As years have rolled by, the stone signs themselves, built though they were into the walls of the houses, have in a great measure disappeared. Some are luckily preserved in the Guildhall Library Museum, others are in private hands, many have been carted away as rubbish during rebuilding, and only a few now remain _in situ_. It is with these few that this paper is now concerned, and of which illustrations are given. [Illustration: BOY AND PANYER.] The use of the curious sign known as the "Boy and Pannier," in Panyer-alley, is threefold. It was a street sign, a trade sign, and also, it would seem, a landmark. Stow, writing in 1598, mentions a street sign there, probably the upper portion only of the present sign. He writes, "... Is another passage out of Pater Noster row, and is called, of such a sign, Panyer-Alley, which cometh out into the north over against St. Martins Lane." Along this alley the bakers' boys were wont to sit, with their baskets or panniers of bread exposed for sale, the sale of loaves at the bakers' shops for some reasons being prohibited by law. On the lower slab there yet remains a barely legible inscription, which in modern English runs thus:-- When you have sought the city round, Yet still this is the highest ground. August 26, 1688. Cheapside and its tributaries are, as times go, rather rich in stone signs. On the external wall of No. 37 may be seen a well carved swan with collar and chain. This is a sign of heraldic origin without doubt; it was, in fact, one of the badges of Henry IV., and was also heraldically one of the charges of Buckingham, Gloster, and others. Hitherto, however, efforts to trace the exact history of this sign have been without avail. Far different is it with the White Bear, now to be seen within the house of business of Messrs. Gow, No. 47, Cheapside. This most interesting sign was discovered while making alterations as lately as 1882. The house itself stands at the corner of Soper's-lane (modern designation, Queen-street), and was once the shop of the far-famed merchant, Sir Baptist Hicks, Kt., subsequently Viscount Campden. Baptist Hicks was the successful son of a wealthy father, and succeeded to what was in those days a most thriving silk mercer's business. His career is remarkable in more ways than one, for though a favourite at Court, immensely wealthy and knighted, he was the first London merchant who after knighthood took the resolution to still continue in business. [Illustration: THE SWAN.] [Illustration: WHITE BEAR.]