CONVICTS' QUEER STRIKE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 18 September 1929, Page 2

CONVICTS' QUEER STRIKE

Seveivil hundred convicts at the penitentiary of St. Martin de Re. on the He do Re, near La Rochelle, France, mutinied. All were under sentence of penal servitude for life, or for long periods, which involved their being sent to that dreaded penal settlement in French Guiana, Saint Laurent du Maroni. They believed that there had been unreasonable delay in sending them there, so they mutinied. They argued that their sentences involved life and work at the penal settlement, and not in an ordinary prison. They also demanded better food and more tobacco. Convicts to be sent to French Guiana are collected at the penitentiary at St. Martin de Re until there are sufficient to make a shipload. No convicts had been "shipped" for about a year, and several hundred were waiting to be sent off to Saint Laurent du Maroni, which has been called "the capital of crime." It is on the. mainland of French Guiana, at the mouth of the Maroni river, 100 miles to the west, of the equally notorious Devil's Island penal settlement.