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It was in this street
that I first noticed a peculiarity in tradesmen's signboards, which
then was general through the town, and had a very curious appearance
to a stranger. Few of the occupiers' names were painted on the
_faciae_ of the shop windows, but in almost every case a bordered
wooden frame, following the outline of the window, was fixed above
it. Each of these frames stood upon three or four wooden spheres,
generally about the size of a cricket ball, and they were surmounted
by wooden acorns or ornaments. The boards were all black, and the
lettering invariably gilt, as were also the balls and the acorns.
This, however strange, was not inconsistent; but there were hundreds
of frames in the town stretched across the fronts of houses, and fixed
to the walls by iron spikes. Every one of these signboards, although
altogether unnecessary for its support, had three gilt balls
underneath. There was another peculiarity: the capital letter C was
invariably made with two "serifs"--thus, C--and for a long time I
invariably read them as G's.


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