They extended the journey into Denmark, and were treated with marked honor from the first. The Queen engaged apartments for the travellers at the Hotel Royal, and on some occasions took Mrs. Fry to see schools and other places, in her own carriage. On a subsequent day, when dining with the King and Queen, Mrs. Fry and Mr. Gurney laid before their Majesties the condition of persecuted Christians; the sad state of prisons in his dominions; they also referred to the slavery in the Danish colonies in the West Indies. Mr. Gurney having only recently returned from that part of the world, he had much to tell respecting the spiritual and social state of those colonies. Mrs. Fry records that at dinner she was placed between the King and Queen, who both conversed very pleasantly with her.
At Minden, they had varied experiences of travelling and travellers' welcomes. "I could not but be struck," says Mrs. Fry in her journal, "with the peculiar contrast of my circumstances: in the morning traversing the bad pavement of a street in Minden, with a poor, old Friend in a sort of knitted cap close to her head; in the evening surrounded by the Prince and Princesses of a German Court." The members of the Prussian royal family were anxious to see her and hear from her own lips an account of her labors in the cause of humanity. The representatives of the House of Brandenburgh welcomed Mrs. Fry beyond her most sanguine expectations; indeed, it would be nearer the truth to say that in her lowly estimate of herself, she almost dreaded to approach royal or noble personages, and that therefore she craved for no honor, but only tolerance and favor. She never sought an interview with any of these personages, but to benefit those who could not plead for themselves. Her letters home exhibit no pride, boastfulness, or triumph; all is pure thankfulness that one so unworthy as she deemed herself to be should accomplish so much. Writing to her grandchildren she says:
"We dined at the Princess William's with several of the royal family. The Queen came afterwards and appeared much pleased at my delight on hearing that the King had stopped religious persecutions in the country, and that several other things had been improved since our last visit. It is a very great comfort to believe that our efforts for the good of others have been blessed. Yesterday we paid a very interesting visit to the Queen, then to Prince Frederick of Holland and his Princess, sister to the King of Prussia; with her we had much serious conversation upon many important subjects, as we also had with the Queen.... Although looked up to by all, they appear so humble, so moderate in everything. I think the Christian ladies on the Continent dress far more simply than those in England. The Countess appeared very liberal, but extravagant in nothing. To please us she had apple dumplings, which were quite a curiosity; they were really very nice. The company stood still before and after dinner, instead of saying grace. We returned from our interesting meeting at the Countess's, about eleven o'clock in the evening. The royal family were assembled and numbers of the nobility; after a while the King and Queen arrived, the poor Tyrolese flocked in numbers. I doubt such a meeting ever having been held anywhere before,—the curious mixture of all ranks and conditions. My poor heart almost failed me. Most earnestly did I pray for best help, and not unduly to fear man. The royal family sat together, or nearly so; the King and Queen, Princess William, and Princess Frederick, Princess Mary, Prince William, Prince Charles, Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, young Prince William, besides several other princes and princesses not royal. Your uncle Joseph spoke for a little while, explaining our views on worship. Then I enlarged upon the changes that had taken place since I was last in Prussia; mentioned the late King's kindness to these poor Tyrolese in their affliction and distress; afterwards addressed these poor people, and then those of high rank, and felt greatly helped to speak the truth to them in love. They finished with a hymn."
Her last brief visit to the Continent was paid in 1843, and spent wholly in Paris. Mrs. Fry was particularly interested in French prisons, as well as in the measures designed to ameliorate the condition of those who tenanted them. Reformation had become the order of the day there as in England; the Duchess of Orleans, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg, M. Guizot, the Duc de Broglie, M. de Tocqueville, M. Carnot, and other high and noble personages were much interested in the subject. A bill to sanction the needful reforms was introduced to the Chamber of Deputies by the Minister of the Interior, and ably supported by him in a speech of great lucidity and power. Said he, when laying it before the Chamber: "Our subject is not entirely to sequestrate the prisoner nor to confine him to absolute solitude. Some of the provisions of the bill will mitigate the principle of solitary confinement in a manner which was suggested by the Commission of 1840, and should not pass unnoticed by the Chamber. Convicts sentenced to more than twelve years' hard labor, or to perpetual hard labor, after having gone through twelve years of their punishment, or when they shall have attained the age of seventy, will be no longer separated from others, except during the night." The bill further provided, besides this mitigation of the solitary confinement system, that the "Bagnes," where galley slaves had hitherto labored, should be replaced by houses of hard labor, and that smaller prisons should be erected for minor offenses instead of sending criminals convicted of them to the great central prisons. The bill was certainly destined to effect a total revolution in the management of such places as St. Lazare and similar prisons, in addition to giving solid promise of improvement in the punitive system of France.
