Even in the reign of James I. Shire Lane was christened Rogues' Lane, and, in spite of all the dukes and lords of the Kit-Kat, it never grew very respectable. In 1724 that incomparable young rascal, Jack Sheppard, used to frequent the "Bible" public-house--a printers' house of call--at No. 13. There was a trap in one of the rooms by which Jack could drop into a subterraneous passage leading to Bell Yard. Tyburn gibbet cured Jack of this trick. In 1738 the lane went on even worse, for there Thomas Carr (a low attorney, of Elm Court) and Elizabeth Adams robbed and murdered a gentleman named Quarrington at the "Angel and Crown" Tavern, and the miscreants were hung at Tyburn. Hogarth painted a portrait of the woman. One night, many years ago, a man was robbed, thrown downstairs, and killed, in one of the dens in Shire Lane. There was snow on the ground, and about two o'clock, when the watchmen grew drowsy and were a long while between their rounds, the frightened murderers carried the stiffened body up the lane and placed it bolt upright, near a dim oil lamp, at a neighbour's door. There the watchmen found it; but there was no clue to guide them, for nearly every house in the lane was infamous. Years after, two ruffianly fellows who were confined in the King's Bench were heard accusing each other of the murder in Shire Lane, and justice pounced upon her prey. One thieves' house, known as the "Retreat," led, Mr. Diprose says, by a back way into Crown Court; and other dens had a passage into No. 242, Strand. Nos. 9, 10, and 11 were known as Cadgers' Hall, and were much frequented by beggars, and bushels of bread, thrown aside by the professional mendicants, were found there by the police. The "Sun" Tavern, afterwards the "Temple Bar Stores," had been a great resort for the Tom and Jerry frolics of the Regency; and the "Anti-Gallican" Tavern was a haunt of low sporting men, being kept by Harry Lee, father of the first and original "tiger," invented and made fashionable by the notorious Lord Barrymore. During the Chartist times violent meetings were held at a club in Shire Lane. A good story is told of one of these. A detective in disguise attended an illegal meeting, leaving his comrades ready below. All at once a frantic hatter rose, denounced the detective as a spy, and proposed off-hand to pitch him out of window. Permitted by the more peaceable to depart, the policeman scuttled downstairs as fast as he could, and, not being recognised in his disguise, was instantly knocked down by his friends' prompt truncheons. In Ship Yard, close to Shire Lane, once stood a block of disreputable, tumble-down houses, used by coiners, and known as the "Smashing Lumber." Every room had a secret trap, and from the workshop above a shaft reached the cellars to hurry away by means of a basket and pulley all the apparatus at the first alarm. The first man made his fortune, but the new police soon ransacked the den and broke up the business.