In the filthy streets of Victorian South London, a group of women from Elephant and Castle pulled off the largest and most sophisticated shoplifting operation in British history. Known as the Forty Elephants, these working-class women built a tightly run underground network—strategic, stealthy, and nearly untouchable. Targeting high-end department stores, they outsmarted police, intimidated male gangs and pulled off flawless heists again and again. Follow us on Instagram @watchhercookpodcast Sources: Dirty London: How Victorian Filth Formed the Urban Detective The Lady Gangsters of the Victorian Age Crime and the Victorians The Sun– Glamour Gangsters Meet The Forty Elephants, The All-Girl Gang From London What was crime like in Victorian London? https://www.walks.com/blog/crime-victorian-london/ The all women gang that robbed London blind London’s Female Thieves, 1700-1710 Criminal Gangs of 19th Century Britain Crime chronicles: Part 2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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On a chilly January night in 1921, an audience gathered at London's Finsbury Park Empire Theatre, unaware that they were about to witness something that would go down in history. The curtain rose, the stage was set, and a man named Percy Thomas Tibbles, who performed under the name P.T. Selbit, invited a woman to step into a wooden box. Moments later, he picked up the saw.
Then, in front of a stunned crowd, he sliced the box in half. The crowd gasped. Shortly after, the woman emerged from the box in one piece, but the illusion was complete and the world would never look at magic the same way again. Newspapers across the globe picked up the story, and magicians everywhere scrambled to replicate and outdo the act.
The public was captivated, drawn to the unsettling elegance of a spectacle that made something so dangerous appear so seamless. Trickery works best when it's dressed in charm. It thrives on misdirection, smooth delivery, and just enough confidence to make the lie believable. It doesn't just entertain, it manipulates. It bends perception, reorders power, and hides intent in plain sight.
And some of the most effective acts of deception don't need a spotlight or a stage. They unfold quietly on crowded streets where the lines between performance and deception are much harder to spot. This is Watch Her Cook. Hello, everyone. I'm Cassie.
And I'm Danielle.
Welcome back to Watch Her Cook, a podcast dedicated to sharing the incredible lives of women who have taken their power back throughout history.
I know we're not talking about magic today, but that is a moment in history that everyone knows, regardless of if you're a magic enthusiast or not. And I still don't know how that works. Do you?
I don't either. And I've seen it in real life too at magic shows. And it still, I mean, this happened in 1921, a hundred years later is still blowing my mind.
It's all about the illusion, baby.
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