Sons of Malta

An account more contemporary with the origins of the Sons of Malta, though still more than thirty years after the fact, was provided by "old-time newspaper man" Phocion Howard in 1886: "When the yellow fever for the first time became sporadic in New Orleans, when white, creole, and black by the hundreds were dying every day, A. L. Saunders continued publication of the Delta, and filled it with wit and humor so as to divert the minds from the sad visitation.

Even at that early date all the South was inoculated with the idea of filibustering...Mr. Saunders has often told me that in a house on Canal street where he and Forsyth wrote the ritual for the Sons of Malta, there were then five yellow-fever corpses.

Having perfected the ritual, which was as prettily written as anything could be, having for its object "the wresting from the dominion of Spain the Gem of the Antilles and setting it in the diadem of Southern chivalry," a call was published for volunteers to go to Cuba.

As a candidate he was by no means 'one of the still and smiling kind,' and in reply to 'the standard questions' propounded him on the occasion, alternately shocked the brethren and convulsed them with laughter.

In this spirit he undertook to prepare that celebrated travesty of Freemasonry entitled 'The Sons of Malta' in which, with considerable originality, are sacrilegiously blended some of the most sacred tenets of the order.

To the uninitiated public it was believed to be an order of men secretly banded together for the purpose of capturing the Island of Cuba, and the respect for the Monroe Doctrine, which the members always professed, had the effect of confirming that belief.

S. M. The December 27 edition of that paper, in reporting on the burning of the Mechanics' Building, says "The Sons of Malta lost all their effects, as did the United Laborers' Association."

The existence of lodges in Cuba, Mexico, or (as later press claimed) Europe may have been factual or may have been more of the fanciful humbuggery that was part of the Sons of Malta's standard practice.

The same correspondent for the Sun on July 19: "About three hundred delegates have arrived to attend the national convention of the Sons of Malta, which assembles in this city Monday morning next.

"[Note 6] It was also reported that officers for "the Supreme Grand Council of the Sons of Malta of the United States, Cuba and Mexico" were chosen from Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

"[29] The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana) of July 27, 1858 quoting the Philadelphia North American, "speaking of the assembling of the national convention": "In England the office of Grand Commander is held by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Albert condescends to perform the less arduous and important duties of G.R.J.A.

Indeed, throughout Europe the order is hailed as one of the democratic features of the age, while prince and peasant and parvenu, within its sacred precincts, meet upon a common recognition of the universal brotherhood."

The Burlington Weekly Free Press apparently took the reported membership of the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Albert, Vice President Breckenridge, and Stephen Douglas at face value, adding that "No prominent or well known citizens appear to have attended the convention, or to be among the officers of the national organization then established.

"[30] In The New York Times of July 16, 1858, their Boston correspondent reports, "Fears are entertained that the Sons of Malta are a political club...Perhaps they are, but I know nothing of them or of their doings."

"[37] Many lodges of the Sons of Malta organized spectacular, solemn marches, often at midnight and usually followed by all night repasts by the members.

The members dressed as our citizens have seen them upon the streets, are ranged around the room, thus: One lies upon his back like a corpse, another kneels down upon his knee beside him in the attitude of a mourner.

Beside that coffin, which is covered with a pall or black cloth, marches an old man who carries a musket and bayonet upon his shoulder—an old man whose white locks of hair hang in weird and tangled masses about his neck—with his left hand he snatches unmeaningly at his hair, and then mutters to himself as he turns upon his heel with military precision and marches back and forth, passing and repassing the black palled coffin and flickering light.

If the answers are satisfactory (as they always are) the candidates are conducted to the chair of the skeleton where a person hidden behind the grim figure, administers an obligation to each, which binds him from his cradle (represented by the infant!)

"After the candidates go out and the door is closed, the members in an instant spring to their feet, light up the room, throw off their gowns, put away the coffin, &c., and prepare for fun.

