My first official business in the colony was, of course, to write to the Governor acquainting him with the fact of my arrival. I did this with considerable misgivings, for both at Sydney and on the boat, I had heard the evil rumour that in consequence of the plague the Government of New Caledonia had decided to close the prisons. This meant that the convicts who had been hired out to work in the mines and elsewhere would be recalled to the prisons and the camps, and that all communication would be severed between them and the outer world until the epidemic was over. Now I carried credentials from the Ministry of the Colonies in Paris, which is to New Caledonia what the Russian Ministry of Justice was to Siberia, and these, under ordinary circumstances, authorised me to have every prison door in the island opened to me. But M. Albert Décrais knew nothing about[110] the coming visitation when he gave them to me, and the Governor would have been well within his powers if he had answered my letter by expressing “his infinite regret that exceptional circumstances made it impossible for him to act under the instructions of the Ministry during the present disastrous epidemic, etc.”
In this case my mission would have been brought to nought, and I should have travelled fifteen thousand miles for the privilege of sojourning an indefinite time in a plague-stricken town. It was three days before I got an answer, and during that time I allayed my anxieties by making a closer acquaintance with Noumea.
Through the kindness of the Earl of Dunmore, who was then acting as Administrator of one of the greatest mining enterprises in New Caledonia, and a member of the Municipal Council with whom I had travelled from Sydney, I was made a guest of the Cercle. Only the most exclusive aristocracy of Noumea breakfast and dine at home. The rest—officials, merchants, and professional men—knock off work at eleven, having begun about six, breakfast at half-past, and then play or sleep till three.
[111]
At six everything, except the hotels and cafés, shut up; then comes a drive or a ride, tennis or a sail in the bay, then dinner, followed by cards and drinks till midnight—and of such is the daily life of the capital of New Caledonia. I learnt afterwards that this delightfully situated little town is also one of the wickedest spots on earth, but of that I shall have more to say hereafter.
Socially, Noumea struck me as being somewhat cramped. Its society is composed of educated, highly trained, and, in the main, well-mannered men, living a little life among themselves, and being crushed into smallness by the very narrowness of their environment. They were a thousand miles from anywhere. Their only immediate connection with the outer world was the cable to Sydney, controlled by the all-powerful Administration, which published and suppressed whatever it pleased.
There were the monthly Messagerie mails, and a few odd traders, now mostly laid up in the harbour flying the Yellow Jack. Every night the same men met and discussed the same subjects, the chief of which was la Peste. Every day the same men went to the same duties, the same women[112] discussed the same gossip and the same scandal. Every night the same men and women met in the Place des Cocotiers, under its swaying palms and flaming flamboyants, and listened to the same music—which, by the way, they will never listen to again.
I had gone to Noumea full up to the roots of my hair with the utterly erroneous notions which I had picked up from books and conversations. The books appear to have been written mostly by returned déportés or communards who had been banished in ’71 and ’72, and allowed to return to France after the general amnesty. The people with whom I had conversed had apparently got their knowledge from somewhat similar sources, but all agreed in representing New Caledonia as a second Tasmania, or Norfolk Island, where all the uncivilised barbarities of our own transportation system had been prolonged to the end of the nineteenth century.
Its population consisted of a vast horde of convicts, the most abandoned and bloodthirsty wretches on earth, ground down into hopeless slavery by the irresistible and unpitying strength of an official engine called the Penitentiary Administration. The[113] officials were a set of soulless gaolers in whose natures every spark of humanity had been quenched by the performance of their pitiless task. The surplus of the population consisted of half-tamed natives and a few thousand libérés, or ticket-of-leave men, any one of whom would knock you on the head or stick a knife into you for a couple of francs.
Finally I was regarded in Paris as rather madder than the average Englishman for wanting to go to such a God-forsaken place, being neither a convict who had to go nor an official who wanted to earn a comfortable retraite and save up the wherewithal to purchase rentes on which to spend the balance of his days in that peace and quiet which is the domestic heaven to which all good Frenchmen look forward.
Now this is what I actually saw of convict-life in Noumea before I had passed the prison gates for the first time. I had eaten my second dinner at the Cercle, and Lord Dunmore, taking pity on my isolation, said:
“The convict-band is playing in the square to-night, suppose we go and get some seats?”
