AUSTRALIAN HUMORS.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 April 1919, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN HUMORS.

OF BORDER BOOKADE

SYDNEY, March 28,

The quarantine blockade, put into operation by New South Wales against Victoria as a quarantine measure, and carried out rigorously at the border for several weeks now, is in danger of becoming farcical. The epidemic is now niore extensive and virulent in New South Wales than in Victoria, where the outbreak appears to be dying down. Officialdom gives up its powers reluctantly, however, and at present anyone wishing to cross from Victoria into the older State must spend four days in a crowded comfortless quarantine camp in Albury, for which privilege ten shill lings per day is charged. Attempts to beat the quarantine barriver have been numerous and very many have succeeded. One hears only of the unsuccessful ones, however, and some make a quaint story. A party of seven bookmakers —some from Sydney, who had been south for the Cup and some from Melbourne, coming north to operate at the Easter Carnival here were stopped at Wodonga ( on the Victorian side of the Murray and told that they must pass through the camp. They decided to beat the barrier if the lavish use of money and some ingenuity could accomplish it.

The river was the trouble, but eventually they found a man with a boat who was prepared to ferry them across and take the risk for a very considerable sum. He was a distance away, on a quiet part of the river, and they mo. tored out to his place at night. They and their luggage were duly carried across. Proceeding cautiously, they were able to find a man with a car, who, for further heavy consideration agreed to run them into Albury. All went well. They got their luggage aboard the train and went to purchase tickets and sleeping berts. But luck was agailnst them. A member of the quarantine camp staff was leaving for Sydney and other members of the staff came down to see him off. One official noticed the bookmakers asking for tickets, and decided that he had not seen them in the camp, and “butted in.” The bookmakers, asked pertinent questions were not convincing and the end of the adventure was that the disconsolate party of seven were taken charge of by the police and marched hack across the bridge to Wodonga, where they must await their turn to go through .the camp—which means a delay for at least a week—and pay fines for attempting to avoid quarantine.