Sittingbourne innkeepers had an inordinate fancy for changing their signs, and some of their houses have borne as many aliases as an old and hardened swindler. Thus the "Seven Stars" became in turn the "Cherry Tree," the "Union Flag," and finally the "Volunteers"; while the present "Plough Inn" (only they may have changed its name again already) in East Street has been successively the "King Henry the Eighth," and the "Royal Oak." Other houses were the "Bull," the "Adam and Eve," the "Walnut Tree," the "King's Head," "Six Bells," "Black Boy," "Boatswain's Call," "Ship," "Chequer," "Three Post Boys," "Crown," "Bird in Hand," "Lamb," "Three Kings," "Angel," "Portobello," "Bell," "Duke's Head," and "Cross Keys"; to name but a selection, but age has withered, and want of custom staled, the most of them, and, instead of entertaining travellers, the inhabitants of Sittingbourne poison them with the appalling smells that arise from the numberless brick-kilns round about. [Sidenote: BRICKS AND TILES] For the making of bricks and tiles is the chief industry of Sittingbourne nowadays, and a very large and flourishing industry it is; so much so, indeed, that there will be presently nothing of Sittingbourne left at all; because, like maggots that live _in_ cheeses--and _on_ them--the Sittingbourne brickmakers find their sustenance in the ground on which they live, and have carted away nearly all the surrounding country. When they have worked down to the chalk and the bed-rock, I don't know what they _will_ do. Already all the hills have vanished and have been distributed over England in the shape of bricks, and when folks return who have known Sittingbourne in their youth, they don't recognize the place, and go away wondering whether curses will fall upon it because its people have thus removed the old landmarks. Changed, indeed, it is, not only from those days when the great ones of the earth sojourned here, but also from those comparatively recent times when the traveller's only choice was the road. Then three parts of the population were engaged in hotel-keeping, licensed-victualling, or coach-building; innkeepers, job-masters, hostlers, post-boys, chamber-maids, and boots, were their styles and titles, and if you are curious enough to turn the pages of Sittingbourne registers you will find such entries as these to be the chiefest of their contents: "John Slater, innholder, of the White Hart, was buryed, 22nd Feby, 1708/9"; or "Joseph, ostler at the Crowne, buryed Oct. 23, 1708."