The upper echelon NOCCUNDRA HOTEL
JUST MAYBE IT’S A reflection on my early life that the first time I heard the saying, ‘pros and cons’ I thought it referred to prostitutes and con-men, or maybe convicts. Dad soon set me straight and explained that the leeches living off the earnings were bludgers, not con-men but I retained a fascination with scammers, fraudsters, grifters and the like.
In distasteful admiration I read Ned Polsky’s landmark “Hustlers, Beats and Others” when it came out in 1969 and marvelled at the unbridled gall and absence of his subjects to any remorse or empathy for the ‘marks’.
Polsky wrote of the deviant dealings of Americans and he had wide and fecund fields to harvest but he might just as well’ve chosen Australia coz we’ve had more than our share of charlatans and swindlers.
The best known is probably a butcher from Wagga Wagga who went by the names of Thomas Castro and Arthur Orton but who claimed
