“The Hare and Hounds was to be reached by those going from the west end towards the city, by going up a turning on the left hand, nearly opposite St Giles’s churchyard. The entrance to this turning or lane was obstructed or defended by posts with cross bars, which being passed, the lane itself was entered. It extended some twenty or thirty yards towards the north, through two rows of the most filthy, dilapidated, and execrable buildings that could be imagined; and at the top or end of it stood the citadel, of which ’Stunning Joe’ was the corpulent castellan;—I need not say that it required some determination and some address to gain this strange place of rendezvous. Those who had the honour of an introduction to the great man were considered safe, wherever his authority extended, and in[164] this locality it was certainly very extensive. He occasionally condescended to act as a pilot through the navigation of the alley to persons of aristocratic or wealthy pretensions, whom curiosity, or some other motive best known to themselves, led to his abode. Those who were not under his safe conduct frequently found it very unsafe to wander in the intricacies of this region. In the salon of this temple of low debauchery were assembled groups of all ‘unutterable things,’ all that class distinguished in those days, and, I believe, in these, by the generic term ‘cadgers.’
Hail cadgers, who in rags array’d,
Disport and play fantastic pranks;
Each Wednesday night in full parade,
Within the domicile of Bank’s.A ‘lady’ presided over the revels, collected largess in a platter, and, at intervals, amused the company with specimens of her vocal talent. Dancing was ‘kept up till a late hour,’ with more vigour than elegance, and many terpsichorean passages, which partook rather of the animation of the ‘Nautch’ than the dignity of the minuet, increased the interest of the performance. It may be supposed that those who assembled were not the sort of people who would have patronised Father Matthew had he visited St Giles’s in those times. There was indeed an almost incessant complaint of drought, which seemed to be increased by the very remedies applied for its cure; and had it not been for the despotic authority with which the dispenser of the good things of the establishment exercised his rule, his liberality in the dispensation would certainly have led to very vigorous developments of the reprobation of man and of woman also. In the lower tier, or cellars, or crypt of the edifice, beds or berths were provided for the company, who, packed in bins after the ‘fitful fever’ of the evening, slept well.”[226]
In 1750 there was a sign of the Hare and Cats at Norwich,[227] which was clearly a travesty of the Hare and Hounds.
The Stag may in early times have been put up as a religious type. As such it is of constant occurrence in the catacombs and in early Christian sculptures, in allusion to Psalm xlii., “Like as the hart desireth the water brook, so longeth my soul after thee, O God!”[228] The Stag is still a very common sign. A publican on the Fulham Road has put up the sign of the Stag, and added to this on the tympanum: “Rex in regno suo non habet parem,” the application of which is best known to mine host himself.
The Baldfaced Stag is seen in many places: baldfaced is a term applied to horses who have a white strip down the forehead to the nose. At Chigwell in Essex there is a Bald Hind, and in the High Street, Reading, a Bald Face, both evidently derived from the last-named stag.
Various combinations also occur, as the Stag and Castle, at Thornton, near Hinckly; the Stag and Pheasant, rather common; both these, doubtless, allude to the game seen in parks, or in the neighbourhood of noblemen’s seats; the Stag and Oak, the Cape, Warwickshire, points towards a similar origin, but the Stag and Thorn at Traffick Street, Derby, seems to be a union of two signs, for the Thorn appears in the same street on another public-house. There is, however, a sort of tree called the Buck-Thorn, which possibly may have been corrupted into the Buck and Thorn, and hence the Stag and Thorn. The Rising Deer (Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire) and the Rising Buck (Sheinton, Shropshire) have a decided deer-stalking smack about them, affording us a glimpse of the cautious stag rising from the heather, pricking his ears and sniffing the wind.
The Ranged Deer was the sign of the King’s gunsmith in the Minories, 1673.[229] At that period this street was full of smiths:
“The Mulcibers who in the Minories sweat
And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat,
Deform’d themselves, yet forge those stays of steel
Which arm Aurelia with a shape to kill.”—Congreve.
This ranged deer was simply intended for the Reindeer, which animal had then just newly come under the notice of the public; their knowledge of it was still confused, and its name was spelled in various ways, such as: rain-deer, rained-deer, range-deer, and ranged-deer.
The Roebuck is equally common with the Stag; the Golden Buck, near St Dunstan, was the shop of P. Overton, publisher of “The Cries of the City of London, consisting of 74 copper-prints, each figure drawn after the life, by the famous Mr Laron.” The Buck and Bell is a sign at Long Itchington: the bell was frequently added to the signs of public-houses in honour of the bell-ringers, who were in the habit of refreshing themselves there. Hence we have the Bull and Bell, Briggate, Leeds; the Raven and Bell, at Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, and Newport; the Bell and Talbot, at Bridgenorth; the Dolphin and Bell on the token of John Warner, Aldersgate, 1668; the Fish and Bell, (evidently the same sign,) Charles Street, Soho; the Three Swans and Peal at Walsall; the Nelson and Peal, and many others.
Among the taverns with the sign of the Roebuck that have become famous, the house in Cheapside may be mentioned as a notorious place during the Whig riots in 1715.