with the utmost vociferation." She felt as if she were going into a den of wild beasts, and she well recollects quite shuddering when the door was closed upon her, and she was locked in with such a herd of novel and desperate companions.
Could lasting good be effected there? It seemed hopeless. Indeed, at first it was scarcely dreamt of; but, the stone once set rolling, none knew where it would stop. Marvellous to say, some of the prisoners themselves asked for ministrations of this sort. Feeling that they were as low down in the mire as they could be, they craved a helping hand; indeed, entreated not to be left out from the benevolent operations which Mrs. Fry now commenced. The officers of Newgate despaired of any good result; the people who associated with Mrs. Fry, charitable as they were, viewed her plans as utopian and visionary, while she herself almost quailed at their very contemplation. It also placed a great strain upon her nervous system to attend women condemned to death. She wrote: "I have suffered much about the hanging of criminals." And again: "I have just returned from a melancholy visit to Newgate, where I have been at the request of Elizabeth Fricker, previous to her execution to-morrow at 8 o'clock. I found her much hurried, distressed, and tormented in mind. Her hands were cold, and covered with something like the perspiration which precedes death, and in an universal tremor. The women who were with her said she had been so outrageous before our going, that they thought a man must be sent for to manage her. However, after a serious time with her, her troubled soul became calmed." Another entry in the same journal casts a lurid light upon the interior of Newgate. "Besides this poor young woman, there
