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