In France and other continental countries the same evil has had to be grappled with. Time after time, as reference to the works previously mentioned will show, the police of Paris and other large towns have issued orders concerning the pulling down and putting up of sign-boards. All Parisian signs are, consequently, now fastened to the fronts of the houses. This regulation of sign-boards is not altogether unknown, even at the present day, in England. In the _Sussex Daily News_ as lately as last October there appeared an account of the removal of two sign-boards that had recently been erected in two of the principal streets of Brighton. These boards, measuring respectively 48 inches by 30, and 48 inches by 18, were swung over the pavement at the respective heights of 15 feet and 12 feet; yet, although there are scores of more obstructive sign-boards and sun-blinds in the borough, the somewhat over-officious Works Committee of the Corporation ordered that they should be removed by the surveyor, and the cost of so doing recovered from their owners, because, in the opinion of the Committee, such boards were “public annoyances and nuisances, by reason of their projecting over the highways and annoying the public passage along the streets.” Presumably it is within the power of any Local Authority to remove, or direct the alteration of, any sign-boards which it regards as “nuisances.” A writer, styling himself “Ambulator,” in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ (vol. xl. p. 403) observes, so long ago as the year 1770, that signs “were certainly the effect of a general want of literature, and therefore can no longer be thought necessary, without national disgrace.” He adds, though he must be guilty of exaggeration, that “there is, at present, scarce a child among the poorest of the people who, at seven or eight years old, cannot read a man’s name and trade upon his door or window-shutter; and therefore we want the sign-painter no more.” He also says that-- “Long after signs became unnecessary, it was not unusual for an opulent shopkeeper to lay out as much upon a sign, and the curious ironwork with which it was fixed to his house, so as to project nearly into the middle of the street, as would furnish a less considerable dealer with a stock-in-trade. I have been credibly informed that there were many signs and sign-irons upon Ludgate Hill which cost several hundred pounds, and that as much was laid out by a mercer upon a sign of the Queen’s Head as would have gone a long way towards decorating the original for a birth-night.”