During this brief final visit to the French capital, Mrs. Fry entered on her sixty-third year, aged and infirm in body, but still animated by the master passion of serving the sad and sorrowful. Her brother, Joseph John Gurney, together with his wife, were with her in Paris, but they pursued their journey into Switzerland, while she returned home in June, feeling that life's shadows were lengthening apace, and that not much time remained to her in which to complete her work. The impressions she had made on the society of the gay city had been altogether good. Like the people who stared at the pilgrims passing through Vanity Fair, the Parisians wondered, and understood for the first time that here was a lady who did indeed pass through things temporal, "with eyes fixed on things eternal"; and whose supreme delight lay, not in ball-rooms, race-courses, or courts, but in finding out suffering humanity and striving to alleviate its woes. Doubtless many of the gay Parisians shrugged their shoulders and smiled good-humoredly at the "illusion," "notion," "fanaticism," or whatever else they called it; they were simply living on too low a plane of life to understand, or to criticise Mrs. Fry. Except animated by somewhat of fellow-feeling, none can understand her career even now. It stands too far apart from, too highly lifted above, our ordinary pursuits and pleasures, to be compared with anything that less philanthropic-minded mortals may do. It called for a far larger amount of self-denial than ordinary people are capable of; it demanded too much singleness of purpose and sincerity of speech. Had Mrs. Fry not come from a Quaker stock she might have conformed more to the ways and manners of fashionable society; had she possessed less of sterling piety, she might have sought to serve her fellow-creatures in more easy paths. As a reformer, she was sometimes misunderstood, abused, and spoken evil of. It was always the case and always will be, that reformers receive injustice. Only, in some cases, as in this one, time reverses the injustice, and metes out due honor. As a consequence, Elizabeth Fry's name is surrounded with an aureola of fame, and her self-abnegation affords a sublime spectacle to thoughtful minds of all creeds and classes; for, simply doing good is seen to be the highest glory.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW THEORIES OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND MANAGEMENT.
Mrs. Fry's opinions on prison discipline and management were necessarily much opposed to those which had obtained prior to her day. No one who has followed her career attentively, can fail to perceive that her course of prison management was based upon well arranged and carefully worked out principles. In various letters, in evidence before committees of both Houses of Parliament, and in private intercourse, Mrs. Fry made these principles and rules as fully known and as widely proclaimed as it was possible to do. But, like all reformers, she felt the need of securing a wider dissemination of them. Evidence given before committees, was, in many points, deferred to; private suggestions and recommendations were frequently adopted, but a large class of inquirers were too far from the sphere of her influence to be moved in this way. For the sake of these, and the general public, she deemed it wise to embody her opinions and rules in a treatise, which gives in small compass, but very clearly, the rationale of her treatment of prisoners; and lays down suggestions, hints, and principles upon which others could work. Within about seventy octavo pages, she discourses practically and plainly on the formation of Ladies' Committees for visiting prisons, on the right method of proceeding in a prison after the formation of such a committee, on female officers in prisons, on separate prisons for females, on inspection and classification, on instruction and employment, on medical attendance, diet, and clothing, and on benevolent efforts for prisoners who have served their sentences. It is easy to recognize in these pages the Quakeress, the woman, and the Christian. She recommends to the attention of ladies, as departments for doing good, not only prisons, but lunatic asylums, hospitals and workhouses. At the same time she strongly recommends that only orderly and experienced visitors should endeavor to penetrate into the abodes of vice and wickedness, which the prisons of England at that day mostly were. Among other judicious counsels for the conduct of these visitors occur the following, which read as coming from her own experience. That this was the case we may feel assured; Mrs. Fry was too wise and too womanly not to warn others from the pit-falls over which she had stumbled, or to permit anyone to fall into her early mistakes:—
"Much depends on the spirit in which the worker enters upon her work. It must be the spirit not of judgment but of mercy. She must not say in her heart, 'I am holier than thou'; but must rather keep in perpetual remembrance that 'all have sinned,' and that, therefore, great pity is due from us even to the greatest transgressors among our fellow-creatures, and that in meekness and love we ought to labor for their restoration. The good principle in the hearts of many abandoned persons may be compared to the few remaining sparks of a nearly extinguished fire. By means of the utmost care and attention, united with the most gentle treatment, these may yet be fanned into a flame; but under the operation of a rough and violent hand they will presently disappear and be lost forever. In our conduct with these unfortunate females, kindness, gentleness, and true humility ought ever to be united with serenity and firmness. Nor will it be safe ever to descend, in our intercourse with them, to familiarity, for there is a dignity in the Christian character which demands, and will obtain, respect; and which is powerful in its influence even over dissolute minds.... Neither is it by any means wise to converse with them on the subject of the crimes of which they are accused or convicted, for such conversation is injurious both to the criminals themselves and to others who hear them; and, moreover, too frequently leads them to add sin to sin, by uttering the grossest falsehoods. And those who engage in the interesting task of visiting criminals must not be impatient if they find the work of reformation a very slow one.... Much disadvantage will accrue generally from endeavors on the part of visiting ladies to procure the mitigation of the sentences of criminals. Such endeavors ought never to be made except where the cases are remarkably clear, and then through the official channels. Deeply as we must deplore the baneful effects of the punishment of death, and painful as we must feel it to be that our fellow-creatures, in whose welfare we are interested, should be prematurely plunged into an awful eternity, yet, while our laws continue as they are, unless they can bring forward decided facts in favor of the condemned, it is wiser for the visiting ladies to be quiet, and to submit to decrees which they cannot alter."