harm; if he is, they will have protected themselves. Thus far our explanation is hypothetical: to verify the hypothesis it is necessary to show that the dead are or were as a matter of fact treated as the Roman custom prescribes that the _soi disant_ living man shall be treated. That the spirits of the dead are considered unwelcome visitors both in modern folk-lore and by savage man, has been insisted on most recently by Mr. G. L. Gomme.[31] I will, therefore, only add one or two instances of the precautions taken to prevent the return of the deceased to his home.[32] The first thing is to get the soul out of the house; this may be effected by sweeping out the house and by flapping dusters about, care being taken to shake and turn upside down all vessels, meal-boxes, &c., in which the soul might take refuge. Then the coffin must be carried foot foremost through the door; for if the corpse's face be turned to the house, the ghost can return. In Siam they run the corpse three times round the house, apparently on the same principle as, in the game of blind-man's buff, the blind-man is spun round in order to make him lose his bearings. In Bohemia they turn the coffin about cross-wise, outside the house-door, to prevent the dead man from coming back. More pertinent for our present purpose are the precautions taken to prevent the dead from obtaining access to the house through the door. The safest course is to carry the corpse out, not through the door, for that gives the dead man the right of way which it is sought to bar, but through some opening which is specially made for the purpose and can be permanently closed. Thus the Hottentots make a breach through the wall for the purpose. The ancient Norsemen did the same.[33] The Teutons, in pre-Christian times, dug a hole under the threshold and pulled the corpse through with a rope. In Christian times they only treated the bodies of criminals and suicides in this way, though in the thirteenth century Brother Berthhold of Regensburg recommended it in the case of heretics and usurers. When circumstances make it difficult or impossible to construct a special exit of this kind for the corpse, then some other means is found to avoid carrying the corpse through the door. The Eskimo take the body through a window; and a window was in 1858 used in Sonneberg in the case of a hanged man; while even now in East Prussia, if several children have died one after another, the corpse of the next to die is conveyed through the window. Eventually it comes to be considered sufficient if a special means of egress is provided, not for the corpse, which is not likely to "walk," but for the spirit, which may want to return. Thus in China, at the moment of death, a small hole is made through the roof; while the custom of opening the window, to allow the soul of the dying man to depart, is universal in Germany and not unknown in England.