Cruel Slavery.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 237, 8 September 1883, Page 3

Cruel Slavery.

A corespondent of the Australasian, who has recently visited St. Denis,- the capital of Reunion writes :—" In the harbour there was a ghastly toil for ever going on— at» unproductive and wearisome as the task of the Danaides or of Sisyphus. The harbour is m reality a miniature breakwater, devised for tb> shelter of small boats, and iwould soon be chofced by the sand washed m by the great waves from without. But I saw it, about 80 hideous black heads appeared above the surface of the water. These were the criminals under life sentences, whose daily task it is to scoop up and carry away m wooden platters the sand that drifts into the breakwater. For twelve hours a day they stand up to their waists or armpits m tho sea, which their memories, weighted like Macbettrs, might well transform » into *one red Women are engaged m tbe work as well. It made an ugly contrasc to the free ships, with their sails spread to catch the travelling winds to see these convicts at work, and to reflect that thert was no fteedom and no escape tor them. It was the nearest' approach to the pains of a mythological hell that I have geen put into practice."