“I was born in Stepney Parish, the Year Queen Anne came to the Crown; my Father a Carpenter by Trade, and an honest industrious character, and my Mother bore and deserved the same. She being left a Widow in the early Part of my Life, continued the Business, and kept myselfe, together with another unfortunate son, and a daughter at Mr. Garrett’s School near Great St. Hellen’s in Bishopsgate Parish, till Mr. Kneebone, a Woollen draper in the Strand, an Acquaintance ... being desirous to settle me to a Trade, ... agreed with Mr. Owen Wood a Carpenter of Drury-Lane to take me an Apprentice for Seven Years.” [Illustration: JACK SHEPPARD. _From an Old Print._] Sheppard describes Mr. and Mrs. Wood as “strict observers of the Sabbath,” which he thought fit to spend in his own manner, and he fell into evil ways. For this he blamed Joseph Hind, who kept the “Black Lyon Alehouse in Drury-Lane.” Here he met Bess Lyon, who was his ruin, and for whose benefit most of his robberies were committed. He asserts that his first crime was stealing two silver spoons from the Rummer Tavern in Charing Cross. In 1723 he describes being sent to the house of a Mr. Bains to do some carpentering, where he stole a roll of fustian (24 yards) from amongst others, and offered it for sale at 12d. per yard, but having no offers, he concealed it in his master’s house. In the following August he was making some shutters for Mr. Bains, and in the night entered by the cellar window, taking £14 worth of goods, and £7 in money. When he went next day he found the shop shut, and the Bains family in much trouble, in which he greatly sympathised. A fellow apprentice saw the fustian and told Mr. Wood, so Sheppard broke into Wood’s house in the night and took it away again, but the Bains family followed him up, and in spite of his own and his brother’s assertions of innocence, he was compelled to restore what remained. From that time such a number of thefts and burglaries were committed that Jack Sheppard soon made a reputation. The _Tyburn Chronicle_, writing of this part of his life, says: “Jack was now so eminent, that there was not a blackguard in St. Giles’s but thought it an honour, as well as an advantage, to be admitted to his company.” Later he made his headquarters in the Hampstead district, and committed a robbery in the Hampstead Road. His clever escapes, when in prison for his many offences, stimulated the interest and admiration of the people. Confined in St. Giles’s Round House, he made a hole in the roof, from which he flung a cartload of stones on the people in the street below. Later, Bess Lyon was committed to the St. Anne’s Round House. Sheppard went to see her, and was promptly shut up there as an accomplice. He wrenched the bars from the window, and tying the blanket and sheet together, first let her down, and then followed himself.