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On February
the Seventeenth 1797 John Hetherington was the first gentleman to
be seen wearing a Top Hat, supposedly his invention, in a fashionable
part of London, probably St James's.
This rather unspectacular sounding event turned out rather differently. Mr Hetherington caused a furore and riot ensued. Horses bolted, ladies fainted and rotten fruit was hurled. He was promptly arrested for 'occasioning a breach of the peace' and bound over to keep the peace in the sum of five hundred pounds, a fortune then and a considerable sum even now.
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