Not that long ago, my neighbour’s car was stolen. Not a very unusual, or even a interesting story. He parked, he went into his house, went to bed, woke up, car was gone. Happens all the time. But until this morning, short of a dramatic, gangland-style car-jacking, I thought you could probably only have your car (or parts thereof) stolen while it was parked.

Wrong.

In 1828, The Traveller’s Oracle; or, Maxims for Locomotion: Containing Precepts for Promoting the Pleasures…of Travellers (which is one of the world’s great titles: I’ve always longed for a ‘Maxim for Locomotion’, I just never knew it) warned those who owned their own carriages that they needed to have them fitted with spikes at the rear if the household did not keep a footman: ‘Do not permit Strangers to place themselves behind your Carriage at any time, or under any pretence whatever’, it sternly warned. They are either climbing up behind to rob you , or they will steal bits off your carriage while you are on the road, taking the ‘Check Braces, and Footmen’s Holders’ (the lead-strings by which passengers notified the driver they wanted to stop, and the leather straps that the footmen who would normally stand on small steps at the rear held onto). These items could be removed by street-thieves while you were in motion  ‘in half the time that your Coachman can put them on’. Therefore, ‘unless you think that two or three outside passengers are ornamental or convenient, or you like to have your Carriage continually surrounded by Crowds of Children, incessantly screaming, “Cut! Cut behind!”’, the ‘Spikes are indispensable’.

It really makes our streets seem astonishingly tame, doesn’t it? No windshield-wipers stolen as you drive down Fleet Street, no children (sorry, Children) shrieking out as you pass them on Madison Avenue, ‘Tear off the chrome strips!’