was a deputy
mayor in Paris.

We think you would like to hear something about Devil's Island, the
place where Albert Dreyfus is confined. This island is one of a group,
twenty-seven miles northwest of Cayenne in French Guiana. Get your map
of South America, and you will be able to put your finger on the spot.
In 1852 the French Government established a penal colony on these
islands. A penal colony is one formed of convicts sent out from the
mother country. Many of these colonies have proved successful,
particularly the ones where the prisoners are allowed to work and build
up their own homes for themselves. Australia was settled in this way,
and it has developed wonderfully.

From reports, Dreyfus is having a very hard time on Devil's Island. He
is not allowed to speak to any one, and lives in absolute solitude. It
is said that his hair has turned grey, and his confinement in other ways
is aging him rapidly. He is allowed to write, but his letters simply
declare his innocence over and over again. It was rumored some time ago
that Dreyfus had escaped, and since then the French Government has
ordered the officials of the convict settlement to telegraph every day
to Paris the fact that the prisoner is safely under guard.

Political prisoners are usually allowed to have their wives with them,
but, although Mme. Dreyfus has made strong efforts, France will not
allow her to be with her husband.

There is a man living in Rome who is said to have been imprisoned on
Devil's Island for several years. His name is Gen. Paolo Tibaldi, who
was sentenced to life imprisonment on the island for conspiring against
Napoleon III. He says that when he was there the island was a bare rock
without a tree or a blade of grass, and the heat of the sun was
terrible. The provisions supplied daily by the Government were a pound
and a half of the worst kind of bread, for each convict, a piece of old
meat or salt fat, beans or rice, a little oil, and also a kind of
spirits called tafla. The general claims that the treatment to which the
captives were subjected was most severe. They were chained by the
keepers, fed on bread and water for months, and beaten with ropes. Five
thousand dollars was raised in France to rescue General Tibaldi, but
that only made matters worse, and he suffered added torments. Finally,
public opinion in France combined with the press in his behalf, and the
General was freed.

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T