eference in any way to tobacco. For instance, to take a few examples
from the late Mr. Hilton Price's lists of "Signs of Old London" from
Cheapside and adjacent streets, in 1695 John Arundell, tobacconist,
was at the "White Horse," Wood Street; in the same year J. Mumford,
tobacconist, was at the "Faulcon," Laurence Lane; in 1699 Mr. Brutton,
tobacconist, was to be found at the "Three Crowns," under the Royal
Exchange; in 1702 Richard Bronas, tobacconist, was at the "Horse
Shoe," Bread Street; and in 1766 Mr. Hoppie, of the "Oil Jar: Old
Change, Watling Street End," advertised that he "sold a newly invented
phosphorus powder for lighting pipes quickly in about half a minute.
Ask for a Bottle of Thunder Powder."

Again, in Fleet Street, Mr. Townsend, tobacconist, traded in 1672 at
the "Three Golden Balls," near St. Dunstan's Church; while at the end
of Fetter Lane, a few years later, John Newland, tobacconist, was to
be found at the "King's Head."

Addison, in the twenty-eighth _Spectator_, April 2, 1711, took note of
the severance which had taken place between sign and trade, and of the
absurdity that the sign no longer had any significance. After
satirizing first, the monstrous conjunctions in signs of "Dog and
Gridiron," "Cat and Fiddle" and so forth; and next the absurd custom
by which young tradesmen, at their first starting in business, added
their own signs to those of the masters under whom they had served
their apprenticeship; the essayist goes on to say: "In the third
place I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some
affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconsistent
than to see ... a tailor at the Lion? A cook should not live at the
Boot, nor a Shoe-maker at the Roasted Pig; and yet for want of this
regulation, I have seen a Goat set up before the door of a perfumer,
and the French King's Head at a sword-cutler's."

Notwithstanding the few examples given above, tobacconists, more than
most tradesmen, seem to have continued to use signs that had at least
some relevance to their trade. Abel Drugger was a "tobacco-man,"
_i.e._ a tobacco-seller in Ben Jonson's play of "The Alchemist," 1610,
so that it is not very surprising to find the name used occasionally
as a tobacconist's sign. Towards the end of the eighteenth century one
Peter Cockburn traded as a tobacconist at the sign of the "Abel
Drugger" in Fenchurch Street, and informed the public on the
advertising papers i