Why France,Wants to Abolish Its
"LAND ofiPiE. LIVING DEAD''
EDITORS NOTE: This is the
last of a series of six articles deal
ing with the history of, and condi
tions in, the famous French penal
colony in Guiana. •
By Morris Gilbert
PARIS.
|ORTURED souls, enemies of so
ciety, cut off from the life of
men, the inhabitants of the
French penal colony in Guiana.
T
which the government of Leon Blum
would abolish, have nothing better to
do than escape—or go crazy.
If the “bagne”—the Guiana penal
colony—were abolished, crazily tragic
pictures like this would not flash on the
screen of observation:
A certain Sue, incorrigible rebel
against the rules of the “bagne,” was
in solitary confinement. A keeper
brought his lunch, a revolting concoc
tion. Sue suddenly took a knife, slashed
off his own toe, and threw it into the
mess kit.
“Take that back to the cook and tell
him to make stew with it,” he yelled.
Tattooing seems to be one of the prin
cipal diversions of Guiana convicts. A
1 ■•■««*■!■ - -
Alphonse Gabriel Mourey, who fled from Guiana, got a job as chef in a
fashionable New York home, and then robbed his employer of valuable
jewels, on trial in Paris after his re-arrest.
reporter entered a barracks where some
50 men were locked each night. Con
fronted with 50 naked torsos, he was
amazed at the prevalence of tattooing.
A bald man had tattooed a fine shock
of curly hair, with side parting, on his
pate. Another was covered with dirty
words. Another, of more philosophic
temperament, displayed the three sen
tences:
“The Past deceived me.
“The Present torments me.”
“The Future appalls me.”
Amazing cases of stbicism develop
from the tormenting lust for freedom.
The lepers of the Guiana colony live on
an island, not far from the free shores
of Dutch Guiana; hence they are envied.
Their island makes a good hopping-ofl
place for “La Belle”—freedom.
A convict reported to medical au
thorities with the telltale red blotch of
leprosy on his neck. The doctor care
fully examined it. It seemed authentic.
But Guiana prison doctors sus
picious. Real leprosy deadens the nerve
centers, places a barrier between the
flesh and the brain.
The doctor suddenly plunged a needle
inch-deep into the convict’s thigh. The
man didn’t tump. The doctor was still
dissatisfied. As the man was leaving, he
jabbed him again. Still no effect.
Twenty-four hours later the convict
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had escaped to “Holland.”
Between the deaths which ensue
from unsuccessful efforts to escape
and those caused by the inhuman cli
mate, shipment to the Guiana colony—
even in cases where a man is sentenced
to as short a time as five years—is
almost inevitably a sentence to death.
'T’HERE have been 52,000 convicts
shipped to Guiana from France in 70
years. Six thousand of these are still
living, including the small number of
freed-men who have been able to resist
the climate and establish themselves
economically there. Os these, according
to Charles Pean, Salvation Army worker
who is devoting his life to the convict
settlement, 5000 were not originally
murderers but were convicted of lesser
crimes.
“The ‘bagne,’ ” he says, “has killed
more men than the men of the ‘bagne’
have killed.”
If there were an economic benefit
derivable from the institution of the
Guiana convict settlement, there might
be some justification for it. Actually
the colony, instead of fulfilling Napo
leon Ill’s dream that it would develop
a great territory for France, costs
France millions of francs a year. It also
hinders the development of those parts
c' French Guiana which are quite sepa-
One convict posed as a leper. The
doctor, suspicious, jabbed a needle
into his leg; the convict never
flinched, and was sent to the leper
colony—from which, next day, he
made his escape.
rate from the convict colony, and where
ordinary pioneering, well organized and
equipped, might be very profitable.
Here are some recent figures on how
forced labor in the convict colony works
out.
There are approximately 4500 men
paying for their sins against society by
forced labor. (The other 1500 or so in
mates of the colony are “freed-men,”
victims of the curious law which pro
vides that a convict, having served his
time, must remain in Guiana an equal
time again.)
