News at Eleven: Indeed, [Leslie] Hotson's researches tend

to suggest that [Francis] Langley and [William] Gardiner were in more or less open conflict with each other for the spoils of the various rackets that theater owners dabbled in--that their dispute was, in John Michell's phrase, "the usual one between urban gangsters, that is, control of the local vice trade and organized crime." And since Shakespeare "was principal in their quarrel," [John] Michell reasonably concludes, "presumably he was involved in their rackets."

from Smithsonian: Past Imperfect: William Shakespeare, Gangster

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