Looking at broken signs causes lag

When broken signs (\\\\\\\\"\\\\"\\\) are in the players field of view, intense lag occurs. The more signs, the more lag.

I loaded my world in snapshot mode a few times, which broke the signs and caused lag. Then, in an attempt to solve the lag problem (I didn't know it was the signs at the time, I went back into 1.8.8. The lag still occurred. I used MCEdit to remove most of the signs, and then went back into the world to document the bug.

I took some before and after screenshots. The large but short lag spikes are the screenshots being taken, not the signs.