"You're a Liar," Hillsboro [OH] News-Herald, 14 July 1898. A laundress’s business sign, painted across two window panes, suggests something salacious after one of the panes is broken: “I shall undress punctually…in this window.”
“Attracted Desired
Attention,” Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner [Prescott, AZ], 13 July 1898. Typically,
the business sign is said to have been painted on shutters, as in this example.
"A Startling Sign-Board," The Strand Magazine [London], vol. 16, no. 96, January 1899, p. 720. Are these photos a case of ostension?
Most American newspaper reports from 1898-99 state that 7 o’clock is when the laundress will strip down, but other times occur in some later variants.
[5:00] “An Old Catch Illustrated,” The Sketch [London], 9 February 1910, p. 159.
[7:30] “The Sign Was Divided,” Decorah [IA] Public Opinion, 9 June 1909.
[9:00] “Did She Do It,” The Leavenworth [WA] Echo, 6 March 1908.
For six examples of this type of columnar acrostic, see Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest-Fields of Literature, etc. (1875), 64, 66-9. (There are multiple editions of this work, updated or abridged.)
I haven’t been able to find any forms of this legend that feature an entirely different set of words on a sign, although the possibility that such variants exist can’t be excluded. Below is my humble attempt to come up with such a sign.
