Poll the Grogseller

DESCRIPTION: "Big Poll the Grogseller gets up every day... She's turning in plenty of tin people say," for "Polly's good looking, and Polly is young, And Polly's possessed of a smooth oily tongue." When magistrates come in seeking illegal boose, she easily fools them
AUTHOR: Charles R. Thatcher (1831-1878)
EARLIEST DATE: 1858 (Thatcher's Colonial Songster, according to Bruce Moore, _Gold! Gold! Gold!)
KEYWORDS: drink police trick money beauty
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Thatcher-ColonialMinstrel-Songsters, p. 75 "Poll the Grogseller" (1 text, from "Thatcher's Colonial Songster")
Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong, pp. 85-87, "Poll the Grogseller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Anderson-GoldrushSongster, pp. 46-47, "Poll the Grogseller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hoskins-GoldfieldBalladeer-LifeAndTimes-Charles-R-Thatcher, pp. 149, "Poll the Grogseller" (1 text)
Anderson/Thatcher-GoldDiggersSongbook, pp. 53-54, "Poll the Grogseller" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Phillip the Falconer" (tune)
NOTES [79 words]: For brief background on Charles Thatcher's career, see the notes to "Where's Your License?" For an extensive collection of his songs, see Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong.
Bruce Moore, Gold! Gold! Gold! A Dictionary of the Nineteenth-century Australian Gold Rushes, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 68-69, prints a dozen lines of the 1858 edition of this song as part of the definition of grog-seller = sly grog-seller, although saying the term goes back to 1827. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.3
File: AnSt085

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