THE TREATMENT OF FEMALE CONVICTS IN FRANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1045, 19 December 1882, Page 1

THE TREATMENT OF FEMALE CONVICTS IN FRANCE.

The following information respecting the treatment of French female convicts is from an article entitled ‘ French Prisons and Convict Establishments,’ in the Cornwall Magazine : —‘ French female prisoners and convicts are treated with more kindness, on the whole, than persons of their class are in England. Their matrons and warderesses arc Augustine nuns, whose rule, though firm, is gentle, more merciful, and more steadfastly equitable than that of lay women could be. The female convicts are allowed the same privilege as the men in the matter of earning money and buying things at the canteen ; those of them who are young also emjoy the privilege not granted to female convicts m other countries —that of having husbands provided for them by the State. Only these husbands must he convicts. Every six months a notice is circulated in the female penitentiaries, calling upon all women who feci minded to go to Xcw Caledonia and be married, to make an application to that effect through the governor. Ederly women are always very prompt m making such applications ; but they are not entertained. The matrimonial candidates must be young and exempt from physical infirmities. Girls under long sentences readily catch 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 the crimes may be for which they have been sentenced. The only moral qualification requisite is to hare passed two years in the penitentiary. The selected candidates have to sign engagements promising to marry convicts and to settle in Xew Caledonia for the remainder of their lives. On these conditions Government transports them, giving them a decent out (It, and a tieket-o£-loave when they land at Noumea. Their marriages are arranged for them by the governor of the colony, who lias a se.ectiun of well-behaved convicts ready for them to choose from ; and each girl may consult her own fancy wit bin certain limits, for the proportion of marriageable men to women is about three to one. Of course, if a girl declares that none of the aspirant bridegrooms . submitted to her inspection have met, with her approval, the governor can only shrug !, is shoulders in the usual French way. It lias happened more than uiiee that pretty . i.iris have been wooed by warders, free setrl, ps or tmu expired soldiers and sailors, instead of by iu.victs. in such eases the Governor can only assent, to a marriage on condition that the female convict’s free lover shall place himself in the position of a lickct-oi'-lcave man and undertake never to leave the colony, hove works wonders ; and ihere is no instance on record of a man : having refused to comply with these conditions when once he had fallen in lov*. There are some instances, though, of the ' authorities having declined to let a female ! convict marry a "free man, when they were | not convinced that the latter was a person of I linn character aud kindly disposition. For the women's own sake it is necessary that they slm.dd not be married to men who , would be likely, in some moment of temper, : 1 to iling their disreput able antecedents into their teeth. There is nothing of this kind to ‘ fear when a female convict gets we ulcd to a man whose past life has been as bad as her i O\Ml. i i