Epic Story Of Devil's Island Escapee

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

Epic Story Of Devil's Island Escapee

Books

In Review

nlpON memoirs have not 1 , y: vs ro p^ pular readin s Mr V.. F. R. Macartney perhaps — k- now ground and surprised !f and bus publishers when , l «« a»itobio?raphy, "Walls 1 Mouths," issued a year or ' • Proved a best-seller. If w<- ■ i .t mistaken, another best- ' !i 1 ,:i ;h,s object has appeared " *-= "Dry (!iiil|nt i mi'." : 1 •'!•••>. >» wlii.-h Hi" iiinln.r ' "'- v ' I'-'ii'- r;ii.-i iiir ' " "" -n :i convict '' ' 11 1- in- lit „f Kim,, i, i . ' !'•'> kn..u I, it< "|),. vi; _ 1 |J ■' '-"iy which 1,,. | ■ , 1 "' ll '''I : ' lit Ii; a limit!!,;.. ' ' -Ml, titled. -rif t . '• ' Dead." J, ' - ■ 'I'l,'Ml r. r . la.ssj,al t rn ..,..1 - ' 1(1 "I til'' beholder 1iy",..: v" ' '' I"'' 1 '! -"1 I ll'lMPllt i« 1.1. r. •'! !'> « "111 thi u 1.1 ' ' x 1 1 ' 1,1 I'- 1 ' I •:I I'> tl] - v el i; V •> ' ' ■ '' 111~ t .1 I)C ;| \ .1 I . •' ' 'I I I ' 111 i.I .-[• II ,;,I 1 1! ' 1 ' " 11' h"; i: \ \\ 11. ■ n ' "v ' 1 11| ' ' - 1 '• ■':I<l fill t !ii~ - I ' ' 'i ill. i A ell I \ . Mil- \ fill',, , , f

ago, for the theft of money and jewellery (but without violence) to eight yours transportation, lie served fifteen v..ir> there, and made four attempts at before the fifth proved suc-ci'~-iul. And that fifth—what a story i' makes; Jhe author and live com-

I -anions sailed in a dugout canoe, three 'eel wide, across the merciless Caribbean Sea. till after seventeen days and nijhts jit sea they reached Trinidad literally at the last gasp of exhaustion. hunger anil thirst. After another harrowing voyage of sixteen days at sea, they came to land in Colombia, but only to be arrested and handed over again to the French Consul. Belbeiioit managed to escape from custody, and ultimately reached the United Stales, but his more unfortunate companions wore tent back to solitary confinement in the penal settlement, where they are undoubtedly still suffering the penalty for their attempt at escape.

I hat solitary confinement—it is no myth, and human understanding can "iily with difficulty realise that such tlonirs can still be in this world of l!'»s. I-or his fourth attempt at escaping (according to the author not an aUenip! a t all) IVlbenoit suffered three years solitary confinement on the lie l.oxa'e. I hreo years, spent in a single coll. in semi darkness, with no books, no papers, nothing to pass the time,

nothing to do but pace up and down in the confined space or swing from the iron bars which formed the mot'. At the end of that time he wa< set free, but only on condition that he remained a "free" member of the penal settlement for life. This is one of the .•oii-i , i|iieiire> of a sentence to Cluian.i —fur everv year «|H>nt. there as a prisoner, one inu-r -pernl an additional year ;irs a "free" member of the penal settlement, and in the ease of substantial sentence-. the "freed" convict must »tay in iluiana for life. This is the reason why authentic news so seldom leaks out to the outside world. Seven hundred prisoners aunuallv are imported into the colony: half of these die in their first year, ami the deathrate among'the balance is <o h'-ii that the [lopulat ion does not incrca-e.

'1 his book is not to he recommended to the squeamish reader. It may w 11 he that it will fulfil the prophecy i-poken of it in an able foreword bv .Mr. William I.a \ aire. and be the first, decisive step in the abolition of the appalling convict sy-tem ot French '■uiana. It may be added that the written word of M. lielbenoit (in the I 11 iti 11 ivpe of • lonathan Ca|w) i- admiral.!\ eon'iid.-ied by the eight drawing;. !.v a fellow prisoner, of some erudiiv but of -ome

artistic merit al~o. of ~u ; >jeciK which would have ju-tified Jie pencil of (.'ova himself.