THE ELDORADO OF CRIMINALS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1262, 7 May 1886, Page 3

THE ELDORADO OF CRIMINALS.

The following article is translated from a New Caledonian newspaper :

New Caledonia continues to he the dream of criminals detained in metros pollan prisons. Here is an example : On April 29 last a man named Bossunt, coming from Troyes, where he had spent three months in gaol, pre* sent u d himself at one of the offices of police at Lvons, and asked to speak with the Commissioner. The Com. missioner was absent, so he addressed himself to M. Morel, the secretary, saying that he had lost a military manual and come to see if it had been left at the office. On the instant Morel made a motion to look for the book Bossnat drew out a long knife which be had been concealing, and plunged it into the breast of the unfortunate secretary, Despite his wound, on Morel’s making an attempt to fly, his aggressor dealt a second blow, which pierced through his arm. The victim then fell, and Bossuat with still greater fury threw himself upon him, and gave him between the shoulders a third blow, so violent that the knife btoke in the wound. After intense agony, the unhappy Morel died the next day. Now, Bossuat had not come from Lyons, did not know Morel, and con'd not have b«en actuated by (ho sli-htest animosity against him. On being interrogated as to his motives, he declared that when he got out of prison he bought a knife at Troyes with the expiess intention of using it in a way that would cause him to be sent to New Caledonia, instead of being kept in the little local gaols. “ When in gaol at Troyes,” he said, “ in arguing with the other prisoners, we concluded that we should be much better in New Caledonia than in the metropolitan prisons, and that to get there we should have to make a bold move. We should make the first man we met when we got out pay the piper.” Thus, then, transpoitation, which in principle ought to increase punishment, turns out to be a means of lessening It. Far from reducing the number of crimes it enlarges it. The law passed by the Chambers three yeais ago has no effrct. Criminals murder so as to b e sent to' New Caledonia. Facts of this nature const! tuto a crushing condemnation of the system followed to-day by France with regard to transportation and penal settlements. It is timb we returned to good sense and justice, which this inept system audaciously outrages.

Bossnat, just as he desired, has HpeV condemned to hard labor for life. Consequently he will come to New Gale dbnia, where, we hope, he will not tarry Ion", to be endowed by the administration with a substantial grant and two and a half years’ victuals. This is moral, is it not.