“Unless, Sir, they wish the topography of our native land to be utterly confused, and desire to make voluntary locomotion impossible (I call railways compulsory travelling, for you must go where they choose to take you), I do intreat of them to leave us their signs, whatever they do with the inns. Why not move the former to stand sponsors to their new-fangled watering places? Take the ‘Puncheon of Rum’ from what used to be the posting-house (before steam blew post-horses off the road) and stick it on the parish pump. Let wayside wells be ornamented with effigies of ‘Topers Heads’; transfer the ‘Barrel of Beer’ from the village inn to the village fountain, and the ‘Jolly Full Bottle’ from the alehouse to the conduit. Then, when a man comes to the picture of three drunken soldiers, and the inscription, ‘The Rendezvous,’ he will know it means a reservoir, or regular meeting of the waters. The ‘Punch-Bowl,’ in gold letters, will indicate a water-trough; the ‘Black Jack’ would give a significant license for water to be drunk on the premises; and the ‘Sir John Barleycorn’ would indicate that a good supply of the ale of our first parent is not far off. “I do hope my suggestion will be complied with. The tavern signs of England are a great topographical institution. If they will not take them down, the Temperance Movement may do its worst for me. I, and a good many others who live out of town and don’t carry lanterns at night, will still be able to find our way about, and the agricultural population will be able to show us when we have lost it. In that case, the Green Dragons, Marquises of Granby, Roses and Crowns, Bears and Buttermilks, Bulls in the Pounds, Stars and Stumps, with innumerable other signs dear to the eyes and ready to the tongues of unconverted tipplers for the behoof of way-beguiled strangers, would not be utterly lost to the land. Without them, I venture to assert, in conclusion, in the words of the late Mr. Pope, England (Tooting included) will be ‘a mighty maze without a plan.’ “I am, &c., &c. “CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE. “Paradise Row, Tooting.” THE LATE AMERICAN PRESIDENT.