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To read such announcements as "Chinese and Japanese Curious," "Blackwood Furnitures," "Meals at All Day and Night," and "Steam Laundry & Co." provoke a titter in a city where you believe yourself to be an unwelcome visitor. It is obvious that the scholars of China are not reduced to the straits of becoming sign-painters.
There are two ladies, Mesdames Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, the first and last female Academicians. Then there are coach, and even sign-painters, a medallist, and an engraver Bartolozzi, whose nomination was in direct contravention of the Academy's constitution and an additional injustice to Sir Robert Strange.
To perform work for others and to receive pay for it is to be a hireling. Painters, sculptors, physicians, surgeons, and auctioneers are but more highly paid and more pleasantly engaged hirelings. Only so far do they differ from sign-painters, masons, undertakers, or criers. No doubt the theory broke down somewhat in practice, yet such is the theory.
An attentive observer will, at this day, find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of print-sellers, twenty portraits of Frederic for one of George the Second. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia.
To add to the queerness of this "Brick Row," as it was called, the ingenuity of all the sign-painters of the region had been called into requisition.
Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them?
"You sign-painters don't seem to be getting any signs started," he observed. "No," replied one of the men, laughing. "This is a peculiar job for our firm to tackle. We've made a contract to paint out every sign in the district." "Paint 'em out!" "Yes, cover them up with new paint, and get rid of them." "But how about the advertisers? Don't they own the spaces now?"
As long as these sign-painters were doing missionary work for his cause among the farmers, he decided to drive over to Fairview and see the party leaders in that important town. So he went back to Dr. Squiers's house and borrowed the Doctor's horse and buggy. He drove along the turnpike for a time in silence. Then it struck him that there was a peculiar air of neatness about the places he passed.
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