mined 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 utilised 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 succour. They were "destitute of sufficient
