Upon this question of old signs it may not be out of place to add that when George III. was King local tradesmen in Royston had their signs, and especially the watchmakers, of which the following are specimens:--In 1767 we find an announcement of William Warren, watch and clock-maker at the "Dial and Crown," in the High Street, Royston, near the Red Lion; and again that:--
"William Valentine, clock and watch-maker at the 'Dial and Sun,' in Royston, begs leave to inform his friends that he has taken the business of the late Mr. Kefford" [where he had been previously employed].
These glimpses of our forefathers "getting on wheels," of the highways, their passengers, their dangers, and their welcome signs of halting places by the way, may perhaps be allowed to conclude with the following curious inscription to be seen upon an old sign on a chandler's shop in a village over the borders in Suffolk, in 1776:--
Har lifs won woo Cuers a Goose, Gud Bare. Bako. sole Hare.
Here lives one who cures Agues, Good Beer, Tobacco sold here.
SOCIAL AND PUBLIC LIFE--WRESTLING AND COCK-FIGHTING--AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DEBATING CLUB.
It may be well here to take a nearer view of local life between the years 1760 and 1800. In doing so we shall probably see two extremes of social and political life, with rather a dead level of morality and public spirit between them--at the one extreme an unreasoning attachment to, and a free and easy acquiescence in, the state of things which actually existed, with too little regard for the possibility of improving it; and at the other extreme an unreasonable ardour in debating broad principles of universal philanthropy, with too little regard for their particular application to some improvable things nearer home. Between these two extremes was comfortably located the good old notion which looked for moral reforms to proclamations and the Parish Beadle! As approximate types of this state of things there was the Old Royston Club at the one extreme, and the Royston Book Club, at least in the debating period of its existence, at the other, and between these extremes there were some instructive measures of local government bearing upon public morals, of which the reader will be afforded some curious illustrations in the course of this chapter.