St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-10-06
French Female COnvicts.
HOW HUSBANDS ARE PROVIDED FOR
THEM.

HOW HUSBANDS ARE PROVIDED FOR
THEM.
French female prisoners and cOnvicts
are treated with more kindness, on the
whole, than persons of their class are
i'll England. Their matrOns and ward
reSses are Augustine nuns, whose
rule, though firm, is gentler, more mer-
ciful, and more Steadfastly equitable
than that of laywOmen could be. The
female cOnvicts are allowed the same
privileges as the men in the matter of
earning money and buying things at
the canteen. Those of them who are
young also enjoy privilege not grant
ed to female cOnvicts i'll other countries
that of having husbands provided
for them by the State.
Only these husbands must be con-
victs. Every six months notice is
circulated in the female penitentiaries,
calling upon women who feel minded
to 90 out to New Caledonia and be
married, to make an application to that
effect through the governor. Elderly
women are always very prompt in
making such applications but they
aIe not entertained. The matrimoni-
al candidates must he young and eX-
empt from physical intirmities. Girls
under long sentences readily catch at
this method of escaping from the in
tolerable tedium of prison life; and
the pretty ones are certain to be put
on the governors list, no matter how
frightful may be the crimes for which
they have been sentenced. The only
moral qualification requisite Is to have
passed at least two years in the peni-
Tertiary.
The selected candidates have to
sign engagements promising to marry
convicts and to settle in New Caledo-
mia for the remainder of their lives.
On these conditions, the Government
transports them, gives them ii decent
outfit, and ticket-of-leave when they
land mt NOumea. Their marriages are
arranged for them by the governor of
the colony, who has a selection of we'll
behaved convicts ready for them to
choose from and each girl may con-
suit her own fancy within certain linn
its, for the proportion of manageable
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
his shoulders in the usual French way.
1t has happened more than once that
pretty girls have been wOOed by ward
ers, free settlers, or time-eXpired sol
diers and sailors, instead of convicts.
In such cases, the governor can only
assent to a marriage on condition that
the female cOnvict's free lover shall
place himself in the position of ticket
of-leave man, and undertake never to
leave the colony. Love works Won
ders and, there is no instance on re
cord of a man having refused to COM
ply with these conditions when once he
had fallen i'll love. There are some
instances, though, of the authorities
having declined to let female convict
marry a free man, when they were not
convinced that the latter was person
of firm character and kindly DISPOSE
ton. For the wOmen's own sakes it is
necessary that they should not be mar
Tied to men who would be likely, in
some moment of temper, to fling their
disreputable antecedents into their
teeth. There is nothing of this kind
to fear when female convict gets
welded to a man whose past life has
been as bad as her own.
Why the French Government should
have saddled itself with the RESPONSE
bility at promoting ma riages among
cOnvicts it is difficult to say but the
experiment has on whole yielded very
good results. The married couples get
huts and free grants of land, and all
that they can draw from it by their
own labor becomes theirs. During five
years they are subjected to the obliga-
ton of reporting themselves weekly at
the district police Office; and they are
forbidden to enter public and
must not be found out-of-doors at
night. This probationary period being
satisfactorily passed, they get their full