SLOW STARVATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 66, 20 March 1935, Page 7

SLOW STARVATION

FISHERMEN’S SUFFERINGS CLAIM AGAINST COMPANY v [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) PARIS, March 18. Damages totalling £lBOO were awarded against the canning company to three survivors and tho widows of two victims. The Court declared that the company was negligent, but the men should have augmented the tinned food by fishing and rabbiting. A message from Paris was as follows: 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 2,000 crayfish daily or. a sun-scorched rocky island near Madagascar in .W2B. Fire destroyed the food stores in 1930, and the company decided to repatriate all the workers except five Bretons and Madame Le Brunon, 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, and some tinned food. Months elapsed and the occupants were forced to eat fish, penguins, and rats. Scurvy resulted, killing three including Mme. Lebrunon’s husband. A baby was born but survived only two months. A fourth man went fishing and did not return. The Austral reappeared on. December 6, 1930, and found three living skeletons who pointed to a row of rock-hewn graves.