GOOD-BYE TO DEVIL'S ISLE!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

GOOD-BYE TO DEVIL'S ISLE!

DEVIL'S ISLAND and all the other penal establishment* in French Guiana have been abolished by a stroke of the pen. A decree just published in _ the French Government's official journal brings into force the provisions of a bill passed 18 months back. Convicts at present if French Guiana will not be repatriated, but the penal settlement will be allowed to die out. Thus passe* the most notorious of the world's convict colonies, about which it k true to say that m&re sensational storiea and films haVe been produced t.%Ti any other prison in the world.

By--Dacid Johns \

\sjta SaL. of brutality in the French Guild ptenal colonics, and undoubtedly somdterrible things have happened, but as M Devil's Island itself, as a pardoriedtonvict wrote in his account o the «c lenient, the only real terror o it lie« in the length of the sentences. A conemned prisoner seldom returns to Fra ce. The; sland itself is beautiful, fertile and lift excessively hot. Indeed, one priijOiWr declared it would be an excellent? //lace for a rest cure —for six inojitlls. But its smallness, the monotoiy. the hopelessness of the outlook became a torture after a long period of defection. Devil's Isle is reserved enirely for political prisoners, who usijilly number between 20 and 30. It ca*e into existence as 4 "fortified are," when it was necessary to provide an ocile for Captain Dreyfu*. In recent/ the higher standard of living enjiired by political prisoners has been aboit tlie only thing which compensate.; for a lower chance of escapingAnual!;' are seven - settlements in a(> a 3d the sensational titles, such as "tutpoet of Hell'' and "Isle of the Dooned," might be more properly; ap-

Prison In A Tropic Paradise

plied to the worst of these where the most unruly criminals have been secluded. There are three penal colonies on the islands of the Salut group, of which Devil's Island is the largest; at Cayenne, which is reserved for the bestbehaved prisoners; at Saint-Laurent, about 15 miles down the Maroni Kiver, which is the main camp, holding from 1500 to 2000 prisoners; at Charvin, the disciplinary camp; and Camp Hatte, where the cripples are gent. Conditions on Devil's Island are much different from those seen at the other settlements. The island is kept healthy, and tolerable by the fresh Atlantic breezes, and the prisoners have their own cabins, books and clothing, and draw the same rations as a French colonial soldier. St. Laurent is eituated in the midst of a vast tropical forest, on one side of the river between French Guiana and Dutch Guiana. Convicts who wish to escape have only to cross the water. There the convicts can be seen walking about dressed in such very "undressed clothing as beach pyjamas and big straw hats, performing not too arduous tasks. They sleep in long dormitories, and even run lending libraries and coffee stalls. Those familiar with the settlements say that the average French convict declares that punishment does not begin until he is allowed out on ticket-of-leave, for then he is faced with the necessity of earning a living in a land where hitherto he has been fed, clothed and housed by the Government. It te not surprising to read that many of these "liberes" turn bushrangers, others form escape bands and get away to Brazil or Dutch Guiana, while a few get as far as Venezuela and the West Indies, beconiing cooks, hotel servants and small tradesmen. If a 1 convict is fairly well behaved, the authorities overlook small escapades and in fact of recent years discipline has become a diminishing factor in the life of the penal settlements. As another convict, who managed to get away, has recorded: "A shoemaker has to make six pairs of slippers a day for the administration. If he is clever he gives the warder a shilling a day, he can make ten pairs of slippers and eell them to the shops in the town for about three shillings; they are then resold to the administration for about 9d a pair. All the materials, of course, com* from administration stock."

He found out when at the end of five years he became a "libere" that the prisoner chained to his lathe was better off than the ticket-of-leave man thrown on his own resources in a settlement which he was forbidden to leave. To sum up, if the .epithet "hell" is to be used of France's penal settlement, ( it is applicable in three ways only— the condition on board the notorious convict ship "La Martiniere" (which sails no more), the iron discipline meted out to troublesome prisoners, and the callousness with which the bodies of dead convicts are treated. On "La Martiniere," the convicts were herded below in groups of 70 in iron cages, being allowed out for exercise on deck one half-hour every evening. Any insubordination was punished by confinement in a narrow cell, entirely ■ dark, the wrists and ankles of the cul- . prits being chained down. The vessel was equipped with steam hoses for the quelling of any dangerous outbreaks. The discipline at Charvin was terribly ferocious. As for the treatment of corpses, on certain of the islands dead convicts are thrown to the sharks at four in the afternoon. The sharks know the hour, and within a few minutes the corpse disappears. "Up on the prison wall the convicts and warders stand watching this horrible scene • with interest. Bets are made as to which of the sharks will get the prize. : It was said that between 1920 and 1925 'the General' (a famous shark) consumed more than 200 dead convicts." The fact is that,- as an experiment in colonisation, the prisons on Devil's Isle and elsewhere in French Guiana have completely failed. That was the idea | at the back of the scheme —the , of France were to be her pioneers, and the ticket-of-leave men, I forbidden to leave the country, would ' have no choice but to colonise it. But ! the incentive, formerly provided by dis- ' cipline, was removed when a prisoner had served his sentence, and not siir- ' prksingly many tried to escape. ! Male and female prisoners did not settle down and raise families as was i hoped, and the settlements have failed ! both as prisons and settlements. s Hence their abolition. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ \ INSPECTOR PLAYFAIR * And the Beanregards Case, as related on 1 page eight. i rpHE Japanese artist "Fujoyada" was t Playfair's own invention. He had , thus obtained conclusive proof of the conspiracy between his two suspects.