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

They compare notes and then Pierce offers to find him a made dog. In the conversation, he lets Trent know that he is single, even though he hopes to marry. He also acts like he’s rich without a care in the world.

After an obscure announcement is made, some go to another room with their dogs. Another announcement tells the crowd they have until a certain tie to decide what to do (place bets). Several dogs compete to determine which one can kill the most rats before the bell rings. An announcer narrates the action to the crowd. Pierce uses this chance to talk with Trent whose dog does not win.

Ch. 11 I remember reading in a Wodehouse that folks in England will bet on almost anything. While animal fighting had lost its luster, three forms of dog fight sports still existed: dog on dog, dog on badgers in chains, and dogs on rats. Training and selling dogs to fight was illegal in the Victorian Era, therefore these sports were popular. Trent takes his dog to a pub where dogs are welcome.

Ch. 9 The "bungled" pickpocket told Pierce what he needed to know. He has a serious problem. The street is patrolled. The help is honest. Trent and his wife live a predictable routine life. They don't seem to have vices. After a month of surveillance, he is getting desperate. Then he sees something that gives him an idea than getting hit by a vehicle in front of Trent's home.

He seems to know the area well. He asks for and finds a tween girl who knows the whereabouts of Willie, his potential snakesman. He gives her a gold coin and she tells him he’s at Newgate, which he already knows. He bribes her to give Willie a very strange message, but clearly it’s intended to give Willie a tip-off about a potential escape. If he can escape Newgate, he’s got the job.

At the time, it was called a rookery where criminals and prostitutes lived. The images are interesting: crows (which are thieves) and their haphazard nests. A large rookery near St. Giles was called the Holy Land and there was nothing sacred about it. The police abandoned patrolling this area because it was so danger. Pierce walks in, dressed as a gentlemen, but bulges implied that he was heavily armed.

Ch. 8 There is a lot of padding to help readers understand the Victorian which I love because I’m learning more about that time and place in history. The author mentions what contemporaries thought of London’s size (Henry James, Nathanial Hawthorne, Dostoevsky). Even though slums was a thing, the growth was so explosive they didn’t have a name for it even though they were seeing the pattern.

Ch. 7 Pierce watches a team of pickpockets practice their trade in London. Then he has an odd request. He asks if they could bungle the job in a way that doesn’t look obvious. Pierce offers him five quid and the guy turns him down. He accepts the job for ten quid.

He gathers intelligence and eventually deduces that the key is kept at home. This chapter lines up with Napoleon’s buttons. It talks about how dangerous explosives were before TNT. I laughed in the last chapter when it mentioned Sherlock Holmes prowess at learning railway schedules. Cigarettes had recently been invented but it wasn’t clear if they were gentlemanly.

Burglars could carry it away (if small), cut a hole in the safe and release the lock, or get the key (or make a copy). Pierce can’t do this until he figures out where the key is kept. Trent was not well liked because he was very fastidious with his employees and has very strict moral codes for them. They had to bring their own pens and, in the winters, coal. So, he hung out at various establishments near the bank.