LEFT TO STARVE ON ISLE

Hawera Star, Volume L, 21 February 1931, Page 5

LEFT TO STARVE ON ISLE

TRAGEDY OF MIDGET COLONY

FRENCH PARTY’S SUFFERINGS THREE MEN AND WOMAN DIE. (United Prese Association —By Eleisrio Telegraph Copyright). LONDON, Feb. 19. Drama, suffering and death are revealed by the return to France of three survivors of a party of six men and a woman wlio were left on the lonely \olcame island of St. Paul, .south of the Capetown-Freinantle trade route, says the Paris correspondent of hte “Daily A French company in 1928 organised a lobster-tinning industry on the island and took out men from Brittany After an earthquake and fire these decided to abandon the enter!prise. The Bretons were repatriated, with the exception of Madame Brunon, her husband and five men who volunteered to remain to guard the machinery. , , ~ . The party suffered terrible hard simp owing to a relief ship being held up by storms. A baby was born, but Madame Brunon lived only a few days. Disease broke out and some of the men went] mad A negro Francois dragged himself from the hut to an isolated rock to die. His flesh was eaten by birds. Brunon died in his wife’s arms. Pierre Quillivic, dressed in a Breton costume, put to sea in a canoe and was not seen again. ______