LATE ON DECEMBER 29TH, 1929, when a train pulled into the station at the pub-less Mallee town of Patchewollock a carload of out-of-town plain-clothed narks was waiting in the shadows. They watched as a stack of crates of beer was unloaded from one of the railway wagons and when it was all done one of the D’s headed over and ‘chased’ the bloke in charge for five bottles of Melbourne Bitter and handed him a ten-bob note.
Took the beers back to the car, and then returned with his ‘civvied’ mates, busted Thomas Holland for sly grog selling and confiscated the town’s delivery of 1070 bottles of beer and 19 bottles of wine. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too!
A decade later even the local cops had changed their tune and admitted that sly grogging was an out-of-control social menace and the workers of the area deserved personal irrigation as much as did their crops. The local walloper testified to a hearing that
