The sign of the FLITCH OF BACON is most conveniently described in connection with the boar. The authors just quoted say (p. 420), “The FLITCH OF DUNMOW is a common sign in Essex, and is sometimes seen in other counties;” but it does not appear that we have had more than one in the county for forty years past, that one being, of course, the well-known inn at *Little Dunmow. How the sign originated is too well known to need any explanation here. A similar custom has occasioned a similar sign at Wichnor, near Lichfield (_Gent’s Mag._, 1819). A beer-shop, about thirty years old, in the market-place at Romford, is known by the appropriate name of the PIG IN THE POUND. A PIG AND WHISTLE is in existence at Thames Haven, and there are beer-shops of the same name in Broomfield and Writtle parishes. The origin of this sign appears not to have come down to us out of the mists of antiquity. Very many and very learned are the explanations which have, of late, been proposed as the solution of it. Half the European languages have been ransacked for its derivation, but so far without any satisfactory results. Larwood and Hotten dismiss it as “simply a freak of the mediæval artist.” Possibly it may represent, in a corrupted form, the peg said to have been placed in the wassail-bowl by King Edgar, who, in order to discourage drunkenness, imposed a penalty upon any one who drank so deeply as to leave it uncovered. There is, however, a by-no-means-unlikely origin for the sign, and one which the author believes has never before been suggested. In Mr. Elliot’s interesting paper just quoted (p. 70) it is stated that, in addition to the _blue boar_, the De Veres, among several other devices, made use of a _Whistle and Chain_ as a household badge. Thus, among the devices of this one family, are found the two objects--a pig (or boar) and a whistle--which, when combined, constitute this most perplexing sign. It is very difficult--perhaps impossible--to prove now that the sign was actually derived from these two badges of the De Veres, but, remembering the enormous past importance of the family, it must be admitted that the sign was in no way unlikely to have been so derived. Mr. Elliot himself writes that he considers this suggestion not unlikely to be the correct one. Very probably this description of the Earl’s badges was a derisive one, applied to them by the Yorkist party during the Wars of the Roses. A whistle, like that adopted by the De Veres, was formerly worn by sea-captains, even of high rank; and Mr. Elliot is of opinion that it was assumed by the De Veres as a symbol of the office of Lord High Admiral, an appointment held by John, the thirteenth Earl, who was very active on behalf of the Lancastrian party.