THE RINGING OF CHURCH BELLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR, Will you allow an appeal, on behalf of many who are silent, to those who ring a church bell in populous centres before every one of innumerable services ? The request made by the Bishop of London early in the war seems to have effected little. It is urged that the noise does not Met long; any mitigation is welcome; but if a door were hammered on, periodically disturbing rest and work, such a plea would not suffice. The bell of a church in a business centre is, an employee told me, " at times almost unbearable." Sunday is worse. I know a brain-worker threatened with nervous breakdown through failure from this cause to obtain a seventh day of rest. The joy of Christmas and Easter mornings is turned to a form of torture. Another house of my acquaintance, near a church, cannot have guests at those times. Above all, sick persons are ever in hearing. Is all this fair ? The days without clocks are past; no ordinary assembly uses such a summons. The suffering is indisputable; it is " up to" those who cause it to show the compensating gain. Will not the Church show by example that regard for others without which life in a community is
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