“The convict what?” I said, harking back[114] mentally to the rigid English system, and trying to picture to myself an English convict blowing a cornet.
“It’s what they call here the Musique de la Transportation. It’s quite an institution in Noumea. I don’t suppose there’s anything like it anywhere else.”
So I went, feeling verily a stranger in a strange land.
It was an absolutely perfect tropical night. The moon was getting up over the eastern end of the Chaine Centrale, a ridge of mountains which runs through Caledonia from north-east to south-west; the cafés along the top of the square were glittering with light; a deliciously cool breeze was blowing down from the mountains through the trees.
Little groups of people, mostly clad in white, were sitting on chairs about the lawns, and others were strolling slowly round and round the square and across the paths which radiated from the big kiosk in the centre. There were pretty costumes and brilliant uniforms, stars and medals and all the rest of it, and the one finishing tropical touch that was needful was added by wandering bands of laughing Kanakas with gaudy waistcloths and[115] fantastic headgear, big, luminous eyes, and teeth that gleamed whitely as they laughed.
Saving these last there was nothing that would have been incongruous with one of those delightful portions of outdoor Paris where “l’on s’amuse.” The shadow of the Black Death seemed to have been lifted for the time, and as for crime and convicts—well, presently up one of the avenues through the flamboyants there appeared a line of grey-clad figures carrying musical instruments. There were twenty-five of them all told.
They sauntered up to the band-stand laughing and chatting as though they hadn’t a care in the wide world. Possibly they had very few; fewer certainly than the peasant toiling his sixteen hours a day for a bare living in far-away France.
They were guarded by a very bored-looking surveillant, who carried in a sling a revolver which he was not allowed to use unless one of his charges struck him first!
The gentlemen of the orchestra took their places, and a short, thick-set man, with a clever, but most unpleasant face, went into the middle and looked around with an air of command, which reminded me oddly of the preliminary gestures of other[116] conductors of very different orchestras. There was a little tuning-up, then the conductor tapped his music-stand, waved his baton of authority, and forthwith the sweet strains of the Intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana” began to float out through the drowsy hush of the tropical evening.
There is really only one word which could describe the scene, and that is bizarre. Take five-and-twenty musically inclined convicts out of an English prison, put them into the Western Gardens at Earl’s Court on a warm July evening and you would have something like it, but not quite. At Earl’s Court the convict-band would be stared at as a curiosity, but people would probably keep at a respectful distance from the band-stand, especially if there was only one tired-looking warder to keep guard over the musical criminals.
 
The Convict Band playing in the Kiosk in the Place des Cocotiers, Noumea.
 
But in Noumea no one, save, perhaps, myself, looked twice at the enclosure which contained an amount of assorted villainy and potential violence, rapine, and sudden death as you could find the wide world over in a similar space. There were men from every station of life—soldiers, priests, lawyers, politicians, financiers, and men who had[117] once belonged to the Golden Youth of France—inside the kiosk of the Musique de la Transportation.
Collectively they had committed every crime, from forgery to outrages for which civilised speech has no name. The chef d’orchestre, for example, was the man who, a few years ago, sent a thrill of horror through the world by cutting the heart out of a man whom he believed to be his rival in his wife’s affections, getting her to cook it as a sheep’s heart, dining off it with her, and then telling her what she had been eating. In addition to being a talented musician he was also a very clever painter who has won quite a reputation in the island.
And yet, while this unspeakable scoundrel was controlling with his baton the flood of sweet sounds which flowed out from the kiosk over the moonlight-spangled lawns, the most respectable people in Noumea were sitting about in chairs smoking and chatting; young men and maidens were wandering about among the trees; and little children were playing round the grassy slope on which the band-stand stood, taking no more notice of these human hyenas than if they had been the[118] most respectable musicians that ever wore long hair and swallow-tailed coats.
The performance finished, as usual, with “La Marseillaise.” I stood up and took off my helmet. Then I put it on again and sat down somewhat suddenly. Not another person rose; not another head was uncovered. For all the notice that was taken of it, the National Hymn of the Republic might as well have been “Mrs. ’Enery ’Awkins,”—which did not strike me as a particularly good thing for France generally.
