Few persons of the present day have any adequate idea of the extent to which tavern life influenced thought and manners seventy, eighty, or one hundred years ago. Each man then had his tavern, much as we now have our clubs and reading-rooms. There he met his friends every evening, discussed the political questions of the day, talked over business topics, and heard the expensive and highly-valued London newspapers read aloud. Dickens, in _Barnaby Rudge_, has well sketched the select village company, which, for forty or fifty years, had met nightly in the bar of the old MAYPOLE to tipple and debate. Ale was the universal beverage on these occasions, and the fame of any given tavern was great or small according to the skill of the landlord or his servants in producing this beverage. It was not then, as now, the product of colossal breweries at Burton, Romford, or elsewhere, but was entirely brewed upon the premises of those who retailed it. Such customs as these, however, are now almost entirely of the past. We will now return once more to the discussion of sign-boards and their modern degeneration. When signs were in general use by all tradesmen, it was but natural that people should endeavour to outvie one another in the prominence and obtrusiveness of their sign-boards. Exactly the same thing may be seen at the present day on any hoarding which the bill-sticker has ornamented with his flaring posters. These are of all imaginable colours and designs, in order to advertise and draw attention to the wares of rival tradesmen, each of whom endeavours to obtain greater publicity and attract more attention than his neighbour. Many were the devices made use of a century or more ago to draw attention to the sign-boards of those times. Some of the boards were made of enormous size; others were painted in flaring colours; others bore striking or amusing devices, likely to be remembered by those who saw them; while others were projected far out into the street, or hung in elaborate and ornamental frameworks of iron. When each man endeavoured to outdo his neighbour in these particulars, it may well be imagined that no slight inconvenience was caused to the public. Complaints that the size and prominence of the sign-boards in the London streets prevented the access of sunlight and the free circulation of the air began to be heard, according to Messrs. Larwood and Hotten, as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, and an order was made to do away with the nuisance. In the course of time, however, the evil grew again, till Charles II., in 1667, “ordered that in all the streets no sign-board shall hang across, but that the sign shall be fixed against the balconies, or some convenient part of the side of the house.” Again, however, the nuisance grew, and in 1762 large powers were once more granted for clearing away the too obtrusive sign-boards, and very many were taken down.