patience, and tenderness of this female board of management were extraordinary. The ventilation and the cleanliness were perfect; while the food, beds, and furniture were of the very coarsest kind. The medical supervision was important, where there was as much disease-of frightful, physical disease—as there was of moral disease, crime, and misery. There was a surgeon and physician, who visited daily. There was a dispensary, under the care of two Sisters who acted as chief nurses and apothecaries. One of these was busy with the sick, the other went round with me. She was a little, active woman, not more than two or three and thirty, with a most cheerful face and bright, kind, dark eyes. She had been two years in the prison, and had previously received a careful training of five years three years in the general duties of her vocation, and two years of medical training. She spoke with great intelligence of the differences of individual temperament, requiring a different medical and moral treatment.

The Sister who superintended the care of the criminals was the oldest I saw, and she was bright-looking also. The Superior, who presided over the whole establishment, had a serious look, and a pale, care-worn, but perfectly mild and dignified face.

The difference between the countenances of those criminals who had lately arrived, and those who had been admitted into the class of penitents, was extraordinary. The first were either stupid, gross, and vacant, or absolutely frightful from the predominance of evil propensities. The latter were at least humanised.

When I expressed my astonishment that so small a number of women could manage such a set of wild and wicked creatures, the answer was "If we want assistance we shall have it; but it is as easy with our system to manage two hundred or three hundred as one hundred or fifty." She then added devoutly, "The power is not in ourselves, it is granted from above." It was plain that she had the most perfect faith in that power, and in the text which declared all things possible to faith.

We must bear in mind that here men and women were acting together; that in all the regulations, religious and sanitary, there was mutual aid, mutual respect, an interchange of experience; but the women were subordinate

only to the chief civil and ecclesiastical authority; the internal administration rested with them.

I hope it will be remembered here, and in other parts of this essay, that I am not arguing for any particular system of administration, or discipline, or kind or degree of punishment; but merely for this principle, that whatever be the system selected as the best, it should be carried out by a due admixture of female influence and management combined with the man's government.*

REFORMATORY SCHOOLS.

Ir what I have said of the salutary effects of female influence in prisons carry any weight, yet more does it! apply to the employment of superior women in the Reformatory schools for young criminals. Profligate boys, accustomed to see only the most coarse and depraved women (their own female relatives are in general examples of the worst class), would be especially touched and tamed by the mere presence of a better order of women. I observe that in the last report of the school at Mettrai, mention is made of the nine Sisters of Charity who are employed to superintend the kitchen and infirmary; which last consists of a ward with about ten beds, and a corridor where the Sisters receive the out-patients; and to the constant watchfulness, medical skill, and gentle influence of these women much good is attributed.

Mr. F. Hill, in his work on Crime, in speaking of the officials in the reformatory prisons for boys, says expressly that some of these officials ought to be women for the sake of female influence, and to call into action those family feelings, which Mr. Sidney Turner and Miss Carpenter think of such vital importance in the process of reformation." This is precisely the principle for which I am pleading, and in organising the new reformatory institutions it might be advantageously kept in view.

"It should be remembered," adds Mr. Hill, "that up to the time of his commitment, a criminal has often had

Since this was written the prisons at Brixton and Fulham, mentioned in the introductory letter, have been organised under female management.

no one to give him counsel or sympathy, no virtuous parent or kind relative to feel for him or guide him aright, and that there is consequently in his case a void which is perhaps first filled up by a kind prison officer. This may account for the almost filial affection often shown, particularly by the younger prisoners, towards a good governor, chaplain, or matron.' What we have now to do is to enlarge the application of this principle.

