

WIDOW AND ORPHAN FUNDS.

Such of our readers as refer to the old Magazine will find in 1835, and the following years, many pages upon Widow and Orphan Funds. Originating as benevolent aids to the then usual sick and funeral benefits, we see in vol. 5, p. 233, the matter thus reasoned:-"How happy would an odd-fellow, extended on a bed of sickness, say within himself-well, if I die, I shall at all events leave the wife of my bosom, and the children of my love, above the reach of want. The Widow and Orphan Fund will render them quite comfortable as long as any of them require the aid, and I can die contented."" Practically the object was to secure a small sum weekly to a widow as long as she remained unmarried, or required such relief; and the orphan until he was enabled to maintain himself. The seed was sown, and soon spread throughout the Unity; and there are not now many districts who cannot boast of a Widow and Orphan Fund.

In the Leeds District, we observe, vol. 4, p. 239, the benefit provided was a fixed sum as an assurance at the death of members; and this kind of benefit principally prevails now, being called a bonus. In some districts-as remarked in the last number of the present Magazine-gifts are made in the discretion of the district or managing committee, according to the circumstances in each case. In others, annuities are paid to the widows for life, or widowhood, and during good behaviour, and to orphans until attaining a certain age; and in some cases the annuities to widows are as it were purchased by the payment of a bonus at once. In a few districts the peculiar provision is made to give to widows an annuity for just so long a time after the member's death as he, in his life time, had subscribed to the fund. Of the last plan the least that can be said is that it is not sound, and must work very unequally. As to the