Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/25

 9'" 8: XII. JULY 4, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Company namely, a lion and two wheat- sheaves.' Similar signs to the "Two Negroes' Heads " were the " Two Black Boys " in Fen- church Street (Daily Advertiser, 26 November, 1741). This occurs again on a London trade token, where two black boys are represented shaking hands. The "Two Heads" in Coventry Street, Haymarket, was the sign of a dentist who, in the London Evening Post of July, 1 760, pays a poetic tribute to his own fame. Other duplicate signs, not mentioned, I think, in Larwood and Hotten's .* History of Signboards' (1884), are the "Two Kings" in Fleet Street (Weekly Journal, 21 October, 1721); the "Two Black Posts," a quack's in Little Hart Street, a turning out of James Street, Covent Garden (Bagford, Harl. Coll. 5931, fol. 74, 206), perhaps the same with the "Black Posts" named in Etheridge's play: "Our lodgings are in James Street, at the Black Posts, where we lay last summer" (Act I. sc. i. p. 7, ed. 1735). At the "Two White Posts," a bagnio in Brownlow Street,

"the back side of Long Acre, Cupping and

Bathing are perform' d after the best manner; likewise commodious Lodgings for Gentlemen and Ladies ; and all other useful Accommodations, by their most humble Servant, Mary Banks, From the Crown Bagnio, King Street, Covent Garden." Daily Advertiser, 26 June, 1742. There was another "Two White Posts" in Great Rider Street, St. James's (Daily Adver- tiser, 30 April, 1742). The "Two Lamps" was the sign of Mrs. Elizabeth Careless's coffee - house, the corner of Drury Lane Passage, Bridges Street, where "Gentlemen may be accommodated with very rich strengthening Jellies," &c. (Daily Advertiser, 28 May, 1742). The " Two Stone Balls" was the sign of the " Dorchester Beer Warehouse in Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street" (ibid., 23 December, 1741). The " Two Golden Balls " was the sign of " an old accustom'd Pawnbroker's Shop, near Aldgate Church- Yard-Wall, Houndsditch" (ibid., 27 March, 1742), and also of a tailor in Great Hart Street, the upper end of Bow Street, Covent Garden, where "you may have good Druggets, Sagathie, and Duroy Suits...... German Serge

Suits Horsemen's great Coats ready made

at 10s. a Piece ; Morning Gowns, Callimanco both Sides, at 30s. each ; blue Cloak Bags, ready made, at 16s. each ; blue Rocklers ready made " (Craftsman, 8 September, 1733). There was a " Two Swans " without Bishops- gate (Daily Advertiser, 26 November, 1741) ; and also a "Two Sugar Loaves," facing the " King on Horseback " at Charing Cross, the sign of a mercer who sold

"Florence and English Sattins, Italian and English Mantuas, strip'd and fiower'd Lustrings, black

Dutch Mantua Silk, Fleurettas [presumably some flowered material or garment], Turkey Silks, Shagreens, Thread Sattins, Black and colour'd Paduasoys, Cottonnees, and Fine Worsted Camblets, water'd and unwater'd Tabbies, Persians, Sarsnets [Saracen's silk, a thin silk so called], Burdets," kc. Craftsman, 11 December, 1731 (?).

See also London Journal, 15 December, 1722, ,and Beaufoy, ' Tokens,' Nos. 266, 286, and 538. The "Two Nuns" was the sign of a linen- draper at the corner of Charterhouse Lane in St. John's Street (Daily Advertiser, 5, 19, 28 April, 1742).

The fact of the "Two Negroes' Heads" being carved in such a durable material as stone is the reason that its existence has been secured to the present day ; and as to its origin, that may, no doubt, be traced to the parish of St. Clement Danes and Clare Market having formerly been a fashionable residential neighbourhood, a stepping-stone of fashion westward. Newspaper advertise- ments of the period are constantly soliciting information respecting runaway slaves, the advertisements dating from the fashionable coffee-houses in this interesting neighbour- hood. "Blackamoors" they were called to dis- tinguish them from "Tanny" or "Tawny" moors. Blackmoor Street still exists close by the "Two Blackamoors' Heads," and is represented in old maps as a continuation of Clare Street to Drury Lane. It was at Clifton's Eating - House in Picket Street, close by, on the north side of St. Clement's Church (a street which has long since dis- appeared), that Dr. Johnson had an argu- ment with an Irishman about the cause of a negro's black skin, a point which has since been elucidated by the scientific belief that a negro's skin is the effect of the sun in a burning climate, which causes an excessive development of the black matter, or pigment, which forms under the epidermis (see Lenor- mant). We are again reminded of the associa- tion of this once fashionable quarter of Lon- don with slave-owning by the curious figure of a negro, kneeling, and bearing upon his head a sundial, formerly in Clement's Inn Gardens, but now in the Temple Gardens. When I last saw the " Two Negroes' Heads " it was the sign of a baker's. May it not be that when the sign was first put up it was to distinguish the shop of a confectioner 1 The fact of so much sugar being used in the con- fectioner's trade, and the association of the negro with the cultivation of the sugar-cane, may well have suggested the adoption of the sign, although, of course, the negro was identified also with the tobacco trade.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. 161, Hammersmith Road, W.