SIGNS MADE SYMBOLS.
Reform of the extortionate system of British Hotels might be commenced with an alteration of their nomenclature, consisting in a judicious allotment of nicknames. The good old English signs of the Dragon, the Lion, Red or Black, and such like, should be taken as examples of the principle on which all those places of plunder should be designated. Those time-honoured appellations are recommended not only by their antiquity but by their candour, and we would have every extravagant Inn, that is, almost every Inn in the kingdom, that does not rejoice in one of them, denoted and commonly called and known by a similar kind of title; as, The Crocodile, The Boa Constrictor, The Hyena, The Condor, The Wolf, The Ogre, in order to signify that it is the den of a ravenous monster that subsists by devouring travellers.
Credit at a Discount.
There was great consternation at the West End on the announcement being made that the rate of discount had been raised in the Back parlour—of Shadrack and Co.—from fifty-five to sixty per cent. Even this amount of interest was insufficient to ensure the discount of some very good paper—for though the paper itself was certainly very good, it was spoiled by some very bad names on the back of it.
