You may safely when sober sit under the thorn, But if drunk overnight, it will prick you next morn. A similar moral tendency used to be shown by the sign of the “Grenadier” at Whitley, near Reading, in the verse: This is the Whitley Grenadier, A noted house of famous beer; Stop, friend, and if you make a call, Beware, and get not drunk withal, Let moderation be your guide, It answers well where’er ’tis tried, Then use, and don’t abuse, strong beer, And don’t forget the Grenadier. It was probably when the inn became a “tied” house that this exhortation to drink moderately disappeared. It will readily be understood that a brewery company could have no sympathy with such an inducement to reduce their returns. A frank invitation to enter and take your fill, without any further stipulation, is to be seen outside the picturesquely placed “Bee-hive” inn at Eaumont Bridge, between Penrith and Ullswater; in the words painted round a bee-hive: Within this hive we’re all alive, Good liquor makes us funny; If you be dry, step in and try The virtue of our honey. The same sentiment prevails at the “Cheney Gate” inn, between Macclesfield and Congleton, on whose sign you read: Stay Traveller, thyself regale, With spirits, or with nut-brown ale, while Once aground, but now afloat, Walk in, boys, and wet your throat, says the sign of the “Ship” at Brixham, South Devon. The “Cat and Mutton” inn, near the Cat and Mutton Bridge of the Regent’s Canal, and facing London Fields, formerly had a pictorial sign with the inscription on one side, slightly misspelled, Pray puss, do not tare, Because the mutton is so rare, and on the other, Pray puss, do not claw, Because the mutton is so raw. The “Cat and Mutton” is nowadays just a London “public,” and the neighbourhood is truly dreadful. You come to it by way of the Hackney Road and Broadway, over the wide modern bridge that now spans the silvery waters of the Regent’s Canal, just where the great gasometers and factory chimneys of Haggerston rise romantically into the sky and remind the traveller, rather distantly, of Norman keeps and cathedral spires. How beautiful the name of Haggerston, and how admirably the scene fits the name!