DEVIL’S ISLAND.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5509, 4 December 1929, Page 1

DEVIL’S ISLAND.

FRANCE’S FAMOUS PRISON.

A PATHETIC PICTURE. Once again the French convict ship La Martiniere has sailed for Devil’s Island, French Guiana. As a matter of fact (states a writer in the Wellington Dominion), Devil’s Island is only a small part of the penitentiary system of French Guiana. Besides two other small islands, there are numerous mainland prisons. Devil’s Island itself is reserved for political prisoners, and its neighbouring island, St. Joseph’s, a few hundred yards away, is used exclusively for solitary confinenfent cases. On the other island, Royale, which is entirely surrounded by breakers and treacherous currents, confirmed prison-breakers are confined. Speaking of Devil’s Island, Mrs Blair Niles says : “From the cliff the stony path leads down to what one might call Traitors’ Lane, if one did not remember the shame of the Dreyfus case and the fallibility of human judgment. A row of little cabins house the nineteen men convicted of betraying France to enemy Powers. “It is not enough that the guns of Royale sweep the ocean, or that the swift currents swirl about He du Diable. In addition, armed keepers patrol the island. At our approach the convicted men popped out of their little houses like jack out of boxes—a woman had never before been seen on Devil’s Island.”

These political prisoners have to while away the hours as best they can, and are unable to kill time by the regular 5.30 to 5.30 prison duties of the mainland. Unlike other convicts, they are allowed whiskers, and special concessions are made regarding clothes. Most of their time is spent trying to find enough food, and the rest in carving model guillotines sold for decapitating cigars. Altogether, there are about 7000 convicts in French Guiana, including 600 on the islands. St. Laurent, on the mainland, is the hub of prison life. All new prisoners go there first of all before being drafted off to other spots. Since the very beginning, over 50,000 convicts have passed through this French penal settlement, and over 90 per cent, have died there. Escape, of course, is almost impossible owing to rough seas, adverse winds, and impenetrable forests in the interior. When liberated, under French law, all convicts have to spend a free term equal to their sentence on the mainland. This term is generally more deadly than the sentence itself, for there is no demand for labour of any sort outside the settlements. Deadly fevers and diseases are prevalent. “I know the inside of those prisons,” says Mrs Niles, “and I know to what the men on the convict ship are going. They are entering a world where a laugh or a song is as rare as a meteor passing across the sky. Occasionally, but not often, a. man will make for himself a guitar and trum himself a tune. Others will gamble in deadly earnest over sous as though millions were at s take. Some will read—many occupy their locked hours making boxes and other carvings. They face ten, twenty, forty years, perhaps a of this.”