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death of the departed. This morning I observed by a circular 
notice, the death of a young lad who died last evening; in 
order to give notice of his death, they played with trumpets 
the tunes of three hymns from the steeple, early in the morning; 
certainly a very simple and touching ceremony! the corpse is 
put in the corpse-house, and the burying takes place in pre¬ 
sence of the whole parish. Not far from the burying place, 
upon an elevated spot, is a cistern, in which by means of a 
forcing machine, the water is carried from the brook, and thence 
all the houses and streets are supplied with water. 
After that we went to the dwelling of the sisterhood ; all the 
old maids, and some younger ones of the parish, who have no 
parents, live together. Heretofore, all the unmarried women 
were obliged to live in the sister-house; but this has been 
changed since, and those who have parents, live with their families. 
Those sisters who live together, have either each a separate room, 
or several have a sitting room together. They support themselves 
by selling female utensils, which they manufacture. There is 
no house for the brotherhood, because young industrious labour¬ 
ers in this happy land, where there are no taxes, can support 
themselves very well. The ground on which the houses stand, 
belongs to the parish, and every man, who wishes to build here, 
has to pay a certain ground rent. There is, however, here no 
community of goods; every one has to work for, and to support 
himself, and the parish only assists him when he has become 
poor by misfortune. 
After this interesting ramble I visited Mr. Rice, who is a 
merchant, owner of a mill, and is particularly engaged in the flour 
business ; he also keeps a store, where every article is to be 
found, which the country people are in need of; from cloth, and 
fine linen, down to common wagon-screws. After that, I dined 
at home in the lively company of six young ladies from Provi¬ 
dence, who also came to finish their education here in the board¬ 
ing-school ; as in Germany, the brothers have boarding-schools, 
where children, whose parents do not belong to the society, are 
carefully educated. The female school is at Bethlehem, and the 
male school in Nazareth. 
After dinner I took a ride with Dr. Stickel, in order to examine 
a new~ lock, lately established on the river Lehigh. Within a 
few years they have opened important coal works, about thirty 
miles from this place, at Mauch Chunk, on the other side of the 
Blue Mountains; these mines furnish Philadelphia and the 
neighbourhood with the well-known Lehigh coals, which are 
much better than the English coals. These coals were formerly 
shipped in light boats near the pit, and floated down the Lehigh 
into the Delaware to Philadelphia, and the boats were then broke 
