Elizabeth Fry. Emma Raymond Pitman
usefulness we find that afflictions predominated just when her mind was soaring above the social and conventional trammels which at one time weighed so much with her. We know her mostly as a prison philanthropist; but while following her career in that path, it will be wise not to forget the way in which she was led. By slow and painful degrees she was drawn away from the circles of fashion in which once her soul delighted. Then her nature seemed so retiring, and the tone of her piety so mystical, while she dreaded nervously all approach to "religious enthusiasm," that a career of publicity, either in prisons, among rulers, or among the ministers of her own Society, seemed too far away to be ever realized in fact and deed. Only He, who weighs thoughts and searches out spirits, knew or understood by what slow degrees she rose to the demands which presented themselves to her "in the ways of His requirings," even if "they led her into suffering and death." It was no small cross for such a woman thus to dare singularity and possibly odium.
CHAPTER V.
BEGINNINGS IN NEWGATE.
It is said by some authorities that in her childhood Mrs. Fry expressed so great a desire to visit a prison that her father at last took her to see one. Early in 1813 she first visited Newgate, with the view of ministering to the necessities of the felons; and for all practical purposes of charity this was really her initial step. The following entry in her journal relates to a visit paid in February of that year. "Yesterday we were some hours with the poor female felons, attending to their outward necessities; we had been twice previously. Before we went away dear Anna Buxton uttered a few words of supplication, and, very unexpectedly to myself, I did also. I heard weeping, and I thought they appeared much tendered (i.e. softened); a very solemn quiet was observed; it was a striking scene, the poor people on their knees around us in their deplorable condition." This reference makes no mention of what was really the truth, that some members of the Society of Friends, who had visited Newgate in January, had so represented the condition of the prisoners to Mrs. Fry that she determined to set out in this new path. "In prison, and ye visited me." Little did she dream on what a distinguished career of philanthropy she was entering.
And Newgate needed some apostle of mercy to reduce the sum of human misery found there, to something like endurable proportions. We are told that at that date all the female prisoners were confined in what was afterwards known as the "untried side" of the jail, while the larger portion of the quadrangle was utilized as a state-prison. The women's division consisted of two wards and two cells, containing a superficial area of about one hundred and ninety yards. Into these apartments, at the time of Mrs. Fry's visit, above three hundred women were crammed, innocent and guilty, tried and untried, misdemeanants, and those who were soon to pay the penalty of their crimes upon the gallows. Besides all these were to be found numerous children, the offspring of the wretched women, learning vice and defilement from the very cradle. The penal laws were so sanguinary that at the commencement of this century about three hundred crimes were punishable with death. Some of these offences were very trivial, such as robbing hen-roosts, writing threatening letters, and stealing property from the person to the amount of five shillings. There was always a good crop for the gallows: hanging went merrily on, from assize town to assize town, until one wonders whether the people were not gallows-hardened. One old man and his son performed the duties of warders in this filthy, abominable hole of "justice." And the ragged, wretched crew bemoaned their wretchedness in vain, for no helping hand was held out to succor. They were "destitute of sufficient clothing, for which there was no provision; in rags and dirt, without bedding, they slept on the floor, the boards of which were in part raised to supply a sort of pillow. In the same rooms they lived, cooked, and washed. With the proceeds of their clamorous begging, when any stranger appeared among them, the prisoners purchased liquors from a tap in the prison. Spirits were openly drunk, and the ear was assailed by the most terrible language. Beyond the necessity for safe custody, there was little restraint upon their communication with the world without. Although military sentinels were posted on the leads of the prison, such was the lawlessness prevailing, that Mr. Newman, the governor, entered this portion of it with reluctance."
As Mrs. Fry and the "Anna Buxton" referred to—who was a sister of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton—were about to enter this modern Inferno, the Governor of Newgate advised the ladies to leave their watches in his care lest they should be snatched away by the lawless wretches inside. But no such hesitating, half-hearted, fearful charity was theirs. They had come to see for themselves the misery which prevailed, and to dare all risks; and we do not find that either Mrs. Fry or her companion lost anything in their progress through the women's wards; watches and all came away safely, a fresh proof of the power of kindness. The revelations of the terrible woes of felon-life which met Mrs. Fry stirred up her soul within her. She emphatically "clothed the naked," for she set her family to work at once making green-baize garments for this purpose until she had provided for all the most destitute.
To remedy this state of things appeared like one of the labors of Hercules. Few were hopeful of the success of her undertaking, while at times even her undaunted spirit must have doubted. In John Howard's time the prisons of England had been distinguished for vice, filth, brutality, and suffering; and although some little improvement had taken place, it was almost infinitesimal. Old castles, or gate-houses, with damp, dark dungeons and narrow cells, were utilized for penal purposes. It was common to see a box fastened up under one of the narrow, iron-barred windows overlooking the street, with the inscription, "Pity the poor prisoners," the alms being intended for their relief and sustenance. Often the jail was upon a bridge at the entrance of a town, and the damp of the river added to the otherwise unhealthy condition of the place. Bunyan spoke, not altogether allegorically, but rather literally, of the foul "den" in which he passed a good twelve years of his life. Irons and fetters were used to prevent escape, while those who could not obtain the means of subsistence from their friends, suffered the horrors of starvation. Over-crowding, disease, riot, and obscenity united to render these places very Pandemoniums.
It seemed almost hopeless to deal with ferocious and abandoned women. One of them was observed, desperate with rage, tearing the caps from the heads of the other women, and yelling like a savage beast. By so much nearer as woman is to the angels, must be measured her descent into ruin when she is degraded. She falls deeper than a man; her degradation is more complete, her nature more demoralized. Whether Mrs. Fry felt unequal just then to the task, or whether family affliction pressed too sorely upon her, we do not know; her journal affords no solution of the problem, but certain it is that some three years passed by before any very active steps were taken by her to ameliorate to any decided extent the misery of the prisoners.
But the matter seethed in her mind; as she mused upon it, the fire burned, and the spirit which had to burst its conventional trammels and "take up the cross" in regard to dress and speech, looked out for other crosses to carry. Doing good became a passion; want, misery, sin and sorrow furnished claims upon her which she would neither ignore nor deny.
John Howard had grappled with the hydra before her, and finally succumbed to his exertions. As the period of his labors lay principally between the years 1774 and 1790, when the evils against which Mrs. Fry had to contend were intensified and a hundred times blacker, it cannot do harm to recall the condition of prisons in England during the last quarter of the eighteenth century; that is, during the girlhood of Elizabeth Fry. Possibly some echoes of the marvellous exertions of Howard in prison reform had reached her Earlham home, and produced, though unconsciously, an interest in the subject which was destined to bear fruit at a later period. At any rate, the fact cannot be gainsaid that she followed in his steps, visiting the Continent in the prosecution of her self-imposed task, and examining into the most loathsome recesses of prisons, lunatic asylums, and hospitals.
The penal systems of England had been on their trial; had broken down, and been found utterly wanting. Modern legislation and philanthropy have laid it down that reform is the proper end of all punishment; hence the "silent system," the "separate system," and various