Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that slaps... I dunno, I work at a high school and this was some new slang I learned and am probably using incorrectly.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me is:

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that the Descendants are a band. Apparently.

Round Table and Beer

The round table this week... is that we're back in the studio and can finally have another beer together.

Soulcraft Brewing: Raspberry porterSalida Colorado

* Aaron: 8* Shea: 8

40 Elephants

I’m not sure what the impetus to do a story on female gangsters was but I found myself in an internet hole filled with awesome stories of female gangsters that made some pretty big waves in their day, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring them back into the light and entertain you all with some badass ladies.

We could start with some more contemporary women such as Griselda Blanco, recently played by Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2017’s Cocaine Grandma. Griselda has a terrifying and bloody story complete with torture and hired hits during the heyday of cocaine use in the 70/80’s. But I was feeling something a bit less bloody and a whole gang of women sounded cooler than just one angry bloodthirsty drug queen. I went back pretty far in history to find a notorious syndicate run exclusively by working-class women.

PICTURED -Top row, left to right, Alice Diamond, "Queen of Thieves"; Maggie Hughes, deputy; Laura Partrdige; bottom row, left to right, Bertha Tappenden; Madeline Partridge, Gertrude Scully.

One all-female gang ruled part of the gangland underworld for almost two centuries, the 40 Elephants. Definitive records show that the Elephants operated between 1873 and the 1950s, but there is some evidence to suggest that the gang’s origins can be placed as early as the end of the 18th century. The gang’s name is not as cryptic as it may sound: the number

is a rough estimate of its membership and the choice of animal is due to two factors: that they all lived around the Elephant and Castle pub in Southwark, and – more significantly – on leaving shops with their stolen goods under their clothes, the sheer volume of garb made them look like elephants. Only women were allowed to be members and they were almost all exclusively from a working-class background; they rejected the jobs that people like them were condemned to do and instead, similarly to the suffragette movement, they took matters into their own hands. However, instead of fighting for the right to vote, the Elephants wanted something more immediate: financial independence. They would steal clothes and jewelry, sell them on for far less than they were worth, and distribute the earnings amongst their community, providing their families with a lot more than they could otherwise hope to.

Photographs from a 1916 article in Popular Mechanics show the garments shoplifters wear to make their work easier. Via/ Internet Archive

Many a husband lounged at home while his missus was out at work, and many an old lag was propped up by a tireless shoplifting spouse. Some of these terrors were as tough as the men they worked for and protected,"Brian McDonald

Said Brian McDonald, who uncovered details of the criminals when researching for his new book, Gangs of London. Cool aside,