All is now silence and grins--except on the part of the candidates, who are sternly commanded to indulge in 'No Levity' They are brought to the chair of the Grand Commander, where they are asked all manner of questions touching their fitness to bear arms, to swim, to march, as to the condition of their health, teeth, &c., &c.--as to their moral character--whether they have been, or are, intemperate--whether they have overstepped the bounds of chastity, and so on.

In order to get this information, one of the previously initiated heads the line and stammers out answers to the questions, gradually and painfully making himself out a mighty bad fellow.

"After enough of the above questions are asked and answered, the candidates take another solemn obligation having reference to the conquest of Cuba, which is administered to them in their blind state, while each places his hand upon a big book, which is always carried in procession, and which contains nothing but the pictures of two Jackasses, one in the prime of life and the other in a rapid decline.

"After taking him round the room on the board, the G. C. says, 'let the cavern be opened,' and at that moment the board is lowered at one end and hoisted at the other, and the candidate slides down to the mouth of a large sheet iron cylinder—something similar to the smoke-stack of a steamboat—and as he slides down a rough voice whispers in his ear, 'Crawl for your life'--following this advice, he crawls through the thing, while all hands are pounding on the outside of it with sticks—just as he comes out he is taken, again up the steep ladder of rollers to the platform at the top.

While he is being thus prepared for the water the members have got ready a large canvas sheet with rope all round it; this is placed behind him, and held outstretched by as many men as can get hold of the ropes; as soon as all is ready, the candidate is thrown from the platform back upon this sheet, and away he goes—up and down—no sooner down than up again—like Sancho Panza tossed in a blanket—until the members get tired tossing him, at which time he is let down upon a mattress; from which he is lifted back upon the platform, where he is set upon the top roller with his feet directed toward the bottom, an umbrella without any covering is then hoisted and given to him, in his left hand, while in his right hand is placed a cow-bell-he is told to hold up the umbrella and ring the bell, and thus sails down over the rollers into a tub, full of wet sponges, at the bottom.

"[39] According to subsequent newspaper accounts, this information was leaked by a Son of Malta named Curtis who subsequently disappeared, leading to comparisons with the disappearance of Morgan after disclosing Masonic secrets,[40] until it was announced by Mrs. Curtis that she had revealed the secrets after undergoing the initiation in male disguise and that her husband had run off after she had revealed her identity to him: "I just whispered a word or two in his ear, and maybe he didn't pull off his gown and hood in short order, and walk home with me.

"[41] An additional detail given by K.Loric:[42] "Finally, as a grand wind-up, the candidate was informed that, in view of the fact that he had suffered so many indignities and passed through such a trying ordeal, the lodge had decided to confer upon him the honorary title of G.R.J.A.—Judge, or General, or Colonel So-and-so having resigned the position in his favor.

With a lengthy and florid speech...the candidate was presented with his credentials...Hastily the 'great seal' of the order would be broken, the certificate taken from the envelope and opened, when the victim would discover the picture of a jackass in bold relief..." In January and February 1860, Frank Leslie's New York Illustrated Weekly ran a series of articles condemning the Sons of Malta as an organization encouraging immorality and published a detailed account of their initiation.

[Note 7] Another cause claimed for the organization's decline was the paralysis and eventual death of George Harding resulting from his initiatory hazing at the Lafayette, Indiana: "Harding was an intensely earnest man, and took the initiation to be a serious affair; being told by the grand conductor that from the elevated railway he would be plunged into a lake, he contracted his muscles and nerved himself for the battle with the waves.

[44] A third factor is cited by The Cyclopædia of Fraternities: "When the available material at a given city or town was exhausted, Councils of the Sons of Malta naturally became dormant and ultimately died out.

"[45] Representatives from the National Encampment were received by President Buchanan:[46] "So solemn was the scene that several portly delegates were evidently convulsed with emotion (or secret laughter), and the Union was regarded as safe.