The Kentucky Gazette

The French Penal Settlement

The following particulars of life at the French penal settlement of New Caledonia, where the Communist exiles were sentenced, are given in a letter dated Isle of Pines. New Caledonia supplies the following interesting particulars concerning the home and discipline of the convicts:

"I am here for the purpose of photographing views of the places got in readiness for the Communists from France. I was invited by the officers to the Rance, a magnificent 2,000 ton steamer to take a trip with them, and I carried my apparatus with me. On arriving here I met some friends, who, with other officers of the camp, pressed me to stay till the next trip of the Rance, ten or twelve days. You have some idea of bush life. Well just imagine a back plain on the Murray, with the Mallee scrub to represent the sea, and fancy that plain suddenly inhabited by 200 soldiers, with their officers and convicts, scrub cut down, sand cleared away, and houses and huts constructed with saplings and grass, but innocent of windows and doors, save such as can be improvised from such like materials, and you can form a pretty fair idea of this place, excepting that there is a bold background of mountains to a plain for about half a mile. Every morning at five o'clock a trumpet sounds the 'get up.' At six o'clock the soldiers start to their several occupations, returning at ten, when they have breakfast. This over-work is resumed, and continued until five o'clock. They are engaged making preparations for the communists, 3,000 of whom, with their families, are to be exiled to this island, where, so far as I can ascertain, they will be turned at large, but not before being cautioned as to the manner of their behavior. The bad ones go to prison or to a fortified place, and will have to work, whereas those placed on this island, will be perfectly free to go where they list, excepting from the island, which they will not be permitted to do, on any pretence whatever. Seven hundred Communists are expected to land in about a month."