Even on moonlit evenings, towns offered thieves alleys, courts, and alcoves for shelter. “It was indeed a moonlight night,” testified the victim of an assault in 1732, “but I was robb’d on the dark side of the way.” On the Hampstead Road from London, a notorious spot for robberies, a band grabbed a man off his horse to assault behind a haycock, “because it was then a moon-light night.”25
