Tammy’s Reviews > The Great Train Robbery > Status Update

He tenderly squeezes her hand and says it’s the happiest day of his life. She’s so very happy, bless her heart.

She bores her friends to death talking about Mr. Edward Pierce. She begs her father for new dress, sometimes wearing two different dresses in a day. He is very tender and acts attentive, but later testifies he could only remember one conversaation with her. She talked about her father’s anxiety on days when Crimean War gold shipments were sent. He went to the basement for a drink, all by himself, to calm his nerves.

Ch. 16 Pierce and Miss Trent bump into each other on an equestrian trail called Robbery Row. It’s a real place in Hyde Park and the wealthy really did ride there. The first meeting is accidental. After that, it is intentional. She falls for him while he, of course, sees her as a means to an end. A match made in Hell. She never wonders why a charming, good-looking wealthy young man would see her as a prospect.

His previous flame had moved on so he found a new one. She steals laundry to feed herself. He doesn’t talk about how he escapes because he does not want to jeopardize his job with Pierce. They live in lodging (a house) that holds a hundred people, twenty to a room! I can see why Jane Eyre chose Lowood over being poor. Their living conditions are unfathomable, yet still exist today. No wonder disease was prevalent.

Ch. 15 Willie didn’t really die. He stayed at Pierce’s place for awhile so that his wounds could heal and his hair could grow out long enough to no longer look like an escaped convict. The opium for the pain also helped him to stay put. Pierce’s mistress and accomplice, “Miss Miriam,” took care of him when she wasn’t busy with her own mysterious errands during the day. Once better, Willie went back to the Holy Land.

Ch. 14 The Victorians hated the Georgian style of architecture but could not afford to tear it down. Critics blamed the architecture of Newgate for Willie’s escape. Police searched for all the rookeries in London and could not find him. After about a month, they tagged a floating body in the Thames with Willi’es name. As if!

Fortunately, his hands are completely calloused from being a chimney sweep as a child. He does cut himself and he bleeds but nobody notices him during the hanging. When he arrives in the room, the Pierce gang drugs him to numb the pain and wake him up. They tend his wounds and the wives dress him in women’s clothing. They lack Victorian modesty. They act like he’s a woman who has fainted and they carry him out.

Hangings are not an exact science and usually the person swings for an hour before they are dead and hauled off in a coffin. The crowd is loud, jeering, and singing raucous songs during a haning. This one is no exception. Willie, who has been a model prisoner and would have been granted parole early for good behavior, makes his escape during the hanging. He cuts his hands up terribly because of the spikes.

A woman named Emma Barnes is going to be hung outside Newgate Prison. The poor schleps have to stand in a crowded square to watch, but people with money can rent a room that overlooks the square to get a better view. Pierce, his accomplices, and their wives take advantage of the situation. They come with bandages, drugs, and woman’s clothing, especially a bonnet. The hanging is the perfect distraction.

Ch. 13 We moderns think we aren’t so barbaric as medieval folks with their hears on a pike, the Elizabethans with their bear baiting, and the Victorians watching a good old-fashioned hanging. There is so much violence on display in MA television shows and rated R movies that we have become desensitized to it. And, now with cameras everywhere, people can look up horrific crimes that happened in real life.