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its reputation pro bono publico, should be set up wherever two- 

 penn'orth of rum warm be sold. I have been used to consider 

 several signs — for the frequency of which it is difficult to give any 

 ether reason — as so many hieroglyphics with a hidden meaning 

 satirising the follies of the people or conveying instruction to 

 passers-by. Tumble-down-Dick, in the borough of Southwark, is 

 a fine moral on the instability of human greatness and the conse- 

 quences of ambition ; but there is a most ill-natured sarcasm 

 against the fair sex exhibited on a sign in Eroad-street, St. Giles', 

 of a headless female figure called the Good Woman." The 

 original meaning of " Good Woman," it is said, was a female saint 

 who had met her death by being deprived of her head ; and this 

 in time was turned into a joke against females of alleged loquacity. 

 The sign of the "Silent Woman" has the same meaning. A 

 somewhat similar sign is the "Honest Lawyer." A limb of the 

 law is represented with his head in his hands, which is the only 

 way it is supposed he can possibly be honest. 



The meaning of many of the old-fashioned signboards is often 

 obscure, owing to their original signification having in numbers of 

 cases been altered and corrupted. The "Pig and Whistle" is an 

 instance. In some of the old towns it is still to be found on sign- 

 boards. A sow is represented sitting on her haunches playing on 

 a whistle — a most unnatural proceeding. The "Peg and Wassail" 

 was probably the original sign, and the following in all likelihood 

 gives the explanation. Wassail was a favourite liquor amongst 

 the ancients. It was made of ale, sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, and 

 is said still to be prepared by some old fashioned families about 

 Christmas time. Pegge in his "Anonymiana" has described these 

 peg tankards with some minuteness. They have in the inside a 

 row of eight pins, one above another, from top to bottom. The 

 tankards hold two quarts, so there is a gill of ale — i.e., half a pint 

 of Winchester measure — between each pin. The first person that 

 drank was to empty the tankard to the first peg or pin ; the second 

 was to empty to the next pin, etc., by which means the pegs were 

 so many measures to the compotators, making them all drink alike, 

 or the same quantity. And as the distance of the pins was such 



