We must go to the country districts, and best of all to one of our old cathedral towns, to see really old-fashioned signs. In some cases a signboard may still be seen hanging beneath beautifully scrolled iron work, from which in more artistic days the “ale-house painted signs” depended. Even in such a stronghold of conservative and antiquarian feeling as a cathedral city, these relics of the past are yearly becoming more and more scarce, though in those out-of-the-world places, where a change in the situation of the parochial pump must be preceded by about a proportionate amount of discussion as would attend the proposal to make a new underground railway for London, the removal of an old signboard is usually a matter causing grave public agitation. The authors of the _History of Signboards_ have given an account of the demolition of the time-honoured sign of Sir John Falstaff, which for many a generation had gladdened the hearts of the good citizens of Canterbury. However, as a matter of fact, the signboard was only removed to be repainted, and in spite of the orders of Local Boards and City Authorities, in spite of law suits and various other disagreeable attempts at persuasion, the owner of the house has persisted in maintaining in its place this fine old sign with its elaborate iron-work, and there to this day may the gallant knight be seen, with sword and buckler, ready to make instant assault on those men in buckram, or on any other foes. {221} The close connection that existed between the profession of host and the signboard, may be judged from the fact that the publican who was deprived of his licence also had his sign removed by the minions of the law. _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_ illustrates this fact in the lines— For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence, Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw; For instantly I will in mine own person Command the constables to pull down thy sign. In 1629 one Price was forbidden to open a certain house in Leadenhall Street as a tavern, “whiche house was heretofore never used for a taverne, and standeth unfitly for that purpose, being neare unto the Church and two auncient tavernes already neere unto the same in the same streete.” Price, however, persisted, and accordingly the Common Council issued orders for the closing of his doors and the taking down of his bush.