Around 8pm on a cold February evening in 1733, a gentleman named Francis Peters was returning to his home near Knightsbridge, London, in a hackney cab, when someone knocked on the wooden shutters of the door. An armed horseman thrust a pistol inside, demanded Peters’s money and valuables and snatched a ring from his finger. Peters handed them over without fuss. But when the thief also snatched his hat and wig, he protested vigorously, though in vain – the robber rode away with his booty.
The puzzle, to the modern reader, is that the hat was worth only five shillings – far less than the watch (worth £4), the ring and the cash he had already handed over. So why make such a fuss?
