Before each door is fixed a painted and gilded board, seven or eight feet
high, supported on a pedestal, and having inscribed on it three large
characters chosen by the merchant for the sign of his shop, to distinguish
it from all others. To these are often added a list of the articles to be
disposed of, and the name of the seller. Under all, conspicuous for their
size, are the characters _"Pou-Hou,"_ (no cheating here.)
G.L.S.
* * * * *
FIGS
(_For the Mirror_.)
Figs have, from the earliest times, been reckoned among the delights of
the palate. Shaphan the scribe, who made for the use of the young king
Josiah, that compendium of the law of Moses, which is called Deuteronomy,
enumerates among the praises of his country, that it was a land of figs.
The Athenians valued figs at least as highly as the Jews. Alexis called
figs a "a food for the gods." Pausanias says, that the Athenian Phytalus
was rewarded by Ceres, for his hospitality, with the gift of the first fig
tree. Some foreign guest, no doubt, transmitted to him the plant, which he
introduced into Attica. It succeeded so well there, that Uthanaeus brings
forward Lynceus and Antiphones, vaunting the figs of Attica as the best on
earth. Horapollo, or rather his commentator Bolzani, says, that when the
master of the house is going a journey, he hangs out a broom of fig boughs
for good luck.
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