The OX is rather uncommon; the DURHAM OX and the CRAVEN OX, two famous breeds, are sometimes met with; then there is a CRAVEN OX HEAD, in George Street, York, and a GREY OX at Brighouse, in the West Riding. The OX AND COMPASSES at Poulton Swindon, in Cumberland, is evidently a jocular imitation of the London sign of the Goat and Compasses.
The COW is more common; its favourite colours being RED, BROWN, WHITE, SPOTTED, SPANGLED, &c. The Red Cow occurs as a sign near Holborn Conduit, on the seventeenth century trades tokens. It also gave a name to the alehouse in Anchor and Hope Lane, Wapping, in which Lord Chancellor Jeffries was taken prisoner, disguised as a sailor, and trying to escape to the Continent after the abdication of James II. Thinking himself safe in this neighbourhood, he was looking out of the window to while the time away, when he was recognised by a clerk who bore him a grudge, and at once betrayed him. An heraldic origin is not necessary for this colour of the cow.
“Cows (I mean that whole species of horned beasts) are more commonly black than _Red_ in England. ’Tis for this reason that they have a greater value for Red Cow’s Milk than for Black Cow’s Milk. Whereas in France we esteem the Black Cow’s Milk, because _Red_ Cows are more common with us.”[263]
Speaking of the Green Walk, St James’s Park, Tom Brown says: “There were a cluster of senators talking of state affairs, and the price of corn and cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk folk crying: A can of Milk, Ladies; a can of _Red_ Cow’s Milk, sirs?”[264] The preference for the _Red_ Cow’s milk may, however, have a more remote origin, namely, from the ordinance of the law contained in Numbers xix. 2, where a _red_ heifer is enjoined to be sacrificed as a purification for sin. Hence, _Red_ Cow’s milk is particularly recommended in old prescriptions and panacea, as, for instance, in the following receipt of “a Cock water for a Consumption and Cough of the Lunges:”--
“Take a running cock and pull him alive, then kill him and cutt him in pieces and take out his intrailes and wipe him cleane, breake the bones, then put him into an ordinary still with a pottle of sack and a pottle of _Red Cow’s Milk_,” &c., &c.[265]