[Illustration: Permit to visit a Prison or Penitentiary Camp _en détail_. This is the ordinary form; but the Author is the only Englishman for whom the words in the left-hand corner were crossed out.] There is quite a little romance connected with this estimable family. When Madame came out she brought her two daughters with her. Now the elder of these had been engaged to a young man employed at the Ministry of Colonies, and he entered the colonial service by accepting a clerkship at Noumea. The result was naturally a meeting, and the fulfilment of the proverb which says that an old coal is easily rekindled. The engagement broken off by the conviction was renewed, and the wedding followed in due course. The second daughter married a prosperous concessionnaire, and the ex-coiner, well established, and making plenty of properly minted money, has the satisfaction of seeing the second generation of his blood growing up in peace and plenty about him. Imagine such a story as this being true of an English coiner! A little further on, on the left hand side, is a little lending library, and _cabinet de lecture_. This is kept by a very grave and dignified-looking man, clean-shaven, and keen-featured, and with the manners of a French Chesterfield. “That man’s a lawyer,” I said to the Commandant, as we left the library. “What is he doing here?” “You are right. At least, he was a lawyer once, doing well, and married to a very nice woman; but he chose to make himself a widower, and that’s why he’s here. The old story, you know.” Next door was a barber’s shop kept by a most gentle-handed housebreaker. He calls himself a “capillary artist,” shaves the officials and gendarmerie, cuts the hair of the concessionnaires, and sells perfumes and soaps to their wives and daughters. He also is doing well. A few doors away from him a _liberé_ has an establishment which in a way represents the art and literature of Bourail. He began with ten years for forgery and embezzlement. Now he takes photographs and edits, and, I believe, also writes the _Bourail Indépendent_. As a newspaper for ex-convicts and their keepers, the title struck me as somewhat humorous. Nearly all branches of trade were represented in that little street. But these may be taken as fairly representative samples of the life-history of those who run them. First, crime at home; then transportation and punishment; and then the effort to redeem, made in perfect good faith by the Government, and, so far as these particular camps and settlements are concerned, with distinct success in the present. Unhappily, however, the Government is finding out already that free and bond colonists will not mix. They will not even live side by side, wherefore either the whole system of concessions must be given up, or the idea of colonising one of the richest islands in the world with French peasants, artisans, and tradesmen must be abandoned.