Show FRENCH FEMALE CONVICTS french female prisoners and convicts are treated with more kindness on the whole than persons of their class in england their matrons matrona and wardresses war dresses are augustine nuns nuna whose rule though firm is gentler more merciful and more steadfastly equitable than that of lay women could be the female convicts are allowed the same privilege as the men in the matter of earning money and buying things at the canteen those of them who axe are young also enjoy a privilege not granted to female convicts in other countries that of having husbands provided for them by the state only these them husbands must be convicts every six months a notice is circulated in the female penitentiaries aries calling upon all women who feel minded to go out to new caledonia and be married to make an application to that effect through the governor elderly women axe are always very prompt I 1 in making such applications but they are not entertained the patrimonial matrimonial candidates must be young and exempt from physical in finni firmi ties girls under long sentences readily catch at this method of escaping from the intolerable tedium of prison life and the pretty ones axe are certain to be put on the gover governor nove 1 list no matter how frightful may bb b b the crimes for which they have been sentenced the only moral qualification requisite is to bave passed at least two yea years in the penitentiary the selected candidates have to sign engagements gage ments promising to marry convicts and to settle in new caledonia for the remainder of their lives 0 on a these conditions government trana ports them gives them a decent outfit and a ticket of leave when they land at niumea their max marriages nages arranged for them by the go governor vare of the colony who has a se lection of well behaved oon cou victo ready for them to choose from and each girl may consult her own fancy within certain limits for the proportion of marriageable men to women is about three to one of course if the girl positively declares that none of the aspirant bride grooms submitted to her inspection has met with her approval the governor can only shrug his shoulders in the usual french way it has happened more than once that pretty girls have been wooed by wax warders ders free settlers or time expired soldiers and sailors instead of by convicts in such cases the governor can assent to a marriage only on condition that the female convicts free lover shall place himself in the position of a ticket of leave man and undertake never to leave the colony love works wonders and there is no in stance on record of a man having refused to comply with these them condi conditions tiong when once he had fallen in love boston curier courier |