Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-09-18

SOI4 OpdC0 c1OONS Il4S OOOAs II WOuAN
seem at first glance to have been a
church piece, but it is only nantes
! tation of the religious feeling Of the
first proprietor, who placed on the
iron grating a holy infant with shep-
! herds crook and a sheep or two duly
| gilded to this day.
1t is the BARRIERS who use the golden
balls as a sign here, golden balls with
a magnificent switch of horsehair
| hanging down below and swinging
merrily to the breeze. The reason
for the horsehair is obvious, but you
win likely puzzle long over the gold
en- ball until you notice that some bar
| bers do not use the ball but instead 81
| queerly shaped, almost fiat piece OF
brass, which in time you decide must
be the BARRIERS bowl. The ball was
more decorative than the bowl.
The jewelers. of Paris hang out
clocks as in America, but not one in
a hundred of them runs. In Paris, too,
| the jewelers. little brother, the OPP
tician, hangs out a pair of spectacles
as in America. But here this sign is
quite conventionalized, the rim of the
glasses, the bridgepiece and all being
made of brass tubing an inch thick and
the two eyepieces are of red and blue
glass.
In the good old days thoughtful
American tobacconists used to pro-
vide wooden Indians for small boys to
wheel away on Halloween night, but
the tobacco trust eliminated that char
ity. How the dissolution of, that or
ganization has effected the wooden IN
dian business none of the American
periodicals which reach Paris has TAX
en- the trouble to say. Here the sign
of the tobacco stores is a convention
allied red cigar, the result of placing
two equal cones of tin base to base.
This sign is at once the trade sign of
Paris, for, the sale of tobacco being
a government monopoly, tobacco stores
are few and far between and, as one
American here remarked, THE sight
of one of those red tin cigars is as
inspiring. as swinging latticed door
in TIE waste Of a high license town on
a summer afternoon"
In Front Of the Hat Store.
The old fashioned hatters of Paris
cling faithfully to q sidewalk sign In
the form of the glowing curves Of the
high hat Of century ago. This ar
ticle Of gents furnishings, painted
bright red, with a yellow band and a
yellow cockade, is to be found every
where in Paris, the only variation be-
ing the red palmer's hat of the clergy
supply houses and attempts of mod
ern establishments to replace 1t with
models of ugly up to date derbies OF
colossal size.
Another modernization is seen now
and then in, the way of bootma1ers'
signs. The conventional old style
sign is a carved and gilded wooden
boot Of classic lines. The modern tray
esty is an up to the minute American
shoe of the brogan type, also of
carved wood or papier mache perhaps,
gilded till it shines again.
Glove stores and haberdashers and
notion shops generally announce their
business by means Of giant gloves sus.
pended over their doors. These signs,
like all the rest, are either attached
to the signs directly over the doors or
are suspended from iron supports ex-
tending from the second story wall.
Umbrella stores hang out tin umbreI-
las, usually opened and painted red.
Immense gold scissors announce cut.
lery stores, and giant pincers, over
grown planes and the druggists NOR,
tar and pestle advertise their obvious
trades.
Paint stores hang out palettes with
brushes stuck through the thumb holes
or merely squares of sheet iron paint.
ed diagonally with bars of brilliant
colors. Florists hang out a dilapidat.
ed gilded wreath and the thousands OF
locksmiths are known by immense
golden keys. Usually the keys are of
the typical French sort, which feel
quite. as bulky as the signs look to be,
but the modern touch is found here,
too. for some hang out keys Of the
Sat.