Excellent Women. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

      In 1818 there was a House of Commons Committee, before which Mrs. Fry gave evidence. Her statement is so remarkable as to be worth recovering out of a long-forgotten Blue Book. In answer to questions, she told the Committee that "There are rules, which occasionally, but very seldom, are broken; order has been very generally observed. I think I may say we have full power amongst them, for one of them said it was more terrible to be brought up before me than before the judge, though I used nothing but kindness. I have never punished a woman during the whole time, or even proposed a punishment to them.

      "With regard to our work, they have made nearly twenty thousand articles of wearing apparel, the generality of which, being supplied by the shops, pays very little. Excepting three out of this number of articles that were missing (which we really do not think owing to the women), we never lost a single thing. They knit from about 60 to 100 pairs of stockings and socks every month, and they spin a little. The earnings of their work, we think, average about eighteen-pence per week for each person. This is usually spent in assisting them to live, and helping to clothe them.

      "Another very important point is the excellent effect we have found to result from religious education; we constantly read the Scriptures to them twice a day; many of them are taught, and some of them have been enabled to read a little themselves. It has had an astonishing effect. I never saw the Scriptures received in the same way, and to many of them they have been entirely new, both the great system of religion and of morality contained in them."

      XI.

      OTHER BENEFICENT WORKS

      The work so successfully accomplished in Newgate was the precursor of similar work undertaken in other prisons, not in London only, but all over the country. With prisons now so much better managed, and with multitudes of workers, single or associated, striving for the welfare of prisoners, the record of Mrs. Fry's early labours may have lost much of its interest. But it is well to state clearly the nature of her work, and the spirit in which it was undertaken. Nor was it only in the interior of the prisons that her labours were carried on. At that time the transportation of criminals to penal settlements was very largely resorted to, and the state of convict ships was as bad as that of the worst prisons in England. Mrs. Fry made arrangements for the classifying of female prisoners; for obtaining superintendents and matrons; for providing schools and work on board ship; and in many ways attending to the welfare of the poor convicts. She used to go down to almost every ship that left the Thames, and saw everything done that was possible for their comfort. In one case, that of the Wellington convict ship, hearing that patchwork was an easy and profitable work, she sent quickly to different Manchester houses in London, and got an abundance of coloured cotton pieces. When the ship touched at Rio Janeiro, the quilts made by the women were sold for a guinea each, which gave them money to obtain shelter on landing, till they could get into service or find respectable means of subsistence. The children were taught to knit, and sew, and read; the schoolmistress and monitors being themselves chosen from the convicts, with guarantee of reward if they continued steady.

      A more public and national benefit was the assistance given by Mrs. Fry to those who sought revision of the penal code by Parliament. Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir James Mackintosh, the Earl of Lansdowne, Mr. Wilberforce, all acknowledged the help obtained in their parliamentary efforts to amend the administration of the criminal law, in the facts and the experience supplied by her from her long and successful efforts in prison work. The popularity acquired by her brought all manner of persons, the very highest in Church and in State, to seek to know her and to do her honour. Even the aged Queen Charlotte, who had never taken much interest in philanthropic work, and had paid undue attention to small matters of court formalism and etiquette, was melted into admiration of what this Quaker lady had done. On the occasion of a public ceremony at the Mansion House, the Queen asked Mrs. Fry to be present, and paid particular attention to her. The pencil of the artist has left a record of this scene, as well as of the meetings in Newgate, where she is addressing the prisoners. Some years later she was introduced to Queen Adelaide by the Duke of Sussex, and it was the beginning of profitable intercourse with one whom she esteemed on account of her true piety and unbounded charity. With the Duchess of Gloucester and others in exalted position she had frequent interviews; and also more than once visited the Duchess of Kent, and her daughter, then the Princess Victoria. She was always glad to meet persons of rank, hoping to be of use to them personally, and also to increase their interest in works of charity and of mercy. But she valued above all aristocratic or royal recognition the good opinion of earnest and devoted Christian workers. Of many gifts which she received, few were more prized by her than a copy of the venerated Hannah More's Practical Piety, received by her on a visit to Barley Wood, in which the author wrote the following inscription: "To Mrs. Fry, presented by Hannah More, as a token of veneration of her heroic zeal, Christian charity, and persevering kindness, to the most forlorn of human beings. They were naked and she clothed them; in prison and she visited them; ignorant and she taught them, for His sake, in His name, and by His word who went about doing good."

      Repeated visits to Ireland, to Scotland, and to different parts of England, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Plymouth, and the Channel Islands, were made at different times in her latter years; forming Prison Associations and fulfilling various engagements. In 1825 she wrote: "My occupations are just now multitudinous. I am sensible of being at times pressed beyond my strength of body and mind. But the day is short, and I know not how to reject the work that comes to hand to do." To enumerate all the good works which she originated or supported, would require more space than a brief memoir could allow. Societies for visiting prisons, libraries for the Coastguard men, reformatory schools for juvenile offenders, were among the many institutions which she established. An excellent institution at Hackney, bearing the name of the Elizabeth Fry Refuge, for the reception of discharged female prisoners, will long perpetuate the memory of her useful work.

      In the summer of 1829, the family removed to a small but convenient house in Upton Lane, adjoining the Ham House grounds, the residence of her brother Samuel Gurney. In this place she passed most of her later years, and from it she went out on her many expeditions in England or on the Continent.

      XII.

      VISITS TO THE CONTINENT

      It was not till 1838, the year after the accession of Queen Victoria, that Mrs. Fry paid her first visit to France. She saw most of the prisons of Paris, and she had most pleasant interviews with King Louis Philippe, the Queen, and the Duchess of Orleans. The Queen was much pleased with the "Text Book," prepared some years before, and said she would keep it in her pocket and use it daily. Rouen, Caen, Havre, as well as Paris, were visited. A second journey in France, in 1839, began at Boulogne, and thence by Abbeville to Paris. Here she again took interest in the prisons, obtaining from the Prefect of Police leave for Protestant ladies to visit the Protestant prisoners. Avignon, Lyons, Nismes, Marseilles were visited, and the Protestants of the south of France were much gratified by the meetings held at various places. With the brothers Courtois of Toulouse they had much agreeable intercourse. At Montauban they saw the chief "school of the prophets," where the Protestant pastors are educated, They also went to Switzerland, enjoying the scenery, and also the intercourse with the Duke de Broglie's family, then at the house of the Baroness de Staël. Above a hundred persons were invited to meet her, at the house of Colonel Trouchin, near the Lake of Geneva. Several places were visited, and they returned by Frankfort, Ostend, and Dover.

      In February, 1839, she was called to pay a visit to the young Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. She went, accompanied by William Allen, Lord Normanby, the Home Secretary, presenting them. The Queen asked where they had been on the Continent. She also asked about the Chelsea Refuge for Lads, for which she had lately sent £50. This gave opportunity for Mrs. Fry thanking Her Majesty for her kindness, and the short interview ended by an assurance that it was their prayer that the blessing of God might rest on the Queen and her relatives.

      In the autumn of that year she went to the Continent, with several companions, her brother Samuel Gurney managing the travelling. They saw СКАЧАТЬ