Just about this period dreadful outrages were of common occurrence; men were knocked down in the street in open daylight, robbed, and murdered, and not a few deaths were the outcome of private and party hatred. Municipal law was set at defiance, and any small body of desperadoes could do as they liked unchecked, unless they happened to be providentially opposed by equal or superior force, when they generally turned tail, for their practice was not to fight so much as to beat and plunder the defenceless. Here is a notice which speaks volumes for the state of affairs. It is published in the _London Gazette_, and bears date March 29, 1688:-- WHEREAS a Gentleman was, on the eighteenth at night, mortally wounded near Lincoln’s Inn, in Chancery Lane, in view as is supposed of the coachman that set him down: these are to give notice that the said coachman shall come in and declare his knowledge of the matter; if any other person shall discover the said coachman to John Hawles, at his chamber in Lincoln’s Inn, he shall have 5 guineas reward. About this time some show is made on behalf of those credulous folk who believe that all highwaymen in the good old times were brave, dashing, highly educated, and extremely handsome; for we find several inquiries after robbers who, before troubles came upon them, held superior positions in society. Here is one of the year 1688:-- _WHEREAS Mr Herbert Jones_, Attorney-at-Law in the Town of Monmouth, well known by being several years together Under-Sheriff of the same County, hath of late divers times robbed the Mail coming from that town to London, and taken out divers letters and writs, and is now fled from justice, and supposed to have sheltered himself in some of the new-raised troops. These are to give notice that whosoever shall secure the said Herbert Jones, so as to be committed in order to answer these said crimes, may give notice thereof to Sir Thomas Fowles, goldsmith, Temple-bar, London, or to Mr Michael Bohune, mercer, in Monmouth, and shall have a guinea’s reward.