Handbell before a Corpse

Your correspondent ב. has too inconsiderately dismissed the Query which he has undertaken to answer touching the custom of ringing a handbell in advance of a funeral procession. He says, "I have never considered it as anything but *a cast of the bell-man's office*, to add more solemnity to the occasion." The custom is *invariably* observed throughout Italy, and is common in France and Spain. I have witnessed at least some hundreds of funerals in various cities and villages of Piedmont, Sardinia, Tuscany, the Roman States, Naples, Elba, and Sicily; and in Malta; yet never knew I one without the…