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 Fowell 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 labors 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 utilized 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 alms 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.  Over-crowding, disease, riot, and obscenity united to render these places very Pandemoniums.