Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1924-12-21
STORY CAUSES
CLOSE PRISON
French Reporter Reveals
Horrors on Island of
Despair
BY MILTON BR0NNER
NEA Service CorrespnDdent

be worthy Of lis name no more.
st. Joseph's Island is to cease to be
a hell on earth.
The forest roai iroa, Cayenne in
French Guiana into the interior is no
longer to be the route OF lost souls and
tortured bodies.
The French colonial penal settlements
In South America are TO be wiped out
by Premier Her lot and his cabinet.
But this reform is not due TO the
speeches and campaign Ct humanita-
lians and reformers. It is rot due to
Nstatesmen- It j the work Of an ordin-
airy, Woodworking French Newspaper
reporter-Albe-t Londres.
Visits Prison
The French pHblic hal heard about
the penal settlements and prisons in
Guiana at the time OF the Dryfus af-
fair when the French army captain was
brought back from his cell Oh Devils Is
land. But many people thought much Of
this was exaggerated-the exaggera,ion
to be expected in any campaign. And
then Guiana was forgotten again by all
except those French families whose
sons were deported there.
Londr gave himself the assignment
to go to Guiana and see things for him
self. What he saw and heard exceeded
in terror and horror the picture Dante
drew of Hades.
In so years nearly $4,000 prisoners
have been sent to Guiana. Thousands
have died there.
Liberty" Is not Liberty
The ordinary French juror doesn't
know what he is doiag when he DEGREES
for a convicted men Imprisonment of
from five to seven years. Such a sent
ence means Guiana. And when the man
has finished his punishment, it begins all
over again, because he is compelled to
remain in Guiana for a period equal to
his prison term.
Is his sentence has been for over
seven years the prisoner is compelled
to remain there forever.
Theoretically the liberated prisoner
is to become 4 colonist. Actually he is
a hopeless outcast.
Now he almost starves. In prison, at
least, he got some food.
Now he sleeps en- the sidewalks. In
prison, he, at least, had a cell.
Londres saw convict after convict
who had tattooed on his body sentences
expressing utter despair. One had
across his chest:
"The Past betrayed me.
"The Present torments me.
1.-THE Future frightens me-"
He visited the heart of the forest
where presumably the %convits are build
ing a road through the jungle and
swamps where it rains almost all the
xyaar rnunl The rcaI u-ac ctartoI En
years ago. Fifteen miles have been
built! H
The c~onvicts comes back from work
on the road shaking and shivering with
chills and fever, eaten by swarms Of
mosquitoes and other swamp insects.
Quinine is a treat for which they beg.
Londres summed up the verdict of de-
cent men thus:
Forced labor from criminals? Yes.
"But forced diseases for Them? No!!"
Then he tells about the three small
rocky islands off the coast of Guiana,
mocking!y named tiles du Salut." These
| islands are st. J~oseph's, Royal ana
DEVILS. The ~conwicts call them the
"dry guilliotine."
They are the ultimate punishment for
the iacorrigibles. Here men are Gagged
like wild beasts, without the comforts
given even to wild beasts. They spend
90 days in utter darkness, then 10 days
in semi-darkness; then 20 darkness, and
so OF.
The prisoners can't stand full light.
1t would blind them. They are alone
with a plank to sleep on, f~ettered at
highland silence.
! There are men who have had as high
as 200 days Of this.
All his experiences were gathered up
in a book "Au Bagne,' which has sold
by thousands.
Herriot read it and was shocked. He
has decreed the end of it.. But even now
there are politicians who say Parlia-
ment must act fist and who favor the
! retention Of this prison system.
But Herriot is confident he has the
power to do away with this disgracefui
settlement. No more prisoners will be
sent to Guiana. They will be kept III
pr sons at home.
The only problem is what to do with
the men already in Guiana. There are
1900 ~convicts in prison there and $500
liberated ones, but still in exile. To
bring them back to France would cost
a big sun Of money. The most favored
proposal is 10 mitigate the sufferings
of those now there, but TO keep them
there.
By and by, when they die out, the
prison settlement will itself die out,
never to be renewed.