_Hand-bells at Funerals_ (Vol. ii., p. 478.; Vol. vii., p. 297.).--A few years ago I happened to arrive at the small sea-port of Roscoff, near the ancient cathedral town of St. Pol de Léon in Britanny, on the day appointed for the funeral of one of the members of a family of very old standing in that neighbourhood. My attention was attracted by a number of boys running about the streets with small hand-bells, with which they kept up a perpetual tinkling. On inquiring of a friend of mine, a native of the place, what this meant, he informed me that it was an old custom in Britanny--but one which in the present day had almost fallen into disuse--to send boys round from door to door with bells to announce when a death had occurred, and to give notice of the day and the hour at which the funeral was to take place, begging at the same time the prayers of the faithful for the soul of the deceased. The boys selected for this office are taken from the most indigent classes, and, on the day of the funeral, receive cloaks of coarse black cloth as an alms: thus attired, they attend the funeral procession, tinkling their bells as they go along. EDGAR MACCULLOCH. Guernsey. "_Warple-way_" (Vol. ix., p. 125.).--The communications of your correspondents (Vol. ix., p. 232.) can scarcely be called answers to the questions put. I find, in Holloway's _Dictionary of Provincialisms_, 8vo., 1838, that a ridge of land is called, in husbandry, a _warp_. It is defined to be a quantity of land consisting of ten, twelve, or more ridges; on each side of which a furrow is left, to carry off the water. Again, in Halliwell's _Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words_, two volumes, 1847, it will be {479} found that _warps_ are distinct pieces of ploughed land, separated by furrows. I think I here give the derivation and meaning, and refer to the authority. If the derivation be not here given, then I would refer to the Saxon word _werpen_, meaning "to cast." Across marshy grounds, to this day, are seen ridges forming foot-paths, with a furrow on each side. A ridge of this sort would formerly be, perhaps, a _warple-way_. Or perhaps a path across an open common field, cast off or divided, as Halliwell mentions, by warps, would be a _warple-way_. VIATOR. _Wapple-way_, or, as on the borders of Surrey and Sussex it is called, _waffel-way_: and the gate itself, _waffel-gate_. If it should appear, as in the cases familiar to me, these waffel-ways run along the borders of shires and divisions of shires, such as _hundreds_, I would suggest that they were military roads,--the derivation _waffe_ (Ger.), weapon. H. F. B.