THE CHARNEL HOUSE OF CONVICTS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1985, 23 April 1906, Page 7

THE CHARNEL HOUSE OF CONVICTS.

j SENSATIONAL ESCAPE FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND. The famous Bryfus case brought the tenors of Devil's Island (Fiance's convict settlement near Cayenne, in the tropics) home to the minds of British readers. From the islam! there is supposed to he no escape. It is the charncl house of convicts, and once immolated there, the convict realizes that his sacrifice to liberty is complete. But there is an exception to every rule, and the grim record of Devil's island has neen broken by the escape of a convict. To Devil's Island, sentenced for life went Fddie Guerin, most famous of American "crooks," for dvnamiting the American Express oflice in Paris, in April, 1901, and, with the assistance of George Miller and his wife, "Chicago .Ma,\ ," robbing it of some £4,000. "From Devil's Island there is no escape." Yet Guerin is now in America, alive and well though the French prison records declare him dead, and a Devil's Island grave is marked with his name. Guerin's thrilling story of his escape in the -New York ".Journal," from which we take the following : "Dreyfus has not exaggerated the horrors of convict life on Devil's Island. Everybody has read the published letters he wrote to his wife from that accursed spot, where Franco herds the most despised victims of its courts —till they die. "Dreyfus would have died soon if lie had not have been taken home for retrial ; J would have died by this time if 1 had not escaped. No one ever escapes, they told me there. I doubt if 1 could again, or if any one else ever' will. "Before I set foot on the convict ship that carried me to that tropical rockbound, death-infested spot, I realized that my only hope for more than half a do/en years of life was in carrying out some plan of escape. 1 managed to get word to my friends of my resolve to escape. "On Devil's Island as a convict you are broiled by a tropical sun. The prison system there does not deny you sunshine. You don't want it, but you get it. In a week you are frantic. In a month half your strength has left you. Then fever seizes you. The broiled atmosphere is full of pestilence. "When 1 arrived 1 was an unusually robust man. 1 weighed 21201b., and it wasn't fat either. Hut soon the fever got into my blood, and 1 felt myself going. There was no time Co lose in perfecting my plans of- escape. "Well, 1 have always found it easy to gain the friendship of women. Perhaps there was an idea for a start. I looked about me. There wns a prison guard who had a young wife. lie was a shrimp. I could have broken him across my knew. 1 saw his wife looking at me curiously and in a manner not unfriendly. Gradually I got her to hold short conversations with mc I appealed to her sympathy. As the weeks went li.v 1 saw that I was gaining not only her interest, but her affection. "1 shall not tell all that my friends in America did. nor how they did it. if is enough that one day a sum of money was put into my hands by the guards wife. The other details had been perfect for months. Suddenly 1 was ordered from my almost solitary confinement, and taken under guard to the outermost of the prison isles. "Of course, this was as 1 had planned. Also, as .1 had planned, two convicts were with me. Without waste of time, as planned, the three of us slipped away from the guards into a wooded swamp not far from the shore. "Next day the guards very solemnly buried a dead convict in the prison 'potter's Held.' They gave the grave a headboard, and painted on It my, name, "Eddie Guerin.' My death was oHiciall.v entered on the prison records, and forwarded to headquarters in Paris. "So far there had been no hitch, but hardships which seemed appalling confronted me and my two companions. I had a little money left, but it was of no present use. In my pocket was a revolver, which at present was equally useless. We had food and water supplies, but no boat. We had some rough tools, and with those we set. to work on a fallen tree, to fashion a seaworthy dugout. "Working night and day we soon had our boat and paddles. One dark night we paddled away, headed for Dutch Guiana, knowing that wo hardly dared land for 200 miles. "We paddled and slept by turns. After a few days. 1 suddenly discovered a danger upon which I had not counted. My companions were growing chummy with each other, they were uncomonly willing to paddle and let me sleep. 1 kept an «ye ami an ear open, and one night I heard them talking together in Spanish. They knew me for an American with just a smattering of Devil's Island French. But 1 knew Spanish well enough to get a good grip on my revolver "at once. "The scoundrels whom 1 had helped out of prison had made up their minds that 1 had a lot of money left. They were planning to slit my throat as 1 slept, and feed me to the sharks ! KEPT THEM COVERED WITH THE REVOLVER. "1 lay still in the bottom of the dugout. When they crept up to perform their friendly service, they suddenly looked into the muzzle of my revolver. This made them nervous, and they promised a whole Jot of things. I let them take up their paddles, and use them industriously, while I sat in the stern of the boat with my linger on the trigger. "This was a deal I had never anticipated ; I found it rather disquieting. At the lowest calculation, there were still three days anil nights of paddling before I could dare land ; and now there wore only two instead of three to handle the paddles, for the only; chance 1 had now was to keep these attentative friends of mine constantly covered with my revolver. "Well, at last we landed. 1 think we were all crazy with fatigue and loss of sleep, but 1 know they were crazier than 1 was. After their little plot against me, I couldn't figure it out that I owed them anything ; but i left them the dugout, and when I flushed out. tramping northward, they were snoring in the bottom ofit. I shouldn't be surprised if they got back safely to Devil's Island. "How long this tramp lasted I've very little idea. I seemed to have come to my senses after a band of j Indians captured me, and I realized j that I had another escape on my j hands. After four vays I managed to break away. Another day and night and 1 staggered into Paramaribo, IXiteh Guiana, a bag of bones rotten with fever. *

"Well, here I am back in Chicago. Some way I have no fear that the Frenchmen will get me again. Theyare very methodical, those Frenchmen. When you're dead on their books, you're dead all over."