FRENCH CRIMINALS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1127, 17 January 1884, Page 3

FRENCH CRIMINALS.

Our (Argus’) lastest file of papers from New Caledonia apprises us of the arrival at Noumea of the Loire with 373 convicts on board. An official 'classification of these criminals shows that 225 of them are hardened offenders, including 33 who have been transported for assassination, 18 for murder, 24 for voluntary homicide, 21 for arson, 9 for slabbing and wounding, and 18 for criminal attempts upon women. Scarcely a number of the Neo Caledonien appears without a report of convicts having escaped from custody, and of their lawless proceedings in the bush. At Port Laguerie a gang'of eight plundered the house of a settler, and drew their knives upon five Canaeks, who endeavored to prevent them. At St. Vincent, two station hands were bailed up, and stripped of everything they possessed, even to their clothes. At Upper Ouameni some escaped convicts were frustrated in a second attempt to pillage a hovse. In the Bay of B mrake three evades were seen making for an island in a boat. Prom Boloupari numerous complaints have been received of fire-reising by ihe fugitives. One farm has been entirely destroyed, and the fl imes have reached the forest of Prony. Just outside of Noumea, one of the native police was shot in the shoulder by au escaped convict whom he endeavored to arrest. He fired three other shots at his pursuers, and these were so incensed that they killed him on the spot. At Mont Dor, where evades had been lifting the cattle of the settlers, it was found necessary to organise a regular battue for the apprehension of the culprits; and the editor of the Neo-Caledonien seems to anticipate that a stiil more serUns state of things will arise in consequence of the [ large addition which has just been made | to the convict population of the island.