oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Ah ha! Very good question!How large and well-knit was the community you lived and worked in?
Massive variation.
Enormous cities , through average towns ....reducing to small mining communities.
Ah ......... my information for very small communities is not as strong as for villages and upwards because there were problems with hamlets of (say) 25-40 homes because in this age people drive to their village stores to shop and that changes the character of a community. I could prepare for travelling shoppers and travelling pro-thieves in those stores.... that was my focus in them.
For example: I couldn't dress down to (for example) as a 'care in the community' type of character with odd socks, a mis-buttoned duffle coat and a beanie woolly hat with a disabled facial countenance (very easy for me, Sunstone and deadly in supermarkets) because every local soul in the place would react 'Who the hell is he!!!?'
So staff had to be prepared to answer intrigued locals with 'Oh he's alright! That's oldbadger (!) he's no trouble, his carer is somewhere around.' Big Smile..... That could work for locals to leave me alone.
But what about the Salem witch hunts? Was it 18 locals executed by locals because of local allegations? How does that event fit with your proposal?