At Falmouth, some years ago, the sexton found coal in digging a grave; he concluded it must be a mine, and ran with the news and the specimen to the clergyman. The surgeon explained that they had stolen a French prisoner who died, and filled his coffin with coal that the bearers might not discover its emptiness. BELLS. As far back as the Anglo-Saxon times, before the conclusion of the seventh century, bells had been in use in the churches of this country, particularly in the monastic societies of Northumbria; and were, therefore, in use from the first erection of parish churches among us. Those of France and England appear to have been furnished with several bells. In the time of Clothaire II., King of France, and in the year 610, the army of that king was frightened from the siege of the city of Sens, by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's Church. They were sometimes composed of iron in France; and in England, as formerly at Rome, they were frequently made of brass. And as early as the ninth century many were cast of a large size and deep note. Weever, in his work on funeral monuments, says--"In the little sanctuary at Westminster, King Edward III., erected a clochier, and placed therein three bells, for the use of St. Stephen's Chapel. About the biggest of them were cast in the metal these words:-- "King Edward made mee thirty thousand weight and three; Take me down and wey mee, and more you shall find mee." "But these bells being taken down in the reign of Henry VIII., one wrote underneath with a coal:-- "But Henry the Eight, Will bait me of my weight." This last distich alludes to a fact mentioned by Stow, in his survey of London--ward of Farringdon Within to wit--that near to St. Paul's School stood a clochier, in which were four bells, called _Jesus' bells_, the greatest in all England, against which Sir Miles Partridge staked an hundred pounds, and won them of Henry VIII., at a cast of dice. Matthew Paris observes, that anciently the use of bells was prohibited in time of mourning. Mabillon adds, that it was an old practice to ring the bells for persons about to expire, to advertise the people to pray for them--whence our passing-bell. The passing-bell, indeed, was anciently for two purposes--one to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other to drive away the evil spirits who were supposed to stand at the bed's foot.