When the performance was over the artists gathered up their instruments, lolled out on to the path in front of the kiosk, and shuffled into a sort of double line. The weary warder counted them in a languid fashion, right-about-faced them, and gave the order to march. They shambled away through the gaily dressed crowds in the square. No one even turned to look at them, and I, who had seen a party of English convicts on their way to work through a public road, ranged up with their faces to the wall because a break-load of excursionists was passing by, wondered greatly.
The Musique de la Transportation is now,[119] happily for the credit of Noumea, a thing of the past. The pampered artists got to think themselves indispensable to the gaiety of the town. So one night, having collected more surreptitious coppers than usual, they halted on their way to barracks, bought wine and brandy, and told the warder to go and report them if he dared. He did dare, and the next day the Director of the Administration published a brief edict which abolished them as musicians for ever.
The next morning, soon after coffee, a white-helmeted, gorgeously uniformed gendarme presented himself at the door of the Hotel Gaquon with a request to see “Monsieur Griffitte.” An Englishman or German official would have saluted. He took his helmet off, bowed, and handed me a letter from the Governor appointing an interview for the next day. I went to breakfast at the club as usual, and before the meal was over I found that everybody knew of the sending of that letter. I had been an interloper before, and an Englishman at that. Now I was a guest, the guest of the omnipotent Ministry upon whose will the fate of every official in Caledonia depended.
That was a morning of introductions, and I was[120] surprised to find how many friends I had in Noumea.
The Governor’s offices at Noumea are in a corner of the lovely grounds in the midst of which his official residence stands. It was a little, unpretentious, two-storey building, wooden built, and with a verandah giving on to the street.
I gave my card to a collarless clerk, who appeared to be getting very hot over the task of sorting a few papers. He sent it up to His Excellency, and asked me “to give myself the trouble to sit down,” which I did.
Soldiers, civilians, gendarmes, and convict messengers kept dropping in every now and then to deliver messages or letters, or have a chat with somebody by way of beguiling the tedium of official hours, and then a half-caste boy came down with my card and requested me to give myself the further trouble of going upstairs. I don’t know whether this was another official, but if he was his uniform consisted of a pair of trousers and a shirt, a linen jacket which hadn’t seen the laundry for some time, and a pair of canvas deck-shoes.
 
The Town and Harbour of Noumea. Across the bay are the Barracks and the Military Reservation, which no civilian may enter without authority. On the peninsula to the right are the stations of the libérés collectifs.
 
I followed him upstairs. He opened the door[121] without any ceremony, and I found myself in the presence of the Governor—a man of medium French height, with a square, close-cropped head, moustache, and close-clipped beard. If the chin had matched the forehead it would have been a strong face, but it did not.
I learnt afterwards that his Excellency Monsieur Feuillet is a man of decided anti-English tastes; but for all that he received me very cordially. He had already received notice of my coming from the French Government, and expressed himself as willing to do anything to further my mission. As a matter of fact, this came to countersigning my credentials from the Minister of Colonies and writing a letter to the Director of the Administration. I then shook hands, and saw Monsieur Paul Feuillet no more save from a distance.
Then I went to the Direction, and in a few minutes I was sitting in a half-darkened, comfortable room, with double doors, through which no sound could penetrate. This room is the centre of the system which really controls the destinies of bond and free throughout New Caledonia. On the other side of an ample writing-table sat a square-headed, strong-jawed man of about five-and-thirty,[122] with close-cropped hair, and moustache and shaven chin à l’Anglais.
This was M. Edouard Telle, Director of the Penitentiary Administration for New Caledonia and Dependencies, the strongest, politest, and most friendly Frenchman I have ever met.
He is supreme chief of an army of commandants, surveillants, and jailors, whose duty it is to keep watch and ward over between ten thousand and twelve thousand convicts, relégues and libérés—terms which I have already explained.
He is absolutely independent of the Governor, who cannot even employ convicts on public works without his permission. He is responsible to no one but the Minister of Colonies and the President of the Republic, and they are many a long thousand miles away. With the stroke of a pen he could instantly stop all convict labour throughout the colony, and so bring its principal industries to a standstill. It was he, too, and not the Governor, who could have issued that ukase which would have closed the prisons and turned my long journey into a wild-goose chase.
 
In the Harbour, Noumea.
 
But, instead of this, he took quite as much trouble with me as if I had been an inspector[123] sent out by the French Government, rather than a wandering Englishman who was only there on sufferance. He took the utmost pains to find out exactly what I wanted; he mapped out my journeys for me; gave me special passes authorising me to inspect all the prisons and camps en détail—which is a very different thing to the ordinary, but still rarely bestowed, visitor’s pass.
He addressed a circular letter to the commandants, enjoining them to do everything to help me; and, not content with this, he telegraphed to each prison and camp so that conveyances might be ready for me. At the same time, when I suggested fixing dates, he replied:
“No, Mr. Griffith, go when you please. I wish you to see the establishments exactly as they are always, and not as they might be if they were got ready for you. When you have seen them come back and tell me what you think of them. From what you have told me of your English prisons”—this was at the end of a somewhat long conversation—“your opinion will be most valuable to me.”
Then I thanked him, and mentioned the delicate subject of photographs, and his good nature[124] and indulgence once move proved equal to the strain.
“Photograph anything you please,” he said, “inside or outside the prisons; but I shall ask you to remember that good English rule of yours about photographing individual prisoners.”
Of course, I agreed to this, and left the Direction well at ease and wondering more than ever at the misconceptions I had managed to form of the Caledonian prison system. I frankly admit that I had expected to be received with suspicion and reserve, perhaps even with hostility.
Instead of this the most powerful man in the colony had greeted me with perfect cordiality and frankness, and had taken more trouble to make my tour a success than I should certainly have expected a good many English officials to take.
During another interview with M. Telle, before I had yet seen the inside of a Caledonian prison, we both managed to astonish each other not a little. The Director is a criminologist and the son of a criminologist, who was Director before him, but he was sufficiently French only to have studied the continental systems.
Therefore he was about as much surprised when[125] I told him that the cat and the birch were still used in English prisons; that English prisoners ate and slept in absolute solitude and worked in silence, as I was when he told me that, in this land of supposed horrors not only had all corporal punishment been abolished, but that the surveillants were not permitted even to lay a hand upon a prisoner, except in actual self-defence; that cells and silence were only used as punishments; and when he added that the better-behaved prisoners might smoke and drink wine, I confess that I was almost shocked. All this, however, with other strange things, I was soon to see for myself.
I dined that night, as usual, at the club, in a more contented frame of mind than heretofore, for now the omnipotent Administration had spoken, and I was free of the colony—free to go where I pleased, to see what I liked, and, within the limits of the law, do as I liked.
No man might say me nay. All the prison-houses in the land must give up their secrets to me. In short, I had in my pocket the keys of every cell door in New Caledonia.
Under these circumstances I naturally found things much pleasanter than before. I listened[126] with equanimity to a local editor’s remarks on the war news—which he had been spending the day in mangling—and even the military doctors’ descriptions of the new plague cases and the ghastly operations which they had just been performing with those nail-stained hands of theirs did not seem quite so loathsome as before.
There was, by the way, another peculiarity of New Caledonian social life to which I was already becoming accustomed. There are practically no free servants in the colony. Male or female, they are either convicts or ex-convicts, and it was no uncommon thing to have your knife and fork laid for you at breakfast or dinner by a hand which had stuck a knife into somebody else, or to take your food from hands that had poisoned.
I admit that I did not like the idea at first, but in time I got accustomed to it, just as I did later on to being shaved by a most amiable and accomplished murderer, and having my bed made up by a lady who had cut her child’s throat. It is, in fact, the fashion in New Caledonia to have murderers for servants. As a distinguished resident said to me:
“You see, the assassins are reliable. They are[127] the aristocrats of the place. They don’t condescend to smaller crimes. In fact, they would be absolutely insulted if they were accused of a theft, at least, the good murderers would, and as for killing you, they would never dream of it. Why should they? Besides, they know perfectly well that there wouldn’t be the remotest chance of escape for them.”
This I found afterwards to be the cold-drawn truth. Fewer after-crimes are committed in New Caledonia by those who are sent there for assassination than by minor criminals. Later on I shall have some curious information to give on this subject.