WORK AT PLASHET.

As soon as they were settled at Plashet, Elizabeth Fry formed and
carried out various plans for the poor. She established a girls' school
for the parish of East Ham, of which Plashet is a hamlet. The clergyman
and his wife gave their help, and a school of about seventy girls was
soon busily at work. The bodily wants of the poor claimed her attention.
A depot of calico and flannel was always ready, besides outer garments.
There was a cupboard well stocked with medicines. In the winter,
hundreds of the destitute poor had the benefit of a soup kitchen, the
boiler of an outhouse being applied to this use. About half a mile off,
on the high road between Stratford and Ilford, there was a colony of
Irish, dirty and miserable, as such settlements in England usually are.
Some she induced to send their children to school, and, with the
consent of the priest, circulated the Bible among them. Once when the
weather was extremely cold, and great distress prevailed, being at the
time too delicate to walk, she went alone to Irish Row, in the carriage
literally piled with flannel petticoats for the poor women, others of
the party at Plashet walking to meet her and help in the distribution.
Her children were trained as almoners very young, and she expected them
to give an exact account of what they gave, and their reasons for
giving. She was a very zealous and practical advocate for vaccination,
having been taught by the celebrated Dr. Willan, one of the earliest and
most successful followers of Dr. Jenner.

It was an annual custom for numbers of gipsies to pitch their tents in a
green lane near Plashet, for a few days, on their way to Fairlop Fair.
The sickness of a child causing the mother to apply for relief, led
Elizabeth Fry to visit the camp; and ever after she was gladly welcomed