Dredd to Thieftakers Volume 2- VICTORIANS
Action Cards
The action cards allow players to add bonuses to their arrest roles and scupper other players and help and hinder. I tried to find some period equivalents to what appears in the original game and some have remained from the Georgian version. I came up with the hiding places card after reading about an escaped prisoner who tried to hide up a chimney which was the first place a policeman would look. That and the outside privy. Cockayne was a defense Solicitor who represented several inmates some of whom were executed despite his best efforts to save them. Such as the wife killer who Cockayne pointed out was drunk at the time and his wife was known to be of loose morals and used foul language, as if that justified the murder. 
Hounds were not officially used by the police in the Victorian era although Nottingham in the 20s and 30s had a very progressive chief of police who made dogs official along with car radios and pursuit driving training and the first forensic lab.
Doctor Massey was the gaol surgeon for decades so made the obvious choice for a get out of hospital card. Escapes were common but so was attempts at suicide by prisoners. One man tried to kill himself in gaol and was whipped. Apparently it had a good effect on him and he didn't try and do it again. Washing was often lowered to a level that hampered police pursuits. .
Before CID the detective branch operated out of Scotland Yard and consisted of a handful of plain clothes officers. When Peel set up the police actual crime investigation wasnt really the idea but it was soon brought in and this small group such as Whicher shown here would help forces solve murders. The Lamb gang were a notorious force known for helping run election fraud and press ganging voters and using intimidation on behalf of the highest bidder. The Station cards are used to order players to different locations. The reasons for them to attend are real such as the crush at a hanging which saw the death of 12 people or the hospitalization of coroner James Hitchins who was arrested for election fraud and someone sent him a cake in prison laced with arsenic. . 
Constable Etches was one of the early investigators who came to Nottingham to solve two murders by looking for something called evidence. He later went on to run prisons and become a chief constable. Nelly Blankey was a prostitute who had a run in with a local judge who died after a visit to her rooms. His corpse was quickly rushed back to his bed and a doctor called to discover he had died in his sleep. Localy everyone knew that "he had lost his breath that caused his death betwixt Nelly Blankeys thighs"
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