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 employments have
been adopted. Hence, too, arose the framing of a system of education and
instruction under the jail roof, so that on the discharge of prisoners
they might be fitted to earn their own maintenance in that world which
formerly they had cursed with their evil deeds. But it was not so in the
era of John Howard, nor of Elizabeth Fry. Then, justice made short work
with criminals and debtors. The former it hanged in droves, and left the
latter to literally "rot" in prison. Two systems of transportation have
been tried: the one previous to Howard's day succeeded in pouring into
the American plantations the crime and vice of England; whilst the
other, which succeeded him, did the same for Australia. After the breach
between the American colonies and the mother-country, the system of
transportation to the Transatlantic plantations ceased; it was in the
succeeding years that the foul holes called prisons, killed their
thousands, and "jail-fever" its tens of thousands.
Yet, in spite of hanging felons faster than any other nation in Europe,
in spite of killing them off slowly by the miseries of these holes,
crime multiplied more than ever. Gigantic social corruptions festered in
the midst of the nation, until it seemed as if a war which carried off a
few thousands or tens of thousands of the lower classes, were almost a
blessing. Alongside the horrible evils for which Government was
responsible, grew up multitudes of other evils against which it fought,
or over which it exercised a strong and somewhat tyrannical upper-hand.
In society there was a constant war going on between law and crime.
Extirpation--not reform--was the end aimed at; the prison officials of
that time looked upon a criminal as a helpless wretch, presenting fair
game for plunder, torture and tyranny. The records in Howard's journals,
and the annals of Mrs. Fry's labors, amply enlighten us as to the result
of this state of things.
In Bedford jail the dungeons for felons were eleven feet below the
ground, always wet and slimy, and upon these floors the inmates had to
sleep. At Nottingham the jail stood on the side of a hill, while the
dungeons were cut in the solid rock; these dungeons could only be
entered after descending more than thirty steps. At Gloucester there was
but one court for all prisoners, and, while fever was decimating them,
only one day-room. At Salisbury the prisoners were chained together at
Christmas time and sent in couples to beg. In some of the jails, open
sewers ran through corridors and cells, so that the poor inmates had to
fight for their lives with the vermin which nourished there. At Ely the
prison was in such a ruinous condition that the criminals could not be
safely kept; the warders, therefore, had had recourse to chains and
fetters to prevent the escape of those committed to their charge. They
chained prisoners on their backs to the floor, and, not content with
this, secured iron collars round their necks as well as placed heavy
bars across their legs. Small fear of the poor wretches running away
after that! At Exeter the county jail was the private property of a
gentleman, John Denny Rolle, who farmed it out to a keeper, and received
an income of twenty pounds per annum for it. Yet why multiply instances!
In all of them, dirt, cruelty, fever, torture and abuses reigned
unchecked. Prisoners had no regular allowance of food, but depended on
their means, family, or charity; the prisons were farmed by their
keepers, some of whom were women, but degraded and cruel; many innocent
prisoners were slowly rotting to death, because of their inability to
pay the heavy fees exacted by their keepers; while the sleeping-rooms
were so crowded at times, that it was impossible for the prisoners to
lie down all together for sheer lack of space. Torture was prohibited by
the law of England, but many inhuman keepers used thumb-screws and iron
caps with obnoxious prisoners, for the amusement of themselves and their
boon companions. Several cases of this kind are recorded.
So hideous an outcry arose against these horrors, that at last
Parliament interfered, and passed two bills dealing with prisoners and
their treatment. The first of these provided that when a prisoner was
discharged for want of prosecution he should be immediately set free,
without being called upon to defray any fees claimed by the jailer or
sheriff; while the second bill authorized justices of the peace to see
to the maintenance of cleanliness in the prisons. The first set at
liberty hundreds of innocent persons who were still bound because they
could not meet the ruinous fees demanded from them; while the second
undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds more. These were instalments of
reform.
Thus it will easily be understood that whatever the condition of
Newgate and other English prisons was, at the date of Mrs. Fry's labors,
they were far better than in previous years. Some attempts had been made
to render these pest-houses less horrible; but for lack of wise,
intelligent management, and occupation for the prisoners, the wards
still presented pictures of Pandemonium. It needed a second reformer to
take up the work where Howard left it, and to labor on behalf of the
convicts; for in too many cases they were looked upon as possessing
neither right nor place on God's earth. In the olden days, some judges
had publicly declared their preference for hanging, because the criminal
would then trouble neither State nor society any further. But in spite
of Tyburn horrors, each week society furnished fresh wretches for the
gallows; whilst those who were in custody were almost regarded as
"fore-doomed and fore-damned."
During the interval which elapsed between Mrs. Fry's short visits to
Newgate in 1813, and the resumption of those visits in 1817, together
with the inauguration of her special work among the convicts, she was
placed in the crucible of trial. Death claimed several relatives; she
suffered long-continued illness, and experienced considerable losses of
property. All these things refined the gold of her character and
discovered its sterling worth. Some natures grow hard and sullen under
trial, others faithless and desponding, and yet others narrow and
reserved. But the genuine gold of a noble disposition comes out brighter
and purer because of untoward events; unsuspected resources are
developed, and the higher nobility becomes discernable. So it was with
Elizabeth Fry. The constitutional timidity of her nature vanished before
the overpowering sense of duty; and literally she looked not at the
seen, but at the unseen, in her calculations of Christian service. Yet
another part of her discipline was the ingratitude with which many of
her efforts were met. This experience is common to all who labor for the
public weal; and from an entry in her journal we can but conclude that
this "serpent's tooth" pierced her very sorely at times. "A constant
lesson to myself is the ingratitude and discontent which I see in many."
Many a reformer could echo these words. But the abiding trial seemed to
be the remembrance of the loss of her little daughter, Elizabeth, who
passed away after a week of suffering, and who was laid to rest in
Barking churchyard. The memory of this five-year old child remained with
her for many years a pure and holy influence, doubtless prompting her
to deal tenderly with the young strayed ones whom she met in her errands
of mercy. How often the memory of "the touch of a vanished hand, and the
sound of a voice that is still," influences our intercourse with the
living, so that while benefiting them we do it as unto and for the dead.