Among the vast manuscript collections of the British Library are seven large folio volumes full of press-cuttings, handbills and advertisements, collected by the clergyman Daniel Lysons in the late 18th century. The Rev Lysons was a habitué of London’s low life, visiting squalid, back-street monster-shows and collecting all the information he could about the quacks, mountebanks, jugglers and exhibitors of animals and human freaks for his huge scrapbooks.

Antiquaries and historians now recognize Lysons’ Collecteana as a valuable source of cultural history and, while studying them, I came across a startling newspaper cutting from the World, of March 13, 1788: “Amongst the curious Betts of the day, may be reckoned the following: The Duke of Bedford has betted 1000 guineas with Lord Barrymore, that he does not – eat a live Cat!