Brides for French Convicts.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 60, 26 July 1884, Page 5

Brides for French Convicts.

A cargo of human freight left France the other day. Each year one of the general inspectors of prisons visits the six central penitentiaries where women convicts are serving their time to ask for volunteers to go to New Caledonia as wives for convicts serving out sentences in that penal colony. 50 women who answered this appeal were shipped the other day from Bordeaux, and when they arrive at New Caledonia they will be divided between the two religious establishments, one at Noumea and the other at Bourail. The convicts of the first class — that i«, those who have distinguished themselves by good conduct, and who are accordingly to be rewarded by land grants— are informed of the arrival of the women. Those who are unmarried, or who are widowers, and desire to get married, go to Noumea or to Bourail, where they are allowed to make their choice among the women. Of course they .are not forced to make a choice, nor are the women forced to marry if the men who select them do not please them. The authorities introduce the men and women to each other and allow them to act as they please. During the last century a more rapid and more curious system was in force. When the women arrived they, with the men, were drawn up in lines facing each other. The name of a man was called and then the name of a woman, and when the list had been called over the couples thus paired were at once married,