SLOW STARVATION
PARTY LEFT ON ISLAND
SURVIVORS SUE COMPANY
PARIS, February 25.
A story of slow.starvation was told when two Breton fishermen and a woman sued for damages the company La Langouste Francaise. '
They gave evidence that the company built a canning factory with a capacity of 26,000 crayfish daily on a sun-scorched rocky island hear Madagascar in 1928. Fire destroyed the food stores in 1930, and the company decided to repatriate all workers except five Bretons and Madame Lebrunon, wife of one of the former, also'the Madagascan factory superintendent.
The survivors understood when the steamer Austral left the island on March 3, 1930, that she was returning in three months with supplies. Meanwhile they had three or four pigs, eight goats, arid some tinned food.
~ Months elapsed and the occupants "were forced to eat fish, penguins, and rats. Scurvy resulted, killing three, including Madame Lebrunon's husband. A baby was born but survived only two months. A fourth man went fishing and did not return/ V ' ..
The Austral reappeared on December .6,1930, and found three living skeletons who pointed to a row of rock-hewn graves. , - ' ■ - ,
The case was adjourned.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19350227.2.52
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 49, 27 February 1935, Page 9
Word Count
189SLOW STARVATION Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 49, 27 February 1935, Page 9
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