Philadelphia.
_Curious Custom of ringing Bells for the Dead._--In Marshfield,
Massachusets, it has been customary for a very long period to ring the bell
of the parish church most violently for eight or ten minutes, whenever a
death occurs in the village; then to strike it slowly three times three,
which makes known to the inhabitants that a man or boy has expired, and
finally to toll it the number of times that the deceased had numbered years
of existence.
The first settlers of Marshfield having been Englishmen, may I ask if this
custom ever did, or does now, exist in the mother country?