The Curious Case of the Christmas Cutpurse

If you were a Londoner in 1611, you had a few things to fear: Famine, freezing temperatures, and the odd bout of plague were all competing to cause you harm. Even if you could survive these threats, the news media of the seventeenth century would have you believe there was another lurking right under your nose: An underworld of criminals, walking among well-intentioned citizens, who gathered in murky alehouses to conspire and plot, devising all kinds of clever tricks to part you from your goods.