Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1882 — The Price of a Secret. [ARTICLE]

The Price of a Secret.

Freemasons in the year of 1770 must have been rather surprised and amused to read the following announcement it the new Newcastle Courant of Jan. 4, of that year: “ This is to acquaint the public—That on Monday, the first instant, being the Lodge (or monthly meeting) Night of the Free and Accepted Masons of the Twenty-second Regiment, held at the Crown, near Newgate (Newcastle), Mrs. Bell, the landlady, broke open a door (with a poker) that had not opened for some time past; by which means she got into an adjacent room, made two holes through the wall, and by that stratagem discovered the secrets of Freemasonry ; and she, knowing herself to be the first woman in the world that ever found out the secret, is willing to make it known to all her sex. So any lady who is desirous of learning the secrets of Freemasonry, by applying to that well-learned woman (Mrs. Bell, that lived fifteen years in and about Newgate), may be instructed in the secrets of Masonry.— Chambers' Journal.