many
years ago a wooden highlander, as a tobacconist's sign, was a
conspicuous figure in Knightsbridge, and there was another in the
Westminster Bridge Road; but _tempus edax rerum_ has consumed them
with all their brethren. In a few provincial towns a wooden highlander
may still be found at the door of tobacco shops, but they are probably
destined to early disappearance. In 1907 one still stood guard--a tall
figure in full costume--outside a tobacconist's shop in Cheltenham,
and may still be there. There is a highlander of oak in the costume of
the Black Watch still standing, I believe, in the doorway of a tobacco
shop at St. Heliers, Jersey. It is traditionally said to have been
originally the figure-head of a war vessel which was wrecked on the
Alderney coast. Another survivor may be seen at the door of a shop
belonging to Messrs. Churchman, tobacco manufacturers, in Westgate
Street, Ipswich. A correspondent of "Notes and Queries" describes it
as a very fine specimen in excellent condition, and adds: "Mr. W.
Churchman informs me that it belonged to his grandfather, who
established the business in Ipswich in 1790, and he believed it was
quite 'a hundred' year old at that time."

One of the earliest known examples of these highlanders as
tobacconists' signs is that which was placed at the door of a shop in
Coventry Street which was opened in 1720 under the sign of "The
Highlander, Thistle and Crown." This is said to have been a favourite
place of resort of the Jacobites. In his "Nicotine and its Rariora,"
Mr. A.M. Broadley gives the card, dated 1765, of "William Kebb, at ye
Highlander ye corner of Pall Mall, facing St. James's, Haymarket," and
says that the highlander was a favourite tobacconist's sign for 200
years. I have been unable, however, to find evidence of such a
prolonged period of favour. I know of no certain seventeenth-century
reference to the highlander as a tobacconist's sign.

The figure was usually made with a snuff mull in his hand--the
highlander being always credited with a great love and a great
capacity for snuff-taking. But one curious example was furnished, not
only with a mull but with a bat-like implement of unknown use. Mr.
Arthur Denman, F.S.A., writing in _Notes and Queries_, April 17, 1909,
said: "I have a very neat little, genuine specimen of the old
tobacconist's sign of a 42nd Highlander with his 'mull.' It is 3 ft.
6 in. high, and it differs from those usually met with in that under