LIFE AT NOUVELLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11225, 24 March 1897, Page 2

LIFE AT NOUVELLE.

(Pall Mall Gazette,} “ Qu’attendevous la-hus ? Vous sere s mieux id.” This is what one of the convicts of New Caledonia wrote, not many years ago, in a letter to an old companion in Paris ; and it conveys a fairly accurate general notion of the conditions under which French deportes live in that faraway island. There was a time, but it did not last long, when discipline was very rigid, and when the life was not altogether comparable to that of Arcady. This extremity of punishment came as a natural reaction from the laxness of the earlier settlement. The Communists who spent the years 1872-79 on the Isle of Pines —so named by Captain Cook in September, 1774, because of the. number of “peculiar elevations which had the appearance of tall pines ” —were simply deported without any compulsory labour whatever. They were merely confined in the fortified enclosure. They wore provided with food and shelter and clothing; coarse and scanty enough* but sufficient under each head to maintain life ; and if they chose to work they could earn enough

MONEY TO PURCHASE LUXURIES. But few of them did choose to work. They received a patch of land on which to build a house and cultivate a garden, but few chose to build the house, and none chose to cultivate the garden. The majority did absolutely nothing. A solicitous Government provided them with the means of subsistence, and friends at home sent money wherewith to buy the luxuries for which the soul longed. Very soon after the Communists arrived and took up their quarters in the five communes which lined the main road, the settlement was dotted with stores and drinking places. Strangely enough, with all the idleness, these deportes were peaceful. When they were pardoned, the Isle of Pines was left in much the same condition as Norfolk Island when it was abandoned forty years ago by the English Government as a penal settlement. But there was this difference. The change did Norfolk Island good; for it afforded an opportunity for honest people to take up residence there. Quite the reverse happened with the Isle of Fines, which now harbours some of THE WORST CHARACTERS OF DEPORTES SIMPLES. The main colony on the peninsula is divided into two camps, known as Numho and TJatiinhuru. The former gives shelter to the superior class, while at the latter there is admittedly plus de metier et movns d’art. To reach Numho you cross the shark-infested “Baie sans fond,” into which the cattle from Australia are brought. On the one side is the abattoir of Noumea. Over against it is Numho, lying beautifully situated on the hill-encircled bay. On the surrounding slopes are a few patches of potatoes and Indian corn; hut the greater portion of the land is bare, many of the trees which once covered the sides having been cleared as a.n inducement (which has not been embraced) to the convicts to step straight into agriculture, as it were. They might do very well at it provided they would only exert themselves. For they are the absolute proprietors of the land they choose to cultivate ; the Government making it over to them in given (and very sufficient) quantities without asking a single sou in return. There is a market ready at hand in Noumea to take everything brought to it in the way of breadstuffs. But they prefer to lurch for the most. Agriculture is dead against their grain. Those who do work go in for articles de Paris, cabinet - making, &C. Colonel Charriere was the first Governor to foster a taste for this kind of thing. He saw that there was a natural talent running to seed ; he even discovered several REAL ARTISTS in the colony; and lie advanced money, established workshops and made himself a kind of unpaid agent between producers and consumers. He saw that the whole of a man’s profit went to the man himself—■ that is, he saw that the workman had enough to live on, and the surplus was planed en depot and handed! over to the man on the governor’s visa, as necessity demanded. A piece of table land separates the camp of Numho from that of Uatimburu, which is the fairer and more fertile of the two places. The natural division is the only one between the two. It commands both camps so perfectly that the overseers are able to distinguish each individual convict below. There is a station at this point, ■ and in case of a mutiny cannon to cover both sides could be brought in a few minutes from M’hi. Near by is the Isle of Pines, of which we have already made mention. The extreme point on the peniosula, Point Kumuru, is forbidden ground, and sentries are stationed here to prevent escapes. The thick woods which cover the promontory make AN EXCELLENT HIDING PLACE. That many convicts do contrive to get out of the country in the course of a year .is common knowledge to sailors trading in those seas, and to the dwellers on the mainland of Australia, to which they drift. Many of them have friends' on the New -Caledonian Islands, especially atoong the free population of Noumea. These friends procure a boat, and, under cover of the night make for the island of Freycinet, which is about four hundred metres from Point Kumuru. A fair swimmer can easily cross the channel between the two, especially with the aid of the small rocks which line the route and which serve as & screen from the observations of any too open-eyed sentry. No vain exception can be taken by 'even the most sentimental philanthropist to the rations supplied to the New Caledonian convicts. The daily allowance consists of one and one-half pounds of bread, onehalf pound of meat (beef and mutton on alternate days), one-half pint of wine and a “noggin” of rum alternately, with vegetables, rice, and oil and vinegar for salads,Nor can it be said that the labour is hard. It consists mainly in making roads, and is carried on in a very listless fashion. If it bo raining, there is a holiday, and anyway there is always a rest of two or three hours before and after noontide. At night the men sleep in fifties in the prisons of He Nou and Montreuil. There is no discrimination between the man of education and

THE ILLITERATE RUFFIAN —which is quite sufficient to account for the fact that all the men cultivate, so to speak, one type of countenance. The similarity is rendered all the closer by the shaven faces and cropped hair. In addition to the convict stations proper are the Peniteneiers Agricoles. A man sentenced to ten years must pass another ten years under surveillance on the island. For the convenience of those undergoing their doublerage, the Government have established these settlements. A concession c£ arable land is made to each man, who is provided, moreover, with tools to till the land, from 100 to 300 francs with which to build a house, and with provisions for two and a half years. If he chooses he may select a wife from the convent of Bourail, and with her he receives rations for two years and a half, a complete trousseau and a dot of 150 francs. No serious attempt is made to guide a liher& in his choice of a spouse; and thus it has happened that a man transported for wife murder under the customary extenuating circumstances, comes to be mated to a woman convicted of double infanticide. Great things were at one time expected from this system, but we hear nothing now about the elevating and reclaiming influences of home life in the settlements, and it is generally acknowledged that Bourail, the principal settlement, is worse than Port Said or the Greek quarter of Alexandria.