” Capital Crimes” tells the shifting story of crime & punishment in London through vivid re-creations of a series of murders that stretches from the killing of Roger Legett, a notorious `questmonger`, during the Peasants` Revolt in 1381, through to the hanging of Styllou Christofi in 1954. Some of the murderers, such as the political assassin John Bellingham, are still remembered. Others, including the eighteenth-century highwayman John Davis, are largely forgotten. But all their lives & fates have much to tell us
- about London`s changing underworld, about the slow evolution of policing in the capital, & about the sometimes strange workings of the law. Above all, they provide a fascinating sideways view of London over the centuries
- from the crime-ridden alleyways of the Georgian capital to the supposedly respectable suburbs of Finchley, where the notorious `baby-farmers` Amelia Sach & Annie Walters operated at the beginning of the twentieth century. Illustrated throughout with contemporary engravings & photographs, this is an essential read for all devotees of London
- & of crime.