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Press, Volume LX, Issue 18015, 6 March 1924, Page 9

What would Bismarck have thought of the suggestion that the United States Government should bar diplomats who "exert a demoralising influence by serving liquors"? The Iron Chancellor told Moritz Busch that at a dinner he attended when Prussian Envoy to the I>iet the guests had to drink "from a stag's horn, which contained about three-quarters of a bottle of wine, and was so made that one could not brim; it close to the lies, yet one was not allowed to spill a drop. I took it and drank it off at a draughty though it was filled with iced champagne, and not a single drop fell on my waistcoat. All the other guests were immensely surprised, but I said 'Fill it up again. . . . Such tricks were formerly an indispensable part of the diplomat's trade. They drank the weaker vessels under the table, and then wormed all they wanted to know out of them."

The silver trowel used by George Washington in laying the corner stone of the Capitol on September 18th, 1793, is to be sent to England on loan to the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Although at the time holding no Masonic office, George Washington wore the regalia of the Order when he laid the stone, lx?ing a past master in Freemasonry. This historic trowel is in the keeping of the Grand Lodge of New York, who in recent years have lent it as opportunity offered. It has gone all over the American continent in connexion with Masonic ceremonies.