FRENCH PRISONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3501, 26 September 1882, Page 4

FRENCH PRISONS.

In the Contemporary Review appears an article on ' French Prisons and Convict Establishments.' The writer observes :—

' French female prisoners and convicts are treated with more kindnese, on the whole, than persons of their class are in England. Their matrons and wadresses are Augustine nuns, whoso rule, though firm, 13 gentler, more merciful, and more steadfastly equitable than that of laywomen could be. The female convicts are allowed the same privileges as the men, in the matter of earning money and buying things at the canteen. Those of them who are young also enjoy a privilege not granted to female convicts in other countries —that of having husbands provided for them by the State. Only these husbands must be convicts. Every six months a notice is circulated in tho female penitentiaries, calling upon all women who feel minded to go out to New Caledonia and be married, to make an application to that effect through the Governor. Elderly women are always very prompt in making such applications ; but they are not entertained. The matrimonial candidates must be young, and exempt from physical infirmities." Girls under long sentence readily catcli at this method of escaping from the intolerable tedium of prison life ; and the pretty ones are certain to be put on the Governor's list, no matter how frightful may be the crimes for which they have been sentenced. The only moral qualification requisite is to have passed at least two years in the penitentiary The selected candidates have to sign engagements promising to marry convicts, and to settle in Now Caledonia for the remainder of their lives. On these conditions, Government transports them, gives them a decent outfit, and a ticket-of-leave when they land afc Noumea. Their marriages are arranged for them by the Governor of tho colony, who has a selection of well-behaved convicts ready for them to chose from ; and each girl may consult her own fancy within certain limits, for the proportion of marriageable men to women is about three to one.'