CONVICT SHIP FOR DEVIL'S ISLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 114, 15 May 1926, Page 18

CONVICT SHIP FOR DEVIL'S ISLAND.

BARBAROUS METHODS IN USE. PROVISION AGAINST CONSPIRACY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 31. The Paris "Matin" contains what strikes the English mind as a truly shocking account of conditions on board the French convict boat which is about to sail from La Pallice for Devil's | Island. Indeed shocking is too mild a word for these conditions. But what is more horrible is the fact that the French newspaper should publish this account with a cynical calmness accepting the conditions it describee as being not out of the way. It talks of the poor wretches condemntd to transportation as "wild animals," "game," "human beasts" and "gallow birds." The internal arrangements of the ship are terrible in that four cages are installed, two small ones fore and aft, and two in the body of the ship. The two cages in the main hold face one another. They are lit from above through a square opening made in the deck. This opening is protected when • necessary from sun by a canvas awning. The cages are some fifteen yards long by four or five in width. Each of them contains 120 convicts. Their canvas hammocks are slung at intervals of only 18 inches. The floor and walls of the cages are of thick steel, being the sides of the ship and the cover of the lower hold. Enormous bars separate the cages. The only gate is exceedingly narrow, and armed with formidable locks. There the wild beasts live in the murk, with hardly a square yard each to move about in. As for the methods of maintaining discipline, these seem to be almost out of the dark ages, for, according to the same paper, "between the two cages there are four minute cells, each closed with four bolts. A man cannot lie down within them, at least without doubling up on himself. When the door is closed the darkness is complete. In these iron boxes it is easy to imagine what the temperature is like in the blazing tropics." But even these methods do not suffice to keen the convicts overawed. Those so recalcitrant that the dark cells have no effect are subjected to an ingenious form of torture. Running along the bars is a high, narrow bench, too high for the legs to touch the ground, too narrow to allow the victim to feel any rest. The man Is made to sit on ihis bench while his feet are pulled through the bars underneath and secured. "The posture," adde the writer, "is one that cannot be endured for very long, and the hottest head is Boon reduced to reason by this means." But even this is not the worst, for the writer of this description of a hell which Dante might have imagined, goes en to say that provision has been made against conspiracy among the convictsno les3 than scalding a man alive with st«am from the boiler-house. "Supreme measures must be taken to meet any chance that may arise. There is no question here of applying that general cold douche of rea-water of winch simple people have heard tell. All that has to bo done is to unscrew a simple screw in the roof of the cages, and steam from the engine-room pours in, swirling and boiling. Strong shutters take the place of a canvas avming, and are closed upon an opening in the deck with a turn of the hand!" .... It is a horrible revelation, nnd these extracts do not even convey the worst that this French newspaper callously gives to the light of day.