preceding page gives a good idea of this
characteristic old sign, and of those of the period under review, and
also of the point of view from which Mr. Thurnall's picture is taken,
viz., from the position of a person looking down the hill towards
Royston.

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.

The modern rendering of which would be--

Here lives one who cures Agues,
Good Beer, Tobacco sold here.

{19}

CHAPTER III.

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 ex