BORDER PATROL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 61, 9 September 1937, Page 5

BORDER PATROL

FEAR OF INFANTILE PARALYSIS

STRICT WATCH BY N.S.W.

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, September 2.

New South Wales is maintaining a meticulous guard on a 700-miles frontier against an invisible enemy. Following the passing of emergency legislation last week, 180 police, including 100 rushed from Sydney, are watching the border between this State and Victoria to prevent the entry of infantile paralysis suspects and contacts. At noon last Saturday the police swung their line of defence from Indi, in the Kosciusko district, to Cal Lai, near the South Australian border. Along this 700-mile line police from Sydney, and towns throughout the Riverina, are guarding 27 border crossings. They are sleeping in farm houses, station outhouses, or in tents, getting their meals when, and how, they can. Working in; patrols of three,' they maintain a 24-hour guard o,n the smallest and most isolated ferry crossings. ' Right through the night, an officer is on duty stopping cars by flashlight signals, to examine the passengers, turn them ■ back, or allow them to proceed. In the first 12 hours of their patrol, the police refused 30 Victorian children car passengers permission to cross Union Bridge, Albury, and another 40 cars were halted there next day, during which more than 80 uncertificated Victorian children sought to enter: New South Wales. Nearly twice as many New South Wales children were in cars which abandoned inter-State trips when the police gave warning that return would be difficult without certificates. The paralysis patrol is quietly carrying out its difficult job of guarding a 700-miles frontier 24 hours a day. The work is easing as Victorian and border people grasp the regulations more fully. Nearly all who intend entering New South Wales are now securing the necessary certificates before they leave home. Police now have a complete record of every one of the hundreds of children who have crossed from Victoria since Saturday. The collected certificates are sent to the Board of Health in Sydney;