OK- here I go again- Thread Creep Alert! I've been puzzling over this...

Way back on 25/4 8:14, Grab said: "Europe lost its roaming gangs of bandits ages back, but America still had them until more recently."

It's probably just slipped my mind, or it's something so familiar that I didn't identify it as such; I'll probably respond Oh! Duh...

When did we in the US have "roaming gangs of bandits"?