Os these 4500 men about 1500 are
“repeaters,” men who, having com
mitted a sequence of several more or
less petty crimes, find themselves sent
to the settlement for life as undesir
ables.
The whole background of these men,
the fact that in France they found
themselves unable to get along by work
inside the law, indicates that they are
not good material for labor.
rpHAT leaves 3000 criminals as a staff
■*■ for performing the great public
works which Napoleon 111 envisaged.
Os these, there is a regular average of
200 hospitalized from the start. There
are approximately 300 cripples. There
are 100 or so more who are sickly.
There are 200 more convicts, on an
average, in prison, as incorrigibles.
There are some 500 more insane or so
vicious that they must be kept in soli
tary confinement. A hundred men are
needed for the daily wood supply, since
even the locomotives in the penal colony
run on wood fuel. Another 100 men
have comparatively soft jobs as hospital
attendants. The bakers, butchers, cooks,
office workers take 150 more. There are
that many more servants, working for
officials of the colony.
That leaves about 1000 men at liberty
to attack the virgin forest, build the
roads, make the developments which
the colony was originally intended to
accomplish. It is easy to see why, in
these conditions, Guiana is still unex
ploited, why the colony imports its food.
What has all this record of agony,
this picture of a modern Limbo, got to
do with the United States? Why should
it interest Americans?
There is a very good reason. Take, for
example, one Alphonse Gabriel Mourey,
Barracks for convicts in the
French penal colony in Guiana.
murderer, thief, gangster, perpetrator ot
the famous Shattuck robbery in fash
ionable Washington Square, New York,
15 years ago.
From his earliest years, apparently,
Alphonse Mourey had a taking way
with him. Twice already convicted of
theft with violence, he was haled at
the age of 19 before a Paris court for
having killed an old woman for the pur
pose of robbing her.
Mourey appeared so sympathetic to
his judges that he was not condemned
to death. Instead they sent him to
Guiana.
Mourey jumped the wall after about
four months of servitude. He didn't get
far and was picked up, close to starving,
two days later.
He stayed quiet six months, then
escaped again. This time, being cap
tured within 48 hours, he got only 15
days of the daik cell.
He tried again, 18 months later, and
again was caught. By 1915, he had
served his seven years, and was a freed
man, obliged to stay in Guiana seven
years more.
IJEFORE long he evaded again. This
time he evaded for good. He set
sail for New York—where, in some way,
he got a job as chef in an aristocratic
home on Washington Square.
At the home of Albert R. Shattuck,
banker, nobody asked for references.
Mourey’s unfailing charm won him an
entry. Mourey was traveling as Henri
Boilat, and called himself Swiss, not
French, just to be on the safe side.
“Monsieur Henri” was one of those
“jewels” for whom housekeepers are
always looking.
Another kind of jewel presently made
“Monsieur Henri” prick up his ears. He
learned that gems worth $24,000 were
kept in the house.
Shortly afterward, he disappeared.
With him went $12,000 in diamonds and
other precious stones.
For several years he drifted. But he
never forgot the Shattucks; and on
April 2, 1922, he returned to New York
from France with three companions and
broke into the house.
They sacked it. In doing so, Mourey
thought best to lock the Shattucks and
their servants in a cement-walled air
less cellar. Old Mr. Shattuck had a pen
knife in his pocket. With this, he man
aged to remove the lock and save his
companions and himself.
Two of Mourey’s gang were caught
the same day. Mourey made for Texas,
crossed the Rio Grande and returned
to France—where, at last, he was
caught, tried and convicted of the rob
bery.
Mourey was condemned to death. But
that remarkable quality of charm with
which he had been blessed all his life
worked again. The American banker
wrote the President of France to inter
cede for him. Mourey’s sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment. He.
went back to Guiana and solitary con
finement.
Two months and 11 days afterwards,
Mourey* disappeared. As far as the
French authorities can say, he is still
at liberty.