the opposite intended effect of strengthened Wild's hand, for it made it more difficult for thieves to fence their goods except through Wild. Wild's battles with thieves made excellent press. Wild himself would approach the papers with accounts of his derring-do, and the papers passed these on to a concerned public. Thus, in the summer of 1724, the papers carried accounts of Wild's heroic efforts in collecting twenty-one members of the Carrick Gang (with an £800 reward — approximately £ in ). When one of the members of the gang was released, Wild pursued him and had him arrested on "further information". To the public, this seemed like a relentless defence of order. In reality, it was gang warfare disguised as a national service. When Wild solicited for a finder's fee, he usually held all the power in the transaction. For example, David Nokes quotes (based on Howson) the following advertisement from the Daily Post in 1724 in his edition of Henry Fielding's The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great: The advertisement is extortion. The "notes of hand" (agreements of debt) means signatures, so Wild already knows the name of the notebook's owner. Furthermore, Wild tells the owner through the ad that he knows what its owner was doing at the time, since the Fountain Tavern was a brothel. The real purpose of the ad is to threaten the owner with announcing his visit to a bordello, either to the debtors or the public, and it even names a price for silence (a guinea, or one pound and one shilling). The Jack Sheppard struggle and downfall By 1724, London political life was experiencing a crisis of public confidence. The South Sea Bubble had burst four years earlier, and the public was growing restive about corruption. Authority figures were beginning to be viewed with scepticism. In April 1724, the most famous housebreaker of the era, Jack Sheppard, was apprehended by one of Wild's men, James "Hell-and-Fury" Sykes, for a burglary Sheppard had committed in Clare Market on 5 February. Sheppard had worked with Wild in the past, though he had struck out on his own. Consequently, as with other arrests, Wild's interests in saving the public from Sheppard were personal. Sheppard was imprisoned in St Giles's Roundhouse, but escaped within three hours. On 19 May, Wild again had Sheppard arrested for pickpocketing, and this time he was put in