Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/216

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ELIZABETH FRY.

in the preceding pages: its results no pen can compute. Woman-like, she aimed at the improvement of her own sex; but the reform which she inaugurated did not stop there. Like a circle caused by the descent of a pebble into a lake, it widened and extended and spread until she and her work became household words among all classes of society, and in all civilised countries. Most women would have shrunk back appalled at the terrible scene of degradation which Newgate presented when she first entered its wards as a visitor; others would have deemed it impossible to accomplish anything, save under the auspices of Government, and by the aid of public funds. Not thus did she regard the matter, but with earnest, oft-repeated endeavours, she set herself to stem the tide of sin and suffering to be found at that period in Government gaols, and so successfully that a radical change passed over the whole system before she died. Probably it is not too much to say that no labourer in the cause of prison-reform ever won a larger share of success. Certainly none ever received a larger meed of reverential love.



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