May 26, 1740.” This was probably the BLACK BOY Inn that formerly stood in Town-mead Lane. The BLACK BOY is a sign of venerable antiquity. From the first it has been largely used as a tobacconist’s sign. The crest of the Tobacco-pipe Makers’ Company, incorporated in 1663, was a demi-Moor, while the supporters were _two young Moors proper, wreathed about the loins with tobacco leaves vert_. A black Saracen’s head, too, was the badge of Lord Cobham in the time of Edward IV., and also of Sir John Harlwyn. Essex contains at the present time no less than twenty-seven houses showing the sign of the GREEN MAN. The GREEN MAN at Leyton is mentioned in the _Trials of Swan and Jeffries_ in 1752, while the GREEN MAN at Leytonstone is mentioned by Daniel Defoe in his _Tour through Great Britain_, first published in 1724, and is also marked on Roque’s _Map of Ten Miles round London_, published in 1741. It is recorded in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ (vol. xxiii. p. 148) that Charles, Earl of Tankerville, died of an apoplectic fit at the GREEN MAN on Epping Forest on the 14th of March, 1753, as he was travelling to London. Old maps of the latter half of last century show quite a number of GREEN MEN round Epping and Hainault Forests, showing the connection even then existing in the minds of men between the sign-board GREEN MEN and foresters. In Mr. Creed’s list of signs round Epping in 1789, GREEN MEN are named at the following places: Epping, Waltham Abbey, Moreton, Stanford Rivers, Magdalen Laver, Harlow, and Roydon. Evidently this sign was very common a century ago. Although this device has a two-fold origin, it is rather difficult to account for its great prevalence in the present day. Originally, no doubt, the sign represented the green-clad morris-dancers that played an important part in the shows and pageants of mediæval times; but, when these went out of date and were forgotten by the common people, the sign was made to represent a forester in his coat of green. As early as the seventeenth century the sign had come to be connected with that celebrated forester, Robin Hood, as is shown by the designs on many of the tokens, which represent the outlaw accompanied by his friend Little John. At Elsenham and at High Beech the sign now takes the name of the ROBIN HOOD, while ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN occur in combination at Brentwood, although in an advertisement in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ for January 20, 1786, the house is spoken of simply as the ROBIN HOOD. At High Beech, as is often the case, the following couplet is appended to the sign:-- “If Robin Hood be not at home, Step in and ask for Little John.”