BELL BOY, sometimes called bell hop, in the United States one who attends to the general needs of a hotel guest. Most hotels prefer to hire bell boys over 18 years old, in order to avoid legal restrictions incumbent upon the employment of minors. Some managers, however, employ young boys as pages, and trair them for permanent service. City hotels, inasmuch as their summers are usually dull, are often willing to take on the migratory type of boys who move with the seasons from city to resort and back again. College students often act as bell boys in summer resorts.
or a structure, not a tower, in which bells are hung. It occurs in the form of a gable rising from a main wall, a dormer in a sloping roof or a miniature tower or turret at the corner of a building. A favourite position is at the top of the main west gable of a church. Occasionally, even when a tower is present, a small bell, known as the "sanctus bell," will be hung in a bell-cot near the eastern end of the church. The bell-cot for this bell is often at the centre of the crossing of nave and transepts and elaborated into a fleche (q.v.). In Renaissance churches, particularly in Spain and the Spanish colonies, the bell-cot is frequently a large section of wall, often separated from any building, and pierced with arches in each of which a bell is hung.