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.