CONVICTS’ QUEER STRIKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18900, 26 October 1929, Page 22 (Supplement)

CONVICTS’ QUEER STRIKE.

Several hundred convicts at the penitentiary of St Martin de Re, on the He de 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 ary 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 017 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.