It was not a pretty sight. In 1839, the roads of Wales were crowded with men wearing women's clothes, in an obscure reference to a story from the Bible. By the time they were back in their usual attire, several turnpikes (tax collection points) had been demolished. During the following five years, these "Rebecca rioters", as they became known, donned their frocks and smashed turnpikes many times, doing what most taxpayers before and since could only dream about. But now some governments are starting to worry that globalisation, spurred by the Internet, will do to their tax systems what those transvestite Taffies did to the turnpikes.
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