business, and the 36th of the Regulations, adopted in 1721, states that "a
Deputy is said to have been always needful when the Grand Master was nobly
born," because it was considered as a derogation from the dignity of a
nobleman to enter upon the ordinary business of the craft. Hence we find,
among the General Regulations, one which sets forth this principle in the
following words:

"The Grand Master should not receive any private intimations of business,
concerning Masons and Masonry, but from his Deputy first, except in such
cases as his worship can easily judge of; and if the application to the
Grand Master be irregular, his worship can order the Grand Wardens, or any
other so applying, to wait upon the Deputy, who is immediately to prepare
the business, and to lay it orderly before his worship."

The Deputy Grand Master exercises, in the absence of the Grand Master, all
the prerogatives and performs all the duties of that officer. But he does
so, not by virtue of any new office that he has acquired by such absence,
but simply in the name of and as the representative of the Grand Master,
from whom alone he derives all his authority. Such is the doctrine
sustained in all the precedents recorded in the Book of Constitutions.

In the presence of the Grand Master, the office of Deputy is merely one of
honour, without the necessity of performing any duties, and without the
power of exercising any prerogatives.

There cannot be more than one Deputy Grand Master in a jurisdiction; so
that the appointment of a greater number, as is the case in some of the
States, is a manifest innovation on the ancient usages. District Deputy
Grand Masters, which officers are also a modern invention of this
country, seem to take the place in some degree of the Provincial Grand