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 are also six men to be
hanged, one of whom has a wife near her confinement, also condemned, and
seven young children. Since the awful report came down he has become
quite mad from horror of mind. A straight waistcoat could not keep him
within bounds; he had just bitten the turnkey; I saw the man come out
with his hand bleeding as I passed the cell. I hear that another who has
been tolerably educated and brought up, was doing all he could to harden
himself through unbelief, trying to convince himself that religious
truths were idle tales." Contemporary light is cast upon this matter by
a letter which the Hon. G.H. Bennett addressed to the Corporation of
London, relative to the condition of the prison. In it this writer
observed:--

A man by the name of Kelly, who was executed some weeks back for
robbing a house, count