Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884)/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
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 utilised 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 succour. 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 Powell 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 labours 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 utilised 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 aims 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. Overcrowding, 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 he measured her descent into rum when she is degraded. She falls deeper than a man; her degradation is more complete, her nature more demoralised. 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 labours 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 gaol 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 "gaol-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 labours, amply enlighten us as to the result of this state of things.
In Bedford gaol 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 gaol 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 gaols, open sewers ran through corridors and cells, so that the poor inmates had to fight for their lives with the vermin which flourished 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 gaol 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 gaoler or sheriff; while the second bill authorised 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 labours, 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 labour 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 discernible. 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 labour 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 influences, 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.