general reader. She concludes with the pregnant sentence: “Let our prison discipline be severe in proportion to the enormity of the crimes of those on whom it is exercised, and let its strictness be such as to deter others from a similar course of iniquity, but let us ever aim at the diminution of crime through the just and happy medium of the REFORMATION OF CRIMINALS.”
Not only in the published page, but in other ways—in fact in every possible way—did Mrs. Fry continue to proclaim the need of a new method of ordering criminals, and also of so treating them, that they should be fitted to return to society improved and not degraded by their experience of penal measures. In 1832, she was called upon to give evidence before another Committee of the House of Commons, upon the best mode of enforcing “secondary punishments” so as to repress crime. On this occasion she dwelt particularly upon the points noticed in her book published five years previously, and added one or two more. For instance, while advocating complete separation at night, she quite as earnestly contended against what was known as the “solitary system.” On this point she maintained that “solitude does not prepare women for returning to social and domestic life, or tend so much to real improvement, as carefully arranged intercourse during part of the day with one another under the closest superintendence and inspection, combined with constant occupation, and solitude at night.” In her evidence there occurs the following passage:—
