Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1884 — Queer Signs. [ARTICLE]

Queer Signs.

The signs over store-doors might seem, at first thought, to be rather dry reading. But one cannot pay much attention to them, especially in a large city, without finding many that are amusing and even ludicrous.

Every one has seen the flaring pictures of “fat women,” “living skeletons,” and “midgets,” that usually adorn the outside of cheap shows. But an exhibitor in a New England city outdid his rivals by announcing that he had on exhibition a living human head without a body. Probably in this case- the head was set on a table, which the simple-minded were expected to believe had no hole in its top. In another part of the same city is a boot-blacking stand where hangs a placard with this inscription: “You Ought to be Ashamed to Walk the Soil Of Masachusetts with Such Dirty Boots. Let the Professor Black Them for 5 Cents’” Among other curious signs, are the following: Over a dye-house, “We live to dye, and dye to liveover the door of a pie-shop, “Pro Bono Publico;” at a news-stand in the suburbs, “ Century, Harper’s, Atlantic, Sunday Afternoon, Old and New, Our Young Folks,” the last three being the names of periodicals dead and buried long ago, but nevertheless “constantly on hand.” On one of the thoroughfares a colored man has recently opened a barbershop, and announces the fact to the world in the following notice, hung in the window: “Mr. ’s new stand, and having secured also the services of the well--known artist Mr. , we hope that the undesigned” (probably intended for undersigned) “will give satisfaction to’ all his friends, as they have done henceforth, and I respectfully invite all to call on me where we may be found at all hours. Yours truly, etc.” —Youth’s Companion.

Philadelphia girls smoke cigarettes, and the boys find treating less expensive than when the fair one’s lips were set to trap strawberries and ice-cream. “Youb voiceless lips, O, flowers! are living preachers. Each cup a pulpit and each leaf a book, Stmplying to my fancy numerous teachers. From loneliest nook." —Anonymous.