The extreme difficulty of finding masters at the best of all our reformatory schools, that at Redhill, was the subject discussed in a meeting of benevolent and intelligent men, interested in this institution. I happened to be present. I heard the qualifications for a master to be set over these unhappy little delinquents thus described: He must have great tenderness and kindness of heart, great power of calling forth and sympathising with the least manifestations of goodness or hopefulness; quick perception of character; great firmness, and judgment, and command of temper; skill in some handicraft, as carpentering and gardening; a dignified or at least attractive presence, and good manners, the personal qualities and appearance being found of consequence to impress the boys with respect. Now it is just possible that all these rare and admirable qualities, some of which God has given in a larger degree to the woman and others to the man, might be found conbined in one man; but such a man has not yet been met with, and many such would hardly be found for a stipend of 301. or 40l. a year. Then, in this dilemma, instead of insisting on a combination of the paternal and the maternal qualifications in one person, might it not be possible, by associating some well educated and well trained women in the administration of these schools, to produce the required influences. the tenderness, the sympathy, the superior manners, and refined deportment on one hand, and the firmness and energy, the manly government, and skill in handicrafts and gardening, on the other? This solution was not proposed by any one of the gentlemen who spoke; it did not seem to occur to any one present; and yet is it not worth consideration? At all events I must express my conviction that, going on as they are now doing, without the combination of those influences which ought to represent in such a com

munity the maternal and sisterly, as well as the paternal and fraternal, relations of the home, their efforts will be in vain their admirable institution will fall to pieces sooner or later, and people will attribute such a result to every possible cause except the real one.

PENITENTIARIES AND HOUSES OF REFUGE.

THE reformatory schools for perverted and criminal girls present many more difficulties than those for boys. I do not know how it is intended to meet these especial difficulties, nor what consideration has as yet been given to them, nor in whose hands the administration of these reformatory schools is to be placed; for all I have as yet heard upon the subject, and all the pamphlets and authorities I have been able to consult, have reference principally to the treatment of delinquent boys, and very little mention is made of the poor female children of the "perishing and dangerous class"-(perishing and dangerous in every sense of these words they too surely are!) One thing is most certain, that in their case the supervision of pureminded, humane, intelligent, and experienced men will be as necessary as the feminine element in the reformatory schools for boys; and for similar reasons, medical knowledge will be required in addition to the moral and religious influences. This has, I think, obtained too little consideration, and it is one of great importance.

It is worth noticing that a proposal, made during this session of parliament, to aid the female penitentiaries by a grant of public money, however small, and thus obtain from the government the mere recognition of the existence of such institutions and their necessity, fell to the ground; even the usual deprecatory intimation that it would be "considered and brought forward next session," — the common device by which troublesome propositions are stifled or shuffled off, was not here vouchsafed: the motion was received with absolute silence, and set aside by a few words from the speaker.

I can conceive that there might be many reasons for this

•

⚫ July 15, 1856.

indifference to the well-being of the masses, an utterly low standard of principle, religious, moral, political, which in these days of a more awakened public conscience seems hardly conceivable. We make slow work of it now; we want a higher standard in high places; but in this at least we are improved, -men do not now dispute that such or such things ought to be done, may be done, must be done; unhappily they do dispute endlessly as to the how, the when, and the where, till they defeat their own purposes, allow great principles to be shelved by wretched perplexities of detail, and shrink back, cowed by the passive, stolid resistance of ignorance and self-interest. Forty after the years publication of Howard's "State of Prisons," what was the state of the greatest prison in England? When Elizabeth Fry ventured into that "den of wild beasts," as it was called, the female ward in Newgate, about 300 women were found crammed together, begging, swearing, drinking, fighting, gambling, dancing, and dressing up in men's clothes, and two jailors set to watch them, who stood jeering at the door, literally afraid to enter. Elizabeth Fry would have been as safe in the men's wards as among her own sex; she would certainly have exercised there an influence as healing, as benign, as redeeming; but she did well in the first instance, and in the then state of public feeling, to confine her efforts to the miserable women."

I know that there are many persons who would receive with a laugh of scorn or a shudder of disgust, the idea of having virtuous, religious, refined, well-educated women brought into contact with wretched and depraved prisoners of the other sex. It would even be more revolting than the idea of a born lady-a Florence Nightingale, or a Miss Anderson, or a Miss Shaw Stewart-nursing a wounded soldier, appeared only two years ago. Yet this is precisely what I wish to see tried. Captain Maconochie mentions the influence which his wife exercised over the most hardened

The Act of Parliament procured through Mrs. Fry's influence, ordered the appointment of matrons and female officers in all our prisons; but no provision has been made for their proper training, nor are the qualifications at all defined.

My idea is that, besides a superior order of female superintendents, we should have lady visitors also, as it is like an infusion of fresh life and energy; but I do not think that such visiting should be confined to the female wards.

H