3d.  The very frequent result of the administration of this system by incompetent or unfit officers would be the moral contamination of the prisoners.

4th.  The enormous expense of providing officers and accommodation sufficient to include all the criminals of the country.

5th.  The certainty of injury to body and mind from the continuance of solitude for life.  The digestive and vocal organs, and the reason would inevitable suffer.  In proof she quoted the notorious imbecility of the aged monks of La Trappe:  “We are credibly informed of the fact (in addition to what we have known at home) that amongst the monks of La Trappe few attain the age of sixty years without having suffered an absolute decay of their mental powers, and fallen into premature childishness.”

6th.  The danger lest increased solitude instead of promoting repentance, should furnish favorable hours for the premeditation of new crimes, and so confirm the criminal in hardened sin.

7th.  The impossibility of fitting the prisoners for returning to society under the system; whereas by teaching them useful employments and trades, and training them to work in company for remuneration, habits and customs may be induced which should aid in a life-long reformation.

Two or three years after the enunciation of these principles and reasons, Mrs. Fry addressed a valuable communication to Colonel Jebb in reference to the new Model Prison at Pentonville, then (1841,) in course of construction:—­

We were much interested by our visit to this new prison.  We think the building generally does credit to the architect, particularly in some important points, as ventilation, the plan of the galleries, the chapel, etc., and we were also much pleased to observe the arrangement for water in each cell, and that the prisoner could ring a bell in case of wanting help.

The points that made us uneasy were, first, the dark cells, which we consider should never exist in a Christian and civilized country.  I think having prisoners placed in these cells a punishment peculiarly liable to abuse.  Whatever restrictions may be made for the governor of a jail, and however lenient those who now govern, we can little calculate upon the change the future may produce, or how these very cells may one day be made use of in case of either political or religious disturbance in the country, or how any poor prisoner may be placed in them in case of a more severe administration of justice.

I think no person should be placed in total darkness; there should be a ray of light admitted.  These cells appear to me calculated to excite such awful terror in the mind, not merely from their darkness but from the circumstance of their being placed within another cell, as well as being in such a dismal situation.

I am always fearful of any punishment, beyond what the law publicly authorizes, being