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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1927-09-22, Page 6JUNGLE PRISON COULD NOT HOLD THIS CONVICT T i Story of Eugene Dieudonne, Whose Third Attempt to Escape From French Guiana Was Successful;--- How He Sailed Away in a Cranky Boat P.rtris.—Eugene Dieudonne, the cab. straight across the mud bank, at high Wet worker of Nancy, who spent tide—tut extremely dangerous project, more than twelve years in the French j They .now had two additional pad - prison in tropical Guiana and made dies, made, like the first, from thwarts . three attempts at escape and finally of the boat. They. leaned upon them succeeded in reaching Brazil, will, it with all their might, pushing them is expectecl,,soon be pardoned by his against; the muddy mottom, and the Government. Recently 'he was im-.boat went on in the moonless night. prisoned in ilio do Janeiro, but later ',At this point there is a gap in the was released, his attorney advising lettere of Dieudonne. But he con - him to place himself at the mercy of' tinues the main narrative: the French Ministry of Justice. I "We are gliding beside a forest of Dieudonne was convicted of at- Mangroves, sinister trees that stretch tempted murder in connection with a ; their meager arms upward and dip robbery in Paris in 1913. Many doubt their exposed roots in the millennial that he was guilty. There were others mud—a forest none but shipwrecked considerations, too, that lent support ,Persons would attempt to penetrate. to his appeal for clemency. For one ' In spite of our efforts, we become fast thing, twelve years' exile in Guiana is /in the mud again. The three weakest regarded by many as sufficient penal- ; of us begin to moan, fearing the death ty, in view of the fact that the man ( that flies above these Dantesque Dieudonne is said to have attacked ,places, finally recovered. "The next day, the rising tide does The convict's wife, who works in a Paris department store, and his son have elicited the sympathy of many Parisians:' by their devotion to Dieu - not come up to us. What can we do? Shall we stay there, in the mud? "The negro asks usto go overboard into the niud and push the boat a hat. donne and their insistance upon his Bred yards to the point that has been innocence. Moreover, the romantic reached by the rising tide. A half aspects of the case and even the phy- day of effort, hours of doubt and fear. tical courage manifested during the The Toad has made filthy, strange three days and nights that Dieudonne beasts of us, no longer in the least spent struggling with tropical seas like human beings. Finally at 8 and mud in a fight to win freedom, o'clock in the evening the boat takes have impressed the French and re- the water. Long shouts of joy and acted in his favor. enthusiasm in the tropical twilight." While many prisoners seek to es- Boat Turned Turtle. cape from the horrors of the tropical prison camp, most of them die in the attempt. Those that survive are us- ually recaptured. Letters written by Dieudonne to his attorney and friends in Paris revealed the details of his daring final break for freedom. The French Guiana prison colony consists of the three Iles du Saint— the notorious Devil's Island. Ile Royale and Ile St. Joseph—a group of isolated jungle prisons on the main- land and two larger mainland camps, Kourou and Cayenne. Dieudonne, at the time of his escape, was in Cayen- ne. This camp borders o'n the quarter of the town of Cayenne in which live the "liberated" convicts. 'These are men who, having served their terns of hard labor, are forced to live ds exiles in Guiana for a period equal to the expired term, if their sentence was legs than eight years, or for life, Once more at sea, they raised the sail. But the sea was heavy, the small craft made heavy weather. They chipped several waves. "Steer to the left!" cried Dieudonne to the negro, fearing that the waves would drive then: back to the bank. "She won't answer, the rudder," re- plied the pilot. The sea grew heavier and heavier. A wave washed completely over the boat, then a second, third and fourth. It was too much for so unseaworthy a wesseL She teetered as she shipped More water, and finally, like an over- worked draught horse giving up the struggle, turned over. The men jumped. Dieudonne, in the water, round himself caught in the rigging. He struggled violently to free himself, but seemed only to en- tangle himself further. To make it if their sentence was longer than I worse, one of the other hien, thrown eight years. Men such as Dieudonne, ! to cryt out,hseized his arm.ulHe muddytridy whose sentences have been communt-;to but a mouthful of water half strangled him. ed (Dieudonne was rescued from the i In his struggle Dieudonne struck guillotine by the clemency of the:his head against something floating. President of the French llepubiic), at was his box containing the meagre are permitted a relative degree of: property of a convict, which, in the liberty in the prison camps, hope that he could escape and return "Bootleggers of Men. Ito France, he had carefully guarded There hovers about French Guiana I and carried with him. He seized the a mysterious but apparently well -knit box, which was sufficiently buoyant to organization of bootleggers of men, give him support, and with a final ef- whose business is to help convicts es- fort pulsed himself out of the rigging. cape. Its members are mostly Chinese Floating clear, Dieudonne turned to and negroes. The Chinese bargain fzncl the comrade, Lebreton, who had with the prisoners for the fee to be seized him in the water. He saw him, paid in return for a helping hand to- with three others, clinging to the keel ward freedom, and the negroes do the of the overturned boat. hard labor of piloting the evaders to the border. "Dieudonne was able to get in touch with members of this band. The prison camp at Cayenne is on the northwestern side of a little pen - Still holding fast to the box, he tried to fight his way to his compani- ons, but the waves were too much for him, driving him hack toward the mudbank. He struggled over the mud, dragging his box, and as he went insula, which is one of the relatively ,he called, hoping that the others few high -and -dry places on the coast. would hear and follow him. They For the most part the territory be.' hear dand reached him. Then all tween the jungle and the open sea is :headed for the forest, struggling neither land nor water. It is alluvial ; through the mud. As soon as they mud, brought down by the great tidal reached dry ground they camped for rivers and flooded at high water. i the night. There is so much mud and debris on I On a Log Laft. the coast that the sea for fifty miles Next morning they threw together a out is tinted yellow. Escaping con -!log raft and set forth once more. With victs must cross the mud flats. ; the . aid of poles they pushed their Last .December a negro bootlegger ;raft forward. The seas .swept over of men made an agreement with Dieu- i them, and more than once they were donne and five other convicts to pilot forced to swim, but they finally ar- them to freedom. The fee for all six ;rived and threw themselves exhaust - was $120, plus $40 expenses. He was ! ed upon the bank. Only Dieudonne to meet them in the evening in a lit- ' and Lebreton had the strength to con- tle creek called the Fouille. tinue. The entire distance from Cay - The convicts, eluding their guards entre to Brazil, along the coast, is only in the daylight, made their way to the about eighty miles, as measured on rendezvous at 3 in the afternoon. the map, but it presents terrific difll- Dieudonne writes: mattes. "It is 6 o'clock in the evening, and Dieudonne and Lebreton pushed on, we have been waiting three hours. leaving the others, who were recap- Will he come? Will he fail use" tared a few days later. The escort finally did appear and Dieudonne settled in Para -Belem, by daylight the party had traversed where he pursued his trade of cabinet the length of the creek and entered making. For a long while he be- the open sea by a passage called the lieved himself safe, but at length he Cannes. Their progress was .slow and was arrested by the Brazilian Govern- . painful, for the sail of their boat was meat, and the French asked his ex• • quite insufficient and the rudder too tradition. He pleaded with his friends eniall, Nevertheless, they went on in France to have him extradited to for an entire day. the mother country, not to Guiana. 6 At ebb tide the boat, was carried "If they send me back there I'll backward by the current, for its an- hang myself,"- he wrote. chor was not large enough to hold I't. Career' of Dieudonne. Back they went, powerless to light oars. They Dieudonne was originally arrested because they had as a member of a gang of bandits who were carried all the way to the Can- terrified Paris in 1913, robbing banks, nes, where their, craft stuck fast in the mud. r That night the six convicts and the negro cut a thwart from the beat and contrived to fashion it into a pad- dle. A cold wind chilled them as they kpor•.ked. The next day, aided by the flood tide and the paddle, they re - `Covered the distance they had lost. New Perils and Obstacles. Then they found a fresh Obstacle— iegreat mnidband that stretched along e coast for twelve miles and into he sea for three miles anore. They !gilt have gone around it had their oat. been Less crazy. As it was they sitated to pint far out to sea. After t~� 131Ornent's zositatlon tine negro said ;the beet thing to do Would be to out perpetrating repeated daylight hold- ups and killing those who opposed there. The band was captured in a house in Which they: had taken re- fuge. The two leaders of the ban- dits, Bonnet and Garnier, as well as a number of police, were killed in the attack. Dieudonne and the others captured were sentenced to death. The charge against Dieudonne was the attempted murder of a bank messenger, who, re- covering front the attack, had poll- tively Identified Dieudonne as the as sassiih, But Dieudonne' continually protested his innocence, and his state- nients were supported by notes writ- ten by both; the leader() of the gang, asserting that he had`tot been pre- .. .-. rel...... ---,•-.. .... ...-. ... . Dr. F. G. Denting Of insulin' fame, who makes a round indictment of the Hudson Bay Com- pany for alleged unfair treatment of the Eskimo. This picture was snap- ped on board the C. G. S.-Beothic, on which he journeyed to the near -Arctic regions. Treat Yoatir Farm Machinery I le Milkweed of Value? An Iowa chemist, Dr. Gerhart, le Ri►glit Making a pea for milkweed. He finds farmer. retired last year, after that this much despised plant has farming for Some thirty years, ];afore many promising virtues, And what I he felt the farm he had a Sale. This ho , says should occasion a careful nei'ghbor's machinery had always had study of lite plant to learn if tha pot, the best of Care, and the surrounding sabillt es line suggests may net be farmers knew it. Some of thein had .realized in a practical way, 'borrowed toolsfrom hint at different j In the first place, this Chemist states times, and knew they were always in i that the milk from this weed cones,- perfect repair. As a result, .a corn !Ponds closely to that of the rubber binder that he had been using for. �' plant, and it may in the future, prove twenty years brought $80; a fanning a domestic source of this valuable mill that -had been In•-, nee' for fifteen I product. According to his tests, the years brought $28, and a grain drill milkweed will produce, in the wild that had been used .every year for` state, from two and one-half to three eighteen years brought $40. Other per cent. of rubber. machinery averaged as well, and all Further, an acre of the weed will were worth the price they brought. 9' Produce around 650 pounds of cotton 1 I have a small farm, aiid all the floss. This is a greater production tools T" need for the size place I have, than Is bad from the cotton fields. A and I consider my eighteen by thirty - superior quality of upholstery can be foot tool shed one of the best invest - made from this floss. At the same meats I have ever made. When I fin - tune the blossom is producing the ish using any piece of machinery that Ross, the stem of the plant is growing requires a bright working- surface, a fibre of high tensile strength. The from a shovel •to a disc., I clean it fibre of the milkweed runs the entire thoroughly and then give it a coat of length of the stalk. This chemist harvester oil, with a 'small paint states that it would make an excellent brush, before it is put in the shed. Af- substitute for hemp: In strength it ter the metal- parts are so treated I compares well with manila, hemp. !give the 'wooden parts a coat of lin- The fibre of the plant also,produces eged oil and then a -coat of paint. ft an excellent quaitity of paper and wall- costs but little, requires but a short board. The long tough fibres make time, and pays big in the long run. this possible. In producing. wall- I . My tool shed is nearer the fields board, eighty-eight per cent. of the ,than any of my other buildings. That plant was used. Another product is the seeds. From leads to the field, as possible, so as fifty-five to sixty bushels could be har-,,to make it .convenient to leave the lis, it is . as near the driveway that sent at the attack on the messenger. On the strength of the victim's as- serted recognition, the jury convicted, him, but the President of the republic commuted his sentence to life im- prisonment. Apple Storage Pointers A well insulated storage house, a damp floor, and a fan to force cool night air into the house, are found to be the essentials of successful apple storage on the farm. The night air, on an average, is ap- proximately twenty degrees 'cooler than the air in the daytime in, the fall, when the apple crop is put in storage. The air, however, is not damp enough to keep the apples from shriveling. This is remedied by keeping the floor wet to allow the water to evaporate. Evaporation is also a cooling pro- cess. The temperature is further cool- ed as- the water evaporates. The floors must be kept wet continually, observes Mr. Overholt, to keep the moisture in the air high enough, and aid cooling by evaporation. Pans, or even a narrow trench filled with water are ,not sufficient. In a women's discussion at the meet- ing of the Welsh , National Liberal Federation it was suggested that the giving of toy soldiers to children should be discouraged. The difficulty is, however, that no nursery dares to be the first to disarm. Punch. The wife of an aviator is the only woman who is always glad to see her :husband down and out.—Louiseville Times. vested from an acre, This compares ;tools right where they belong. Over - favorably with yield of corn. These head I keep the spades, shovels, hand 'seeds contain about twenty: per cent. ;rakes, forks, an dottier hand tools, of oil, and from thirty-five to forty per and keep them where they belong, so cent. protein. The oil Compares in it is not necessary to hunt for a need quality 'with cottonseed oil, and the 'ed tool when in a hurry. Cleaning and protein should make an excellent 'oiling them after using keeps them all stock feed. About the only require- as good as new, ment in getting the seeds to reproduce is scarification. This persistent plant, which alI these years has beet. a liability to agri- culture, may some time be plaoed on the other side of the ledger. Exten- sive research should be made prompt- ly along the lines of the pioneer work by pr. Gerhart. Will Rogers Would Make 4Every Golf Course an Airport • To Editor, The New'York Times. .. Washington, D.C.—Bobby Jones, At- lanta, Ga.: Bobby, you can be the means o! saving a lot of human lives. The big problem of aviation is having emergency places to land. Now You insist on every golf course having one fairway long enough and level en- ough to =land a plane on, all marked with crosses to show it. Every golf club should be patriotic and humane enough to do this. Think what it, would mean to an aviator•with a missing engin to know that every golf course was a life pre- server. If they don't do this voluntt arily the Government will make 'em do it some day. Now all you got to do, Bobby, is to say you won't play on a course that won't go to that much expense for their country and 'their fellow -man, If you do this you will do as much for aviation as Lindbergh. Yours, -WILL ROGERS. The going is best when you are on the level. A Good Crop Rotation Experiments have been •:conducted on the Central Farm at Ottawa during the last seventeen years in order to learn which rotations give the best re- sults under certain couditions, what sequence of crops produces the larg- est yields and which rotation is most effective in maintaining the produc- tivety of .the soil and in controlling weed and insect pests. An excellent rotation is, with several others, des- cribed in the latest report of the Do- minion Field Husbandman, distribhted by the Publications Branch!, Depart- ment epartment of Agriculture, Ottawa, It is a five year rotation with the crops in the following order: corn, oats, clover hay, timothy hay, oats. There is thus one-fifth of the land in corn for silage, two-fifths in grain, and two- fifths in hay. For the purposes of the experiments both the clover and the timothy are harvested as hay. Ma- nure .is supplied twice, once for the corn crop at the rate of 15 tons per acre, and .once for the timothy, top dressed on the clover sod in the win- ter at 15 tons per acre. These large quantities of manure are applied be- cause the land is not pastured. There is an excellent opportunity of eradicating weeds with this rota- tion. The timothy sod may be plougbed as soon as the hay has been removed and cultivated during the remainder of the season, and the oat crop may be handled in the same way. The corn crop will, of course, permit of considerable cultivation during the year it is grown. YOUNG CANADA R,oina Holland the sweepstake winner of 'the "Young Canada" show at., ;the Canadian National Exhibition. There' were over 00 babies in seven different classes, roma was ,fudged the best baby ot'al1 classes, Russian Postmen' Far From .Happ Complaints that the: adwinletratioI . of the postal, telephone and tolegl'itlih,,i service in Soviet Russia discharges union men and replaces them With! ^ non -unionists, thus, malting itself part-', ly responsible for the tt et that 14 pori vent, of the organized employes. ate, idle, were made at the recent biennial Convention of Union of Postal, Tele-; phone and Telegraph Workers held la. l Moscow. - These charges' were 'backed up by the report' of the Chairman of the Central Committee of the union and aroused bitter eommentl. Another cause of unemployment was said toj be the abuse of overtime work to many divisions of the postal service: Tile allowance granted to unemploy- ed postal workers is slightly less than $5 a month and the union itself la taking tare of only 18 per oent, cf its idle members, Union Grows Larger Despite "these handicaps, however the membership of the union, as quoted from the Chairman's report bje" Trud, the official newspaper of thou A.11 -Russian Federation of Labor, heel risen to 114,364 as against 102,500 In 425. The Chairman confirmed that! complaints of some delegates abou the large number of disputes between: the trade unions and the Commis] sariat of Posts, Telephones and Tele., graphs, due to the failure of many ofj the departments to observe the clauses of the collective agreement or, the. provisions of social legislation. 4 Regarding wages ft was pointed out that the present condltion of the fina- nces of the Soviet Government mint e ated against any increasesin the near future, although the average monthly wage of $32 was only 63 per cent. of; the pre-war pay. In this connection, • a dispute arose regarding the advis- ability of admitting rural mail car- riers to the union. Answering the contention of several delegates that, every effort should be made to lino these workers up with their fellows ink the service, the Chairman of the Cen-, tract Committee explained the opposi- tion of the committee as follows: Not of the Proletariat First, the country postman gener- ally are small peasants who cannot be really considered as members of the proletariat. Second, the wages of rural carriers are so very low that if these men were admitted they would immediately de- mand an increase. Under oxistlee conditions the State could not consent to this and, conaequently, the un!on would not be able to support such a request and its refusal undoubtedly would occasion discontent among the carriers. The convention took no action on the matter. Harrnes-sing Static to Check Fires Static, the curse of 'radio fans, is now being employed in the useful role of indicating the direction and course of lightning stories, according to S. R. Winters, in an article contributed to the Boston "Globe." This informa- tion, in the possession of the United States Forest Service, enables forest fire-fighters to plan their attacks on conflagrations caused by lightning. It is a practical application of the adage _ to the effect "forewarned is .forearm- ed." 'Writes Mr. Winters: The rumbling and crashing noises which constitute such a disturbing fac- tor in our radio receiving sets are also lxung diverted to the serviceable func- tion of furnishing au Index to the rela- tive amount of moisture in the atmos- phere. This Information is, in a nreas- ure, a barometer to the degree or fire hazard present from day to day in the national forests. Statics records, af- fording, as they do, "'an index of the day's relative humidity as early as six o'clock in the morning', give warning of the Intensity of the fire menace, which may vary from dayl to day. This striking illustration of ehatig- ing static from a malediction to a benediction ,constitutes the major pro- ject of the United. States Forest Ser- vice at its Pacific Northwest forest experiment station, Stabler, Washing- ton There, under the immediate sup- ervieion of A. Gael Simeon, scientific aid of the forest service, the curse of radio "reception has been coaxed to unfold whatever beneficent infnences it may possess: Lightning is the chief natural' cause of forest fires -more' than 1,000 such fires originating in Oregon and Wash- ington alone in 1926—and to minimize the losses thus incurred to Govern- ment-owned timberlands it is necea- sary to know When there is probability of lightning and where it will prob. ably exert its flaming force. Mr. Sim. son, in a 1926 progross report of this, unusual scientific project,. tells how static has been harnessed to denote the relative humfndity in the atmos- phere and the direction and course of lightning storms. 44 Modest Chap. "lie's a' Modest chap, c='. ? ' "Yes, holds his pants darn lieu